Pta help

[kazzaphil]

I’m on my school pta all members are fairly new this year!
The secretary is refusing to send minutes to new chair for approval/ checking beforehand - instead saying she has to send to all members for approval??

2nd - she is still emailing all old members the new minutes? We have just had our AGM - which she emailed everyone to inform (I advertised it as well) and all old members did not show - she said legally she has to email them until they inform her they do not want to receive them? Surly if they do not attend AGM or other meeting they are off the list? Any help will be fantastic

1. I would say sensible to pass minutes by the chair before sending out to catch any obvious errors / missing info / poor wording, but otherwise generally PTA minutes are 'approved' at the next meeting.

2. I would probably view it that by default they come off circulation list, or that under GDPR she should get them to reconfirm whether they still want to see minutes now they are no longer on committee and in case of no answer they come off.
   Though in the spirit of openness there is no reason why minutes can't go to anyone who wants them.

(Chair, secretary and treasurer over various years)

I'm having a similar conversation within my committee at the moment. Most of them have decided they do not want to invite non committee members to our meetings (or very few meetings) as they don't want our members (parents) involved.

I spoke to Parentkind who we are a member of last week. Minutes should go out to, be published or made available to all those invited. So for AGM's and open meetings that would be every member of the association (for us that is all parents, carers and staff at the school). For closed committee meetings it would be committee members only.

It is good practice to pass them by the chair but if there is something anyone doesn't agree with they can raise it at the next meeting and submit a proposed amendment.

It is good practice for the secretary to give the draft minutes to the Chair for amendment or approval. As above, send out Committee minutes to committee members only with an action column. Only current serving committee members.

For the AGM, the minutes usually go out with the agenda and notice of the meeting but could of course be circulated before that. Mostly you don’t because the minutes of the last AGM will be an agenda item for the next AGM so keeping the agenda items together makes sense. These should be circulated to all PTA members.

Members and Committee members should be defined by your Constitution. Therefore former parents are rarely members after DC leave. So they don’t get any agendas or minutes. They automatically cease to be members. Check your Constitution defines members as current parents. If it doesn’t, get it changed because what your secretary says is bonkers!

I would circulate draft Minutes to all - because all will get to comment at next meeting so need to see them in advance. Sending only to one, then to all, just adds work for the secretary. That's better avoided in voluntary roles)

I think at the start of a new academic year, having a muster of who wants to receive what is a good idea. Those who no longer have have DC at the school (and no ex officio reason to receive them) should be removed. Those in the school should be given a reminder of how to opt out

I was the PTA secretary for 4 years at my sons old school and I would never send out minutes unless the chair had read and approved them to be ok, so she always had first read and then would send out (she took the pta email address off me so I had no access to send out myself once approved)

I would circulate draft Minutes to all - because all will get to comment at next meeting so need to see them in advance.

The others definitely need to get them in advance, but not as 'draft'.

Secretary straight after meeting writes minutes.
Send to chair to check / suggest improvements.
Chair gives comments
Secretary updates and send to all committee (+ anyone else)

At meeting, first item on agenda is approval of previous minutes.
Anyone else can comment then if there is an error (or they could comment when they get the minutes). It should be rare that there is anything wrong with the minutes if they were written in a timely manner and checked by chair.

When I was PTA Secretary, I did the first draft of the minutes which was sent to the Chair for approval. Once we had a final version, these were circulated to all parents on the children' book bags.

Whereas it is generally 'sensible' to have a 2nd person cast their eye over the minutes of any meeting before they go out to all, there isn't an actual compulsion to do so - just stops the secretary looking like a numpty when they've done some typos or whatever.
It isn't really for the Chair of any meeting to 'doctor' the minutes before they go out to all. Maybe the Chair has a history of doing so ?

Generally with a PTA (in all schools I've ever either worked in or had dc at) they are not inundated with volunteers, so 'not attending the AGM' wouldn't get you struck off at all. It isn't like a committee where there have to be an equal number of representatives from warring factions - the more the merrier, surely ? Someone who might not be able to get to meetings often might see that you were looking for {insert bouncy castle or bar license or someone to organise a license for raffle tickets or whatever} and step up to offer as it is something they could do at a different time, just not be able to get to meetings - that would be a good thing, wouldn't it ?