Rockne
Really, that is great that the site is so busy. I myself have taken a little break and just come back after a month of silence. (We had an EXTREMELY busy December!) This place is so wonderful to get ideas and bounce ideas off others. The forum is my favorite place!!
I will explain how it is handled at our school. First a nominating committee is formed--usually 6-8 people who are fairly active and know a lot of people. Next, we send home a position discritption --school wide-- explaining the offices as well as committees, and attach a form asking for name etc and what positions they are interested in (asking for several). The nominating committee meets--usually the meeting is quite lengthy, and fills each position, then submits that slate of officers to the general members for a vote of acceptance. We hardly ever, and probably never had had some one interested in every position. So usually the nom. committee will be talking to people before the meeting asking what they are interested in, encouraging them to fill out forms, explaining more about positions, etc. Then usually from the meeting phone calls are made, and people are begged to fill a position.
Kayla - I read your post yesterday, but we don't use a nominations form. That said, I'll brainstorm...if your intent is to pre-qualify nominees, then you might want to have a space for past-PTO or school involvement activities. Maybe ask the nominee to list his/her children's grades, ask how long s/he has been a parent at the school, and any significant volunteer experience outside of your school. Set a deadline for the forms to be turned in, and post them all for your members to read before elections. You're very lucky if your group has more than one willing candidate from which to select the best. The night of elections, you could read the nom forms aloud, and then give each nominee a minute to expand on her desire to serve the school.
Now, our reality: we'll be lucky to have one volunteer per office, so our elections tend to be uncontested. Our bylaws call for a 4-member nom comm, but we've been iffy about this over the years. We do require that nominations be submitted to the board one full week before the election meeting - those names will be on the pre-printed ballot and posted in the newsletter. Nominees from the floor are accepted, but must be written in the night of elections.
To me, the most important part of recruiting new officers is to ensure they know what will be expected of them -- not just necessarily what the old officer has been doing, but what the bylaws and history have said they should be doing. In our case, we have lost some good ideas over time due to lack of follow-through or the old "I didn't know I was supposed to do that!" response. I hope this year we can really set the expectations early and get volunteers who know what they're getting into. A nominations form could include this sort of info so there are no surprises later. A short list of skills for each office would also be helpful (ex: Secretary needs to know how to use Word, email, be willing to learn how to update the PTO's web page, etc.)
Now you've got me thinking about our own elections...
