This is a great topic. We have all of the same issues. Parents are very happy to ‘micro volunteer’ and show up to work a BBQ, bake for a cake stall, volunteer for a shift and attend events, but they don’t want to ‘join’ the P&F, join planning committees or attend any meetings. We run one P&F meeting each term and have a guest speaker at each, except for the Term 4 meeting which is the AGM. Our staff organise all events/meetings and the P&F just adds on the fundraising and parent volunteer elements for events. Like you, we had much better attendance prior to Covid. During Covid, we didn’t have any fundraisers, we held meetings/guest speakers over Zoom and would have 40-50 people at most meetings. Now we struggle to get more than 10-20 people to attend an in person meeting, even with a guest speaker.
We’re also interested to hear what other schools do to increase participation. Or, have other schools dissolved the P&F and instead just have parent information and social events, run by the school?
