Come and talk to me about the dreaded PTA!

[GoofyIsACow]

Ok, so I have recently got involved with the PTA at DC's school. Everything we organise to fundraise is supported by the same 8/9 people, meaning basically us 8/9 people fund the pta and all it pays for.
The whole school (very small, well under 100 pupils) went on a school trip last year, tickets were funded by the pta.
So basically over the course of the year the same 8/9 people have paid money/spent time and therefore paid for the whole school to go!

I am not bashing the people who don't volunteer, people are busy, i get that.

My question is, is there an alternative to the traditional and much hated pta set up? Is there another way to raise funds? Where people will actually get involved and give?

Because basically we may as well just bill each parent for every single trip, transport to swimming, resource etc. We may as well just pay for our own children and sod everyone else, saves time and effort!

Do any of you know of or operate a totally radical method of pta-ing?

Thanks in advance

Any event for parents only falls flat here too. I think people just don't want to use what limited time, babysitting and money they have to socialise in that way, and that's understandable.

However, this is a village with not much going on so anything organised for the children and/or whole family is very popular. A camping weekend in the school grounds does very well. As has an after school Christmas fair, and a Saturday afternoon family quiz with kids' disco.

Appeals to local businesses and clubs bring in a few grand, and they started a school lottery last year, which is starting to build up to a tidy annual sum.

A local town's primary school near here has a very proactive PTA. They've done very well with a branded jute bag, just featuring a heart and name of the town. They promote it on the town's FB page and people post photos of themselves with the bag in locations all over the world.

Our PTA members are happy parents, members of staff and closer community/neighbours, parents of ex-pupils working in offices or shops around town. They are happy to contribute to our school funds raising money and awareness in different ways.
Tens of thousands of pounds this year came from organising Mock Tests. We also have outside companies hiring the school's halls and the gym after school and most days late evenings slimming clubs, presentations, corporate meetings are taking place on our school's premises. The school's grounds are a good asset, very large and beautiful so during the summer those are hired too. We stopped wasting our efforts on selling second hand school uniforms or selling cakes as this didn't bring much cash. Our second hand clothing is left on school's outside playgrounds every end of term for parents to take home in return for brand new unused small items they have around their houses. We sell those items at Easter, Christmas and Summer Fairs. The children bake for a neighbouring Care Home every Christmas and invite the residents to watch a stage play or Concert as a 'Christmas present'. Tickets for the play/ Concert are sold to the public willing to make a contribution to our PTA fund. Pamper Days are also organised by the mums working as Beauticians. We decided that the Volunteers must rotate every term so nobody get exhausted or burned out. The only PTA members NOT rotating are the Chair, Treasurer and the Secretary. Any parent able to help can step in at any time and become a PTA member. We do not have a set number of members but we like to have some 'full timers' in 'job-share' so we can be in control. We meet often for informal meetings to plan ahead and set 'Agendas'. The communication is great between every one of us. Hope your PTA will bring fresh ideas and attract more volunteers. Good luck!

I wish our PTA welcomed new members. They want new helpers for events, which is great, but go to great length to exclude newcomers, especially males, from contributing ideas or actual planning.

Lizzy - Big Lottery fund. Definitely worth applying, make sure project has community wide appeal though .