My AGM agenda

Automatically generated from the audio, so it may not be perfectly word-for-word.

Hi, welcome to the PTA podcast. My name is Yvonne, and I've been a PTA volunteer for a few years now. But I'm just one of thousands of volunteers up and down the country who all want to make a difference to their schools. PTAs are becoming even more crucial in UK schools to boost budgets, and I find it fascinating to talk to other volunteers about the different approaches they take. So please join me in this podcast to share information, generate ideas, debate issues and celebrate success. And I hope that you can take something away for your PTA today. We've just come back from about six weeks off in the UK if you're not in the UK, and I hope you've returned to the new school year feeling refreshed and revitalized for all the challenges that no doubt lie ahead as a member of the PTA. Personally, I had a lovely break over the summer, but it never feels long enough to do everything that I want to do with the kids. But it was really essential because I had such a busy term six with my PTA in June and July, which is one of the reasons why I haven't been able to record any of my podcast episodes. It just got a bit crazy. So we did squeeze in three big events during those weeks in June and July, plus all the other things that generally happen in school over the summer, like you know, sports day, other sporting events, the year six leavers events. It just seems like a really busy term, and I every year I forget how busy that term is because it always feels so far away, and uh it meant unfortunately that with everything going on, I didn't have any spare time or actually actually any spare energy to record my podcast and update you on all the things we were doing in my PTA, which is quite a lot, and I do apologize for there being such a lengthy gap between episode eight and this episode nine. I never intended it to be that long at all, but life just got in the way, and I'm hoping to start this new school year with more regular episodes for you. Um, I will be covering what we did in the summer in future episodes, as usual. Um, we tried a couple of new things that I want to tell you about, but for now let's get started on episode 9. Here goes. Um, have you taken on a new role in your PTA? Perhaps you were a general member and now you've signed up to be a secretary or a treasurer or a um secondhand uniform seller, something more specific? Or have you started a completely new PTA at your school and you're wondering what on earth is going to happen and what it's all about? I would love to know um how you're feeling and what your thoughts are about the next year or even just the next two terms and the run-up to Christmas. Why don't you let me know and drop me an email using hello at PTA Podcast.com. I would really love to hear from you. So for me, I am continuing as chair of my PTA. I had a total break from the PTA and all the PTA work over the summer holiday. I find it's um really essential because when I'm in the school term I um find PTA work very intense, and um I as you can probably guess from my podcast, I do throw myself in 110%. So I think it's very important that I have a complete break from that, and it's also important that I give my team a complete break from it, and and a complete break from me. You know, I do uh send quite a lot of WhatsApp messages to my team, and I'm sure they appreciate a few weeks without me doing that. So I'm quite um strict uh with myself that I don't send any messages or emails or anything like that, and I've done pretty well this summer, I haven't done anything. Um, so now of course it is about the second week of September now, and I'm starting to think ahead to this school year and wondering what lies ahead for me as chair. Uh I was trying to think about how I was feeling about the year ahead. Um, it was quite hard to pin it down, but I I think I'm feeling a mixture of excitement um but also a bit of hesitancy. So I'm a bit hesitant because I know how much hard work lies ahead and how that affects me and my family because I do throw myself in and I find it all completely absorbing, and I can't help it. I there is no other way that I can be with me with my PTA responsibilities, it's all or nothing for me, but actually it's just all. Um so I do feel a little bit not daunted exactly, but because I know um how much time it's going to take, and you know, I know what my stress triggers are, if you like, that um I'm going to encounter that throughout the year, so I'm a little bit hesitant about it, but I also feel excited because I do love being on the PTA. Um, I'm not sure what events we're going to run this year because as you know, I really like trying new events um basically out of curiosity to see if they work, um, and I also like to keep it fresh for the parents and children, so it's not the same events all the time. I think that's quite important because we are um a small school, so perhaps we are a bit more flexible with what we can do. Um, but because we're asking the same people for money all the time, I do feel that perhaps they're more likely to join in um with things that are new and different, and I worry that if we repeated the same events too often, people may get bored of it and not want to spend their money doing it. So that is one of the reasons