How to get parents to help at PTA events

[redskyatnight]

Traditionally our PTA holds a Christmas fair and asks parents to: help sort stuff in advance, set up before the fair and run a stall at the fair. Every year they get next to no volunteers and end up cancelling stalls and doing what they can with the (small) PTA committee, their older children and the school staff.

For my sins I have offered to get involved in organising the fair this year. The rest of the committee is long established so I am keen not to stand on any toes, however I think the PTA needs to look at how it encourages parents to help.

Here are my ideas:

• ask parents directly, rather than sending out a letter than is easily lost and ignored (or will this be perceived as "badgering"?)
• give individual classes "responsiblity" for running named stalls
• give some indication as to what exactly will be required - "what does sorting stuff for fair" actually entail?
• let people commit to specific stalls rather than being assigned (I can see for example that there are plenty who wouldn't want to run Refreshments, but might be happy with Hoopla)
• ask for shorter stints - PTA currently ask parents to run a stall for minimum of an hour which seems too long
• encourage parents to get involved with their children (including older children not at the school)
• make sure anyone who volunteers is properly thanked and appreciated however small their contribution

Are these sensible ideas, or are they just likely to be met with groans? Also interested in any ways that you encourage parents to help out.

We have charts for our Christmas fair, and teams of people who take on different things. Each year group runs a specified stall and parents volunteer for their year group stall. The charts are OK, (but drawn up by a bloke) and some of the detail seems slightly anal to me.

I did 6 hours on a stall last year, as we had few volunteers from our year group.

We have external stall holders come in and start taking bookings in July. PM me if you want more info as I don't want to be too readily identified.

Ask them.

I never ever been asked to help despite making it perfectly clear that I am available to help, I don't get asked and then we are subjected to weeks of passive aggressive whining after the event.

Do you have class reps? In our school, each class is assigned a stall and the class rep is responsible for getting volunteers from the class to help out. They basically march up to people and ask them to commit to an hour. Put like that, most people don't mind and it's harder to ignore someone in front of you than a letter in a bookbag. I think 30 mins is too short a time, you will spend too much time explaining the prices/workings of the tombola when you have 25 expectant little faces in front of you demanding service!

We also approach some people directly to be responsible for specific stalls e.g. refreshments is run by two mothers who are caterers. They then approach other people (mostly their unfortunate friends!) to help out.

At our school one of the PTA parents with a clipboard collars parents in the playground before and after school in the weeks leading up to the event and gets them to choose a slot and a stall on the list.

They do have to be proactive and approach parents and ask them though, not wait for parents to come to them IYSWIM

COLDITZ, im trying to tack you down . (Sorry to hijack redsky)

Can you check the thread from monday (i think)