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PTA School Directories
I really could use some ideas on how to organize and distribute our school directories. In the past we have always had an entire box of directories left over collecting dust in our PTA room. Past Directory chairs have not been helpful in us figuring out why it is that so many are left over.
Any suggestions?
My thought for this year is to give parents an option on the pta membership form to either recieve a printed version or an electronic version of the directory for free with each paid membership. We would really like to limit what we spend on printing so that we could use our money else where if at all possible.
Any suggestions?
My thought for this year is to give parents an option on the pta membership form to either recieve a printed version or an electronic version of the directory for free with each paid membership. We would really like to limit what we spend on printing so that we could use our money else where if at all possible.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Pattie Iannitti on -
This is what we do at our school and it has been quite successful: Our school secretary provides us with a list of families. We group the siblings together and plan on ordering one directory per family which goes home with the youngest child. We order extras for staff and plan on 25+ extra for any new incoming families who matriculate in after the directory order is placed. We sell advertised "ad space" (for their businesses), to our families that go into the directory. For instance, we have the back cover, inside cover, full page inside and business card space in the directory, all for a first come first served order. Each one is priced accordingly. The $ we collect from the ads pays for the cost of printing the directory. It has worked well for us! Good Luck!
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Permalink Reply by Francine Collins on
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Thank you for the reply. We do the add space now but it may need to be "tweeked".
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Permalink Reply by Robert Taylor on
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We had the same problem at our school. The real problem that we had was that as soon as the directory was printed, it was out of date. I wrote an online version and this year we moved to that exclusively. We no longer print any directory, rather we just direct parents to the online version. Parents can log into the directory on their own using their own usernames and passwords as well as update their contact information or determine if they want their contact information listed in the directory itself.
The volunteer that manages the directory for the PTA now just has to create the family when they first come to the school and then their 'welcome" email is sent. From that point on the families maintain their contact information.
Saved us a TON on printing since we don't do it any longer. I've also added a bunch of things like mapping to houses, PTA membership levels etc...
Next year I am going to add the ability for the families to pay their PTA membership dues online so that they can continue to drive membership through the website without having to have students bring checks to school or have parents stationed in the hallways during events.
I'd be happy to show you what I did. I've also created a "public" version that has a bunch of other ideas that I had that didn't make it into the first revision that I did for my daughters school. You can find the public version at www.addressmonster.com. My first version is at www.weddingtonpta.org, but it is password protected from the very beginning so there isn't much you can see there.
Robert
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