thanks for your insights. I feel and hope to get it passed that we do not sign a contract for longer than the following school year. I agree that our vendor is just trying to guarantee sales which I believe they have a good deal already. We had to absorbe all the losses (bad checks and non payment) so we switched to a pre-pay this year and almost made the same profit with a lot less work for teachers and members. Thank again
I agree with the reply by P_T_A. We turned down a magazine sales fundraiser because the salesperson wanted us to commit to a 2-year contract. I told the person the board changes from year to year, and we feel it is improper to impose the contract on a board that will change next year.
We are absolutely opposed to any contract longer than 1 year. We've had this discussion a few times in the past and decided against it. It's not fair to the follow year's board members to lock them into a contract which they had no say in.
We also felt it was a sleazy move by the fundraising rep to push the multi-year deal. Yes, the were offering better profit margins, but we felt they were exploiting the system of the yearly turnovers in our PTO. Remember, they work on commission so the longer the contract, the more money in their pocket.
Each newly elected PTO board should have a right to run their PTO on how they feel fit and not be bound by decisions (and many of them poor decisions) by previous board members who will be long gone by the end of the contract they signed the PTO up for.
So, again, stick to 1 year agreements! Thats what we did.
We were locked into a three year contract left over from our PTA and it was the worse...alot can happen in three years, sales people change, once they get you locked in they can no longer give you top notch personal service, how will the sale do three years in a row...will people get tired of it? Alot to think about, I would not do it but you know what works best for your group! Good luck!
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