wear name tags, unless yu live in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

our school has a directory and everyone who submitted an email address is sent an invite to the open house. communictate, market, and inform. people wont come if they arent aware of it.

ask the principal if its ok to send home a flyer in the kids backpacks, so those not on email list are also aware.

have a raffle, small give aways. free popcorn. announce it in the flyer. or offer that the class that has the most shows, the teacher gets a token gift of supplies for the classrm or something like that.

I would incorporate a bake sale with your table at the open house. This gives you some earned income, gives people a reason to linger and more time for you to talk up your organization.

Like any good 'business', you need a plan. Sit down with your board and decide exactly what you want to accomplish this year. What is your focus? Is it resources for the school or free family nights? How much $ will you need to accomplish this? How many fundraisers will you need to do (look at past history for this). All these ideas should be put on paper as flyers to families. Look at school website to drum up interest as well.
Try to reach the youngest childrens families first, as they will be with you the longest and they are less burnt out.

Good luck.

We used our Open House to provide some information and sell some items, but we really just wanted to make our presence known. To remind parents the PTO is there. We set up near our bulletin board which we filled with pictures of what we did last year. That got parents to remember how much we do around the school.
Our welcome letter explained our purpose and the President speech at Back to School night reminded parents that their assistance DOESmake a difference. One hour DOES change the course of an event.
By getting parents to sign up is great, but emails to only those parents will narrow down your field. Send out memos for every event/activity asking for volunteers to call a contact person. Many parents will say they cannot commit in advance, but as events come up with date and times, they can volunteer. So you want to catch those parents here and there that want to be involved. Include everyone in your communications and it casts a wider net - try a monthly newsletter as well. A newsletter announcing upcoming events and the results of events past is a constant reminder to parents of how much you are doing.

Wow one day and already 3 post to my thread. This place looks like it is going to be a great resource. That’s again for the feedback and advice.
Thanks again, I’m going to go back to searching. I need to find some ideas for the Welcome\signup sheets. DLF, Email sent.
Jeff

You need more members.

Better to convince them they are not making a commitment at this point, only allowing themselves to be informed so they can choose whether to be involved later.

You only have a short period of time with these parents present. Better if you can expand it by increasing number of contacts you have. Have an enticing handout with what you know about previous plans

Get plenty of table space... More more room you have for parents to fill out a form the less they have to wait. Plenty of pencils. Membership forms fill out and hand back immediately but are designed to also be taken home (that includes a return address and email address) Make sure directions are on any forms so that if they get returned to teachers, they will how to get the forms back to you (Do you have a Mail box at the school?)

Make sure you get students name as well as parents names (quite often they are different)

For parents:
His and Her work phones. His and Her Email addresses. His and Her Cell Phones.

Best of luck to you and remember, being a small group, you may get burned out! HA! That happens every year, but summer brings a little r&r and by the time August hits, you'll be ready to go again!

Our group is small. We usually have a good parent turn out at the first meeting and then parents start to slowly dwindle and no teachers. This is my seventh year President/Leader, not really by choice, but no one else wants to. That's ok. One thing I have learned is that no two years are the same. Our meeting last week had about 4 parents and 5 teachers!

I also feel that adding new FREE events also sparks interest. Last year we added two new events and got more attention. This year we a cancelled a lesser attended event and are adding two more new ones. This year should be really fun!