why I like to try new things. Uh the last three years um my PTA has worked on two very big projects that have made a massive difference at our school. So I'm quite excited to find out uh what the school wants to achieve this year. Actually, this is something that I I'm not sure if I've talked about before. So we um the way that we work, the way that my PTA works uh with the school has changed since COVID and since our first big project. When it's it's not directly as a result of COVID, but coming out of COVID, our school, in fact, one of our teachers at the school decided that she wanted to create a school library. So my school doesn't didn't have didn't have um a school library. We just had a couple of bookcases and a corridor, and that was where the books were kept. The books were hideously out of date, and she wanted to use a classroom, uh basically to transform a classroom into a new school library, and her ambition to do that changed the way that the PTA operated and changed the relationship that the PTA had with the school. So I will talk a bit about this on a future podcast because I want to tell you all about that massive project that we worked on. We've never done anything like it before. It was hugely ambitious for such a small school and small PTA. So I wanted to share with you some of the things that I learned from that experience and what we did. So I won't go into details just now, but following that project, um, what we do now every year is school give us a very clear direction for the fundraising. So the head of school and the executive head teacher come along to our AGM and we listen to what they would like to happen at the school, and then we can plan our events accordingly. So, in a way, I guess we are a bit more goal-oriented now, but it works really well in our school and for our team as well, because if we know what we're aiming for, we can think roughly you know how much money that's going to be to raise. We know which events do bring in more money than others, um, and so we know where to focus our efforts. So that's not to say that all our events are just money focused because they're not at all, but it has made us perhaps think more about how we use the precious time that we have. So if we're going to be organising an event and it looks like it's not going to be raising lots of money, then maybe we might change it and put our time and effort into something that's equally fun, but perhaps is a bit more of a fundraiser for us. Um, because you know, time is precious to us all, and we are volunteers, and our goal is to raise money so the school can make improvements. Um, so yeah, I found this new way of working much much better than before. So our approach before COVID um was just to kind of poodle along and raise a bit of money and then say to the school, oh, we've raised some money, and and then the school thinking, Oh, what can we spend it on? It's a much better way round, I think, uh much more focused, and for me personally, I just think it fits better with the way that I like to work. So if you don't have a clear strategy with your school, it might be something that you might want to consider. Um, it also improves your relationship with your school if you both know what's expected of the other person and what the other person is going to achieve. So I would encourage you to really have a chat with your school if that's possible. I know it's not possible in every school, I know not every PTA has a great relationship with its school, and um I would always hope that you can improve your relationship with your school if if you find yourself in that position. I do feel like I am in an extremely fortunate position because the senior leadership team at my school do understand the value that the PTA can bring to the school, and uh I also get on well with that with my head of school, so I haven't experienced um what it feels like when your PTA can't communicate with your school. I imagine it's really hard and really frustrating when as a volunteer you want to do something good for your school but they're not really responding in the way that you would hope. I know from reading some of the comments on the Facebook pages that quite a few PTAs find themselves in this position and quite often it's in well, it's due to the personalities involved perhaps, but also maybe the school not really understanding the value that a be a PTA can bring and understanding how to harness the power and the potential of a PTA. So I think if I found myself in that position, as hard as it might be, I think the only thing you can really do is to try and improve your communication with the school and open those communication channels and try and have some face-to-face meetings if at all possible with um members of staff who would be supportive and would have some visions of how the school and the PTA could work together. So if you find yourself in that position, uh you have my sympathy, and I hope that in this uh start of a new school year, maybe you can work towards um improving that relationship with your school and also the school improving its relationship with you. I know a lot of um UK PTAs are also doing the same thing in September and October, just that time of year, isn't it? Uh I think some PTAs have their AGM in the summer term, but ours has always been in term one, so that's