Planning Your 1st General Membership Meeting

The 2021-2022 school year is upon us and the PTA year is about to get into full swing! By now your PTA has held its summer board retreat and has begun planning a membership campaign. So what's next?

Now it's time to plan your first general membership meeting of the year! While some PTAs may be planning for in person meetings, many will plan for their meeting to be held virtually, which may require a little additional preparation.
If you are new to hosting virtual meetings, get to know your virtual meeting tool’s online support – there should be tips for setup for all the features, including screen sharing, enabling closed captioning, and login requirements.

TIP: Host one or more practice meetings with a few board members ahead of time to get accustomed to the online meeting tools and platform you'll be using.

Whether the PTA meets virtually or in person, the same items of business must be done.

1. Approve the 2021-2022 budget – Even if your membership approved a 2021-2022 budget in the spring, adjustments may need to be made. The board of directors should review the approved budget before the meeting and make recommendations to the membership for any necessary changes.
2. Approve the standing rules – Standing rules are the set of conditions the members impose on the running of the PTA, and they need to be approved annually. They should be reviewed by the board prior to the meeting to ensure they are up to date with all requirements. The Leadership Guides section of the WSPTA website has standing rules templates. One important addition to your PTA’s standing rules is to add language around electronic voting if it's not already included. Electronic voting by electronic ballot, survey, poll, or email is allowed by law but only if it is explicitly permitted by the PTA’s standing rules. Check out Council's Planning for Virtual Elections blog for resources and a template to use as a guide for adding electronic voting to your standing rules.
3. Present the 2020-2021 financial review – Results should be presented to the members of your PTA. If your PTA still needs to complete the review, which is required in order to maintain your fidelity bond, visit our Online Financial Review blog for tips and resources.
4. Hold elections – If you have vacant positions, you'll want to hold elections. Washington state nonprofit laws require a President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer to be elected by the members. Some PTAs may not have elected a complete slate of officers in the Spring. If your PTA falls into this category, you will need to take several steps to make sure you can hold a legal election by virtual meeting. Check out WSPTA's Taking Care of Business through Virtual Meetings resource for a walk through of each of the steps.
5. Elect a nominating committee – This is required by the WSPTA Uniform Bylaws and is part of the WSPTA Standards of Affiliation. Three members must be elected to a nominating committee at least 30 days prior to the election.  Electing this committee early means that they have all year to do the work, you are asking for volunteers at one of the best-attended meetings of the year (hopefully, before people are over-committed), and if you are unable to get three nominees at this meeting you will have additional meetings at which you can continue to work to get three nominees.

Bonus Tip: Plan on having something additional to offer your members once the business is complete. The first meeting is a great opportunity for your principal to give an update on the start of the year – there are lots of things about this school year that are different! Plan ahead with your principal and make sure you know what format for taking questions they are comfortable with. During the meeting, act as the moderator by setting ground rules and expectations for how members will participate and ask their questions.

Questions about planning your 1st general membership meeting of the year? Contact Council - We are here to help!

Information provided in this blog was originally posted by WSPTA in a 2020 article. Click here to read that article.

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