Any ideas or experience how to attract more volunteers for the PSA group at primary school?

[rallyalbena]

Hi, may I ask for suggestions or ideas how to attract more parents and careers to volunteer in school events ?

What do you do for your primary or even secondary school?

Many thanks

Trying to work out what PSA stands for, but, if I am correct in presuming this is what I would think of as PTA (Parent, Teacher Association) ? then have you tried asking people if they will do one specific job at one specific event, rather than "join the PSA" ?

So - "Can you help us on 6th December, serving teas at the Christmas concert please?" rather than "Will you join us on the PSA Committee?"

I've agreed to those sorts of requests in the past, without the commitment of signing up for the next 7 years of volunteering and committee meetings.

I’ve volunteered a lot over the years. Our PTA always struggles to recruit volunteers for the big events like the summer fair. IMO the PTA are not visible enough in the school community - no one knows who they are and I think they always come across to newcomers as a clique who just pop up now and again asking for helpers. If they made an active effort to try and “recruit” a PTA member from every year group that would be a good start, then those members can be responsible for trying to find volunteers to help for specific things like the bouncy castle at the summer fair. Someone from each year group is likely to know the other parents better than another random PTA member and will have more success in recruiting their kid’s friend’s parent for example.

Also, where does the money go? The PTA should be actively engaging the community in sending out information on what the money raised is being spent on. Otherwise people will think, well I don’t see the point in helping because the fair last year might have raised £4k but I have no idea where the money went because we haven’t been told.

Basically: community engagement. People will not volunteer with people they don’t know

Our PTFA targeted a new parents (reception) event and held a meeting straight after for anyone interested.

It was very effective at getting new keen naive people on board and subsequent meetings were held at a normal time.