Adventures in PTA

Monday night was the first PTA executive get together.  Yes, that's right, on top of everything, I have taken the position of 1st Vice President of the PTA next year.  My dear friend kept asking me to think about it.  Her husband is going to be the President, she is 2nd or 3rd Vice, so I thought... why not?  I went to the vote and had no competition.  Easy election.  A couple of weeks ago we went to a district wide PTA council meeting.  Not knowing exactly what to expect, I came out of that meeting with great ideas.  I am amped up! 

My main responsibility is membership.  The goal... 1 membership for each student.  Apparently, that goal is very hard to reach.  This has become my mission in PTA this year.  I may not make the goal, but I am going to get as close to it as possible.  First step, find out how many students there are!  

Seriously though, I have some great ideas for boosting membership.  The most important being push the perks.  As a parent, how many people really know what you can expect from a PTA membership?  Go to meetings, someone nagging you to volunteer, maybe, if you are lucky something like free carnival games.  In our city, there is a whole sheet of discounts from local businesses.  There are also perks on the state level.  In my opinion, perks are the key.   

At the meeting, they kept pressing the idea of keeping a list of what works and what doesn't.  I am hoping I can find a lot of things that work, and I will keep you posted.

On another note, this what works thing is going to be something I pay attention to in my daily life as well.  Such a simple idea, but I am finding that lots of things I try are really not working. 


*UPDATE*  The year is coming to a close.  We just finished a 100% membership drive, but it was pretty unsuccessful.  I think we added 4 new memberships.  The good news is that we made the Missouri Honor Roll for beating our membership totals from last year.  Most of those memberships came in before and during our Fall Block Party/ Carnival.  We had a book exchange that was very successful, and I think it can be a better membership drive next year.  I learned a lot this year, and look forward to doing even better with memberships next year!