Hehehe... For some positions we beg in September.

We do it kind of how somuchloveformy2kids said. It's a little frustrating for some of us to see someone camped out on a committee for years and then not really do anything with it. (Box Tops for example.)

You can tell what takes a lot of effort because those open up every year or two.

allora - We send out a questionaire to the current chairs to see if they want to do it again next year. We generally request only 2 years as chair. After we receive them back we then send out a survey to all families asking them to check off which committees/events they would like to volunteer for. We also not on the survey if a chair or cochair position is needed.
In our by-laws it is the outgoing presidents who decide who becomes the chairperson(s).
(a volunteer survey is also sent out in the beginning of the year)

serendipity--thanks for your help! after you have a chair person selected for an event--
who decides what people will head sub commitees? for example a person is running the auction and you have two people who would like to chair the decorating committee who decides what person will get the position?

No we don't hold elections for that. At our first PTO meeting of the year we pass around a list of the years events. People sign up to chair the events they want. Typically if you have someone who chaired a particular event the previous year, you should defer to them first to chair it again.

At the present time our school does not have a PTO but we will be starting one next year. With out the pto we run an auction every year and chair positions are just decided on by "passing the baton". Do schools with a pto hold elections for event chair positions.