going to be our first event of the new school year. We don't hold any events or activities until we've done our AGM, and our AGM is next week. Uh I always aim for the AGM to be about I don't know, 30 minutes long or no more than 30 minutes long, and it's immediately followed by our first planning meeting of the year. So I organise it like that because as chair of my team um I know how precious everybody's time is, and I feel that dragging people out to a meeting um on an evening, we might as well make the most of that one evening. So instead of asking them to come to two meetings and use up two evenings, I try and stick really stick really hard to the agenda of the AGM and um and then we hold our planning meeting after that, so it's all all gets done in one go, which is why we we don't really have any activities before the AGM. So where I am at the moment is I sent an email out to parents or um to all parents and staff via the school to let them know the date. Um, I also include in that email some very short paragraphs about what the PTA is to introduce it to the new parents who have started, and just a little welcome from the friendly PTA. Uh, I did put a sentence in to encourage people to come along and support us, um, and that went out last week. So this week I need to just send a reminder email and attach the agenda so that everybody knows what it's about. Uh uh, so I've also got to write my report and I have to uh sort out the agenda. So I just thought I'd let you know what is on our agenda. Oh, I've got the agenda here. So on our agenda we start with item one, which is uh welcome, introductions and apologies. So I just generally welcome everybody to the AGM. I don't tend to introduce anybody because we already all know who we all are, and I just read out any apologies that have been sent, which is normally from my PTA committee. I um have kind of given up on random parents just turning up to my PTA AGM. When I first started as chair, I used to take nibbles and drinks to the AGM in the hope and and sort of market my AGM as a celebration of everything we've achieved over the last school year, and nobody ever came that wasn't already involved with my PTA. There weren't any random parents that just turned up wanted to join. That just has never happened, and I I this must be I don't know, my sixth or seventh AGM now, so I don't need to introduce anybody because we all know who we all are already. And yes, I do feel a bit sad that random parents don't turn up. Um I don't think I would ever completely give up hope, as you as you might have noticed, I'm quite an optimistic, hopeful person. But as the years have gone on, I have perhaps come to realise that maybe that just doesn't happen. Does that ever happen with you, with your PTA? I would love to know if you have ever had random parents come along and actually want to join. It's never happened for me. I guess the way we get new members is they're probably people that I chat to in the playground, um, and and they sort of join throughout the year, really, they don't all just come to the AGM. Anyway, moving on. So that's item one. Welcome introductions and apologies. Then item two is to review the chair's report on the previous year's activities. So this is where I would maybe stand up in the meeting and read out my report. I think it's quite important for the chair to read out the report in the meeting rather than just hand it round so that everybody can kind of I don't know, reflect on what's happened really and hear everything. Uh I haven't written my report yet. I think it's going to take me quite a long time because we did an awful lot last year. Um, and I I'm quite a detailed person, so I have to be quite careful writing my chair's report that it doesn't go on and on and on. Um so I tend to give an overview of what we've done, reflect on what worked well, and then summarise just a summary of the money raised because obviously the treasurer has to do their report, um, and I then have a couple of paragraphs of thank yous at the end, um, and that's kind of it. Uh and then we move on to item three, which is review the treasurer's report on monies raised and spent. So my treasurer will present his report and we'll go through the finances. And I always actually really, really enjoy that part because it's really great to see all the hard work and time that we've all put in translating into money, which is then sent to the school, which is of course you know a large part of what the PTA is for. So I do really enjoy discussing those figures. Then item four is to elect the committee positions and confirm the trustee members for the year ahead. So we always re-elect our committee. Um, I think I mentioned in the past that we have a very slim-down committee just because our PTA is quite small and our school is small, so just to make sure it's easy and straightforward for everybody, we just have a chair, a treasurer, and a secretary. So I will be restanding as chair, my treasurer will be re-standing as treasurer, and I think my secretary is re-standing as secretary. So hopefully that will all be very quick and easy. And um, we will just also go through the list of trustees and make sure that we have um the right people and the right number of trustees, which I'm actually going to talk about in a moment. Then on our list, we have um item