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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm on the board of our PTO and I hope we are perceived as friendly & open! While we have a decent core group of volunteers, there is always so much to do and we need volunteers badly! If you are a do-er, you are welcomed with open arms and we try very hard not to micromanage.

I will say that we sometimes get people with a lot of complaints and/or a lot of ideas, but who are then unwilling to actually volunteer to implement any of those ideas or who get mad when we tell them some idea is impossible. (Like actually against school rules or whatever impossible.) I'm sure some of those people end up thinking we're not friendly & open because we don't run with their ideas when they're not willing to actually help. It's kind of annoying.[/quote]

Yes, that dynamic is common and agree it's frustrating.

As a PTA volunteer who goes to meetings and will volunteer for events, but doesn't want to actually hold an office or be in charge of anything, the best things PTAs can do to attract parents like me are:

-- Communicate volunteer opportunities well in advance. For me and a lot of parents, volunteering at an event, even in the evening or on a weekend, will require some scheduling with my spouse or sometimes with work or other commitments. It's very hard when all the calls for volunteers come a day or two before an event -- often I simply can't make that work.

-- Give people concrete jobs. Our PTA has a bad habit of calling for volunteers, then a bunch of people show up, and then it turns out that we have more volunteers than we need, or everyone wants to help unload stuff but no one is willing to run concessions. The events that have gone better are ones where people sign up for specific tasks.

-- Thank people. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but sometimes volunteering is hard and exhausting, and I have found I feel a lot better about it when I get an email after the event just saying "Hey, thank you to all of you who donated time today." I have had some experiences where I spent 4-6 hours on a hot day cleaning, carrying items, dealing with constant questions, being "on", and no one said a word afterwards about that. It can be demoralizing because that is time I could have spent with my own kids or resting or cleaning my own house or decompressing after a long week at work. It is nice to feel that it was actually appreciated.[/quote]

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