Our by laws state:

"Section 3. Nominating Committee:

a. There shall be a nominating committee composed of 4 members (2 staff and 2 parents) who shall be elected by the association at a regular meeting at least one month prior to the election of officers. The committee shall elect it’s own chairman.

b. The nominating committee shall nominate an eligible person for each office to be filled and report its nominees at the regular meeting in May, at which time additional nominations may be made from the floor.

c. Only persons who have signified their consent to serve if elected shall be nominated for or elected to such office."

Sounds simple doesn't it? Here was the confusion. Rumors immediately started flying that the committee was fixed. Many people sit in shock because there was an officer who we knew had accepted the nomination but was not nominated by the committee. After digging around on here and Robert's Rules I learned that the nominating committee picks exactly who they want to nominate to present to the board and not just who all they asked. I helped revise these by laws and I thought (along with many others) that the nominating committee was only supposed to present the names of interested people. Why I thought this I do not know. Of course there is the nominating from the floor. That would have been done last year if members were more clear on what was going on.

It works, but make sure your memebers are aware of exactly how your committee works. For this year I had requested that the rules be made clear at the meeting and I think everyone agrees.

I am interested in your nomination and bylaws regarding new board members. Our bylaws state that nominees must be a paid PTO member ($5.00/year dues) and must attend 3 prior meetings in order to be nominated. That reduces our possible candidates to about 15! Should we change our by-laws? The thought was to have only board members with some prior experience in the group. What do you think?

We also have a nominating commitee. It consists of 3 members that are not part of the current years board.

Our's is much like AnnieGirls' - the members either nominate themselves or some one else for our officer positions (all are open again every year). The nominating committee is responsible for contacting everyone who was nominating and confirming if they want to be on the ballet (assuming more than one person was nominated). Then, we vote if needed (or we have new officers by default if only one person for each is nominated).

We don't have a lot of people interested in the offices either - but we have many interested in helping so it works out fine. We have a large support group, I guess you could say.

We have a nominating committee as well. It consists of 2 staff and 2 parents chosen at the April meeting. Their choice of nominees are presented at the May meeting. I really like the idea of sending a letter to the members. That could really help the committee. I'll definitely be mentioning that.

Yes, A nominating committee is a great way to get a slate for a new board for the upcoming year. The nominating committee send out a letter to the membership in February. The nominating committee consists of 1 board member (elected in by the board), and up to 4 members from membership. It should end up to be an odd number though. So depending on your school population, you could have 3 or 5 people on the nominating committee.

On the letter to membership, they list the positions of the board that are open. The bottom has a cut-off portion where the member can make a nomination of either themselves or other people for positions on the board.

THe nominating committee gets these back and sets up a meeting to go over the nominations. They determine how many nominations people got and then they make a recommendation based on those nominations and their own, who's name to put on a "slate" for the next board. This "slate" is then read at the next meeting and stays open. Nominations can then be made verbally from the floor at the meeting. If no one is nominated, the slate stays open for 30 days and is then voted on at the next meeting as the "final" board.

In the case where a nomination is made from the floor at that March meeting, then it goes to a vote by written ballot. The one with the most votes gets the position. This doesn't always happen, but it's done diplomatically and fair.

Our PTO will be electing officers in March. We always seem to struggle to find people to fill the positions. Does any other PTO use a nominating committee to present a slate of officers? I have seen this done with other organizations and it seems to work well. I am looking for thoughts and feedback.

Thank you.