and another thing.. I hate to sound like a snob or " inaccessible", but the way we view it is like a business. You don't see a CEO letting company meetings get overrun by disgruntled employees, nor do you see a CEO micromanaging ridiculous issues that 8 of his/her 500 employees have.

Don't let those handfuls of people run you down, and run your meetings. YOU have to take control and run it like a business. The President's job is to oversee all, and help the chairs manage ALL the events... [img]smile.gif[/img] Be firm, and polite, and people will respect you WAY MORE than you think. I respect those who take control of a meeting. You will alienate MORE people by losing control of your meetings.

No one topic should have been carried over for 6 months. That's absurd. If you pass out the agenda to each person, and it's not on the agenda, if someone brings up a topic that is NOT on your agenda, you can simply say ' I am sorry, that is not on our agenda tonight. It you would like to speak to us privately after the meeting, we can address that issue then."

Our meetings are NOT free-for-all places for parents to voice their opinions. We have specific agenda items, and exec board and chairs report on their activities. We heavily publicize all of our phone #'s and email addresses and where our mailbox is at school, and encourage communication via those first.

As far as parents talking above me: If I see chit chat, I look right at the group and ask them, if they had something to ask or offer to my comments. That usually gets them to stop!
I even joked to one group and told them I would split them up. They all laughed.

Our first meeting went 50minutes!!!
I gave my "houseKeeing Rules" at the beginning!
I promised to keep meetings alternating Tues and Wed. every other month, send home an agenda of the meeting 2-3 days before hand, and I also said, if I feel a topic is going on and on, I have the right to table it to another time or wait until the end of the meeting. If anyone has anything to say during the meeting they are to raise their hand and all inquires go thru the chair. I save Open Discussion for all items not on my agenda and I stated this last night at open house and got a huge applause. I told everyone, I respect their time to an hr and also I know American Idol is on Wed, and I want to get home to tuck my kids in.
Everyone Loved it!! Good luck. The agenda is HUGE!!! Helps keep the meeting short and sweet.

I am very interested to read all your comments. I was concerned that our PTO meeting had become only announcement sessions with very little if any input from parents.

you can find RRO online too, and can use search words to find what youre looking for, ref the time element of members having the floor.

to add some 'lightness' to highly charged discusisons, you could pass the 'talking stick or school mascot', whoever has the mascot in hand, has the floor, and when the egg timer goes off, they toss it to the next person interested in having the floor.