13 Days!

In merely 13 days, I'll be popping champagne corks and hee hawing in a kitchen with 4 others, while a separate group is in another room, wringing their hands, rubbing their own temples and dabbing away their sweat. It's changing of the guard time at PTA. Two years at the helm with a co-pilot (President) and our time is done. Yeehaw!

It's been a great learning experience because it's so much like a business. PTA is a national organization with rules, regulations, by-laws, codes, insurance, blah blah blah. I like that you have to market and advertise each program, every event. We worked hard on brand awareness and had several strategy planning and forecasting meetings. (As a community, we raise anywhere from $50K to $70K in a year. With budget cuts from the federal level slicing into the K-12 public schools, those funds raised are going to go even higher in the next two years... IF we keep doing what we're doing.)

I have learned, it's good to have these "coporatey things". http://www.pta.org/ Is truly in it for the kiddies. "Every Child, One Voice." What's not to like about that slogan? At our school of 529 elementary age kids, from k thru 6, we have a very wide range of demographics. The pendulum swings from one extreme to the other very easily. Fortunately... we have good people who are watching out for all children and we have more parents than most peer schools involved at some level.

So why the champagne? Its' a celebration! I'm movin' on. Done my time and had my fun and letting others play for a while. If you are a volunteer... you eff'n rock! Volunteering, on any level, is a commitment. It's hard to break away most of the time. Our lives are consuming on so many levels. Especially if you have kids. So I give a hat tip in your direction. Get involved at your school... it's needed and appreciated more than you know.