five, which is the plans for the year ahead. So my head of school and our executive head teacher are coming along to the AGM, and I have asked them to bring with them um information uh and their wishes for what they would like to do with the PTA money this year so that we have a goal to work towards, as I've as I've already talked about. Um, so what we will do there is we won't spend item five just stuff discussing in intricate detail the normal uniform days we're going to run or the fates we're going to run. We're just going to get an overview of the goals for that year, and then item six is any other business. Obviously, we'll have that at the end of the meeting, just anything else that we need to talk about at the annual meeting. Um, and and then that's basically it. And so the whole thing really shouldn't take more than 20 to 30 minutes, and then that is when we then maybe take a break, and then we'll move on to our uh proper planning meeting, which is the nuts and bolts of everything we do, and we will flesh out some plans for the next two terms, I think, um, and uh you know deal with any um problems that have come up or anything that we used to talk about, which I haven't really thought about yet because I haven't read written the agenda, so I can't really tell you what we're gonna discuss because I don't actually know yet. Um, and that's our AGM basically. Oh, and we hold the AGM at school. So I did hold one of my AGM. In the pub, and I think I did a an episode explaining how that worked, and that was really good. But following that uh successful ADM we have gone back to holding it at the school. I do like holding it at the school because because we're in the environment where all the PTA money is spent, and when we're discussing what to spend the money on, when the teachers are giving us their ideas and things, we're actually on the site so we can actually imagine how it would change or whatever, how it would benefit the school. So I do like being at school to do the AGM. It's also you know, we don't have to pay to hire the school or anything, everybody knows where the school is, most people live near the school, so it just makes it a lot easier to have it at school. And I do also um make sure that our AGM is a face-to-face meeting. Um we we've only had one AGM that was online, and that was obviously during COVID times when we couldn't meet up. But most of our um planning meetings, our PTA planning meetings, now probably are online because I find that I always have a better attendance from my members if it's online. But I do like the AGM to be a face-to-face meeting, so that's what we've gone for. And talking about trustees, which we're going to cover in the AGM, I wanted to give a shout out to my listener Sarah, who is secretary to her PTA in the UK. Now, Sarah contacted me after listening to episode eight, which was PTA Housekeeping, um, which is where I shared my PTA to-do list with you, and she dropped me an email using hello at PTApodcast.com with some helpful advice about trustees. If you've listened to that episode, you may remember that I wasn't sure how many trustees we were supposed to have. We've currently got two, which is myself as chair and my treasurer, and I felt at the time that this didn't really feel safe because we're both also signatories on the bank account. So I was wondering out loud in that episode about getting another trustee, but I also realised that I didn't really know how many trustees we were supposed to have. And Sarah very helpfully said that if we're using the parent-kind model constitution, then all our elected members should also be trustees, and we should also have a minimum of three elected members, which we do. So that really helped. She was also very kind and said that uh it's a subject that's confusing for a lot of people, which made me feel a lot better. Um I've been chair of my PTA for many years, but there are still things I don't know or I'm learning, and as I've been doing it for so long now, I sometimes feel a bit embarrassed when I don't know something, especially something that's actually quite important, as knowing how many trustees you're supposed to have. So it's really great to plug any gaps in my knowledge as I go along, and so I want to say a big thank you to Sarah for contacting me. Um, she also said that she thinks the podcast is great and she listens while driving or doing housework. So hi to Sarah, and thank you so much for clarifying that for me and getting in touch. I think that covers everything that I wanted to say at the start of this new school year, so let's wrap up episode 9. Um, thank you so much for listening. Uh I hope that you're having a successful start to your school year. In the next episode, I will update you on how my AGM went and what our plans are for this year in terms of fundraising. We may also have decided on some events that we're going to run up to Christmas, so I'll let you know about that. Um, but in the meantime, why not drop me an email using hello at PTApodcast.com. I would really love to hear how your start to the year is going, how you're feeling about this academic year, what your role is on the PTA, and what you're hoping for, so why not let me know? Uh so good luck with whatever your PTA is working on at the moment, and I look forward to chatting with you soon. Bye for now.