I do need to slow down or I’m going to burn out.

Lynette - you crack me up! Perhaps I should make you my personal “image finder”.

Most p and f meetings are poorly attended. You can always invite some personally to the meetings as if you were their mummy. One of our major fundraisers required help from all 80 families and so i delegated 3 people to ring each family from the school and personally ask for help on a roster. It worked for about 8 years of the fundraiser… when they stopped helping we introduced a fundraising levy and now they pay 150 per year per family. Executive members always put heaps more effort in than others. that is why when you take it on you have a 2 or 3 year plan, some goals and when you acheive them…. leave. ASK ASK ASK…. everyone feels the same in a new position. Good luck and good on you for trying.

http://domesticlovella.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/chowder.jpg

janeheller.mlblogs.com/brain.explosion.jpg

http://blog.teenmentalhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brain.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rqH4fUbko2U/SiZzHBBPebI/AAAAAAAANnk/6nw7RC4LvD8/s320/Brain+Overload.jpg

Remember to take baby steps.. and yes delegate.. many leaders dont do this well and become overwhelmed whereas if they had let others on board. the load would have been lighter and more team effort.. !!! Training up leaders isnt always easy but worth it in the end..

Please dont let your brain explode.. put your thoughts on papers.. sleep on them.. and the details will all come to fruition..

Lynette

I don’t look forward to starting all over again in two yrs time lol.

“parents & friends are not all about baking cakes”; huh, good luck with that. When I joined the group, way back when, every single meeting was about fundraising and cake stalls. When I missed a meeting because I was fed up, they voted me in as the new secretary because I had nice handwriting so the minutes would always be easy to read. Phooey!!

And some of your questions above are ones that are always asked and there is no answer - communicating about the p&f to parents & trying to get most of them involved is really really hard - we have tried wine & cheese nights, moving our meetings to straight after school when parents are actually there, constant newsletters, physically going up to lots of parents & asking them to come, guest speakers on various topics…..good luck with that & if you find a solution I would love to hear it.

Remember to delegate too - you should have a secretary, treasurer, fundraiser and other people - a lot of the time they won’t offer to do something, but are generally happy to do it to ask.

Good luck