pzettler;136924 wrote: On the events side...

Develop a detailed plan that will lead to your ability to host more events, at little or no additional cost to you.

Perhaps develop materials that lead toward your creating a volunteer base of your own that can assist you in putting on events in more locations.

I see quite a few posts from people that want to come to PTO today events, but don't want to travel or have the time/funds to travel.

Perhaps volunteering with you is where retired PTO officers can go when their child graduates or they just need to do something different.

I've thought of the need for a relatively small gatherings of different school's PTO officers, perhaps with breakout sessions for Presidents, Vice Presidents, Treasurers, Secretaries, etc. We could learn from each other, share ideas, schedules, etc. New officers could find a mentor, etc.

Hi zettler --

That's interesting and -- since this is a thread primarily about the website -- it brings up an interesting thought about the web. I actually think much of what you're suggesting above may move toward the web fairly quickly.

Trick with events (and growing them significantly) is that we could go from 5 locales (which we'll have in Spring 08) to 25 and still have dozens of cities wishing feeling slighted and still leave thousands and thousands of volunteers out (wrong locales or they couldn't make that date, etc.). It's a really hard model.

We've tested 3 or 4 different models of these smaller events, and it's really hard to pull the attendance numbers that make them work (attendance too low and the sharing is even less effective, never mind the $$ model). Involved parents are (unsurprisingly) so involved in so many things that a 6 hour training commitment is very difficult for many.

So... just as an FYI, we're putting a very large commitment into increasing our training and service and networking abilities on the web. Several new services being launched and a complete web redesign to come, all in the next 3-5 months. And that will be just the beginning.

Creating tools that leaders can access on their own schedules is really key in our opinion.

Would love to hear more ideas for what we can do in that regard.

Tim

OntheGoPTO;136903 wrote: Maybe the feature already exists and maybe no one else would find it valuable but.......it would helpful if posters could receive an email when someone responds to something they've asked on the message boards.

Pretty sure this one does exist (if you start the thread). You may have to look in your profile settings.

Tim

On the events side...

Develop a detailed plan that will lead to your ability to host more events, at little or no additional cost to you.

Perhaps develop materials that lead toward your creating a volunteer base of your own that can assist you in putting on events in more locations.

I see quite a few posts from people that want to come to PTO today events, but don't want to travel or have the time/funds to travel.

Perhaps volunteering with you is where retired PTO officers can go when their child graduates or they just need to do something different.

I've thought of the need for a relatively small gatherings of different school's PTO officers, perhaps with breakout sessions for Presidents, Vice Presidents, Treasurers, Secretaries, etc. We could learn from each other, share ideas, schedules, etc. New officers could find a mentor, etc.

Maybe the feature already exists and maybe no one else would find it valuable but.......it would helpful if posters could receive an email when someone responds to something they've asked on the message boards.

One more...

Lock forum threads after some designated period of inactivity such that they could still be viewed, but not allowing new postings.

It's great folks are researching the Forum. There's a wealth of information to be had. But re-opening a discussion years old may not be the best course. Would probably be best to start a new topic.

Seeing another thread reminded me of this.... Especially when groups are switching from PTA, it comes up that there's no equivalent to the Reflections program. Even just a basic visual arts competition would be better than nothing. If you didn't somehow sponsor a national one, if you had a toolkit that showed you how to put together such a competition, I would think that would be helpful.

And I know there are lots of people on the boards who are very well versed in Robert's Rules of Order, but if you could work out a deal with some parliamentarians to answer questions, that would be great. Or maybe a basic parliamentary procedure self-study course?