Hellobee Boards

Man this is tough. Whenever I’ve done pta type stuff it’s pulling teeth to get people to do anything like that. Kind of indirect approaches but two ideas-

-#1 get two people on that committee so worst case you and that person split the duties in half, or you don’t both have to attend each one.

-#2 Are there (older-ish) kids who could do this and get service hours? Our school has some type of service club, scouts maybe could use hours, not sure - I bet they would have fun being that person and might be more motivated to sign up. Not sure exactly but it crossed my mind so thought I would throw it out there! Good luck.

@cat620: my first thought was to just remove the “most number of kids attending” being the class that gets the cookie party. I feel like if you just had the kids put their name on a slip of paper in a big jar or something, you could then pull a “winner” and their class gets the party? Then no one needs to really be managing the signing in part, and maybe you could just have a greeter there at the beginning of the event. Or alternatively also don’t have a greeter but have ANY PTA members who attend wear a sticker or button or special shirt that says they’re a volunteer so people know they could be asked random school questions.

PTA Treasurer here. We do spirit nights but don’t take attendance or reward classes. I don’t know that it would really increase participation. We usually get around $200-300 from each event.

There is a local restaurant that partners directly with the school. An employee tallies attendance and the restaurant rewards the class, but PTA is completely out on that deal.

And we have really struggled with volunteers this year.

In principle, I agree with the parent who told you that manning the table is a waste of time. It is! However, I wouldn't have said that, because you didn't come up with this idea and it's not your fault there's a silly system designed to waste people's time in place.

Since you're in charge of the arrangements, I think you can abolish the sign-in table and go with some simpler arrangement. (My feeling on things like this is that the volunteer who runs the show gets to make decisions regarding how it's done without interference as long as the main objective of the program/event is fulfilled, but you'll know the politics of your group best.) I would assume that most restaurants that agree to this type of thing already have some procedure for signing in in place. I'd ask them. If they've got a solution that eliminates the need for a table with volunteers, I'd go with that.

FWIW, I think the PTA president is being unreasonable, but my position on things like this is that if no one is signing up to pitch in where there is a need for volunteers, then that event isn't really something the group is interested in. People will volunteer for the stuff that matters to them, and a volunteer-run group should be willing and ready to drop the stuff that the group clearly doesn't care much about. It doesn't matter if the president thinks the kids like the cookie parties. If they matter to the parents at your school, then they will step up to volunteer to make sure they happen. (You have to explain that the parties don't happen without volunteers. But as long as that's done, I'd say you've done your job.)

Are the cookie parties high enough value that somebody would try to cheat the system? Could the parents not just be in charge of making sure the kids only sign up once? Or maybe a generic inbox, and they send you a picture of the bill to confirm that they attended?

I really like the paper coupon idea!!!@Shantuck:

Chiming in to say that we also do not so sign in tables during these fundraisers. Can’t it become digital somehow? I know it’s an honor system but maybe just have families confirm digitally somehow?