Happy New Year - January Happenings in PTA

From the 20th District Executive Board, we would like to wish you all a great New Year! It's a fabulous time to renew your commitments and start fresh on all those PTA projects! Don't forget that this is also a great time for another membership drive - keep sending in those membership dues every month and help the California PTA reach 1 Million members!

We want to let you know about 2 very important events this month.

1. The 20th District General Meeting will be held on Thursday, January 17th at 7:00 pm - place TBD. We need at least one member of your board to attend. Look for details on the location.

2. The 20th District Annual Training will be held on Saturday, January 26th from 9:00 am until 1:00 pm at Marina High in Marina, CA. We will have classes on the subjects, below and encourage as many from your board to attend as possible. This training will be extremely valuable and worth your time. We'll even give you lunch so please, come! Communicate this date to your board ASAP and let me (Jenny Wood) know who from your board can attend. Here's a map to Marina High: http://www.mpusd.k12.ca.us/MarinaHS/Directions%20to%20campus.pdf. NOTE: The street address has changed to 298 Patton Parkway.

Classes will be:

President Basics
Parliamentarian and Bylaws basics
Financial/Treasurer Basics
Secretary Basics
Ways and Means
Membership Basics
Advocacy
OMDR
Communications

Also, don't forget upcoming deadlines:
Insurance premiums and Workers Comp forms are due by Jan 17. Bring them to the meeting with you to save on postage! See the earlier blog entry for details.

Reflections entries are due by January 9th. See earlier blog entry for details.

Got Members? Have You Invited Everyone To Join?

Here are some simple tips to help:
1. Make sure you have a PTA poster at the entrance to your school inviting everyone to join.
2. Invite every student, teacher, and administrator to become a member.
3. Solicit business sponsorships to show community involvement.
4. Take a look at areas of your community that are not represented and create a plan to welcome them to PTA. If dads are not represented, focus on getting more dads involved.
5. Plan an evening or weekend father/child activity and don’t forget to set up a membership enrollment table.

How are your PTA association meetings going? Does everyone feel free to participate in the discussions? Here are some tips to help you run effective and efficient meetings:
1. Prepare an agenda and make sure everyone gets a copy.
To help keep the meeting on track, list the approximate times for agenda items.
2. Help members understand and follow basic meeting rules.
This assures that everyone is treated with courtesy, all viewpoints are heard, and the majority makes decisions.
3. Ask chairmen to prepare written reports, in place of lengthy oral reports, unless action must be taken at the meeting.
Written reports may be sent to members via email prior to the meeting.
4. Be sure members stick to the agenda item.
Bring the discussion to a conclusion when it becomes too lengthy or repetitive. Details for events, fundraisers, or programs should be decided in committee, not at association meetings.
5. Make sure members understand what they are voting on by repeating the motion
before taking a vote.

Need help?
We’ve put together ideas and resources you need to get started:

OMDR Webinars
Learn how your unit can use the Online Membership Data Reporting system to maintain officer and membership lists, communicate with members, and more!
http://tinyurl.com/yt9xwq

Membership Ideas
http://tinyurl.com/2v89ye

Membership Brochures
http://tinyurl.com/2ddfe8

Sample Meeting Agenda
http://tinyurl.com/3dhky4

Be a Good President from the Start
http://tinyurl.com/3dxxf2

PTA Meetings
http://tinyurl.com/2jmvpu

Collaboration and Decision Making
http://tinyurl.com/2fs794

Looking for more ideas?
Visit the Great Idea Bank to learn what other PTAs are doing to help welcome parents to their PTA.
http://www.pta.org/local_leader/idea