HR peas, your opinions please

I agree with theshyone and your friend. I would highlight your positives in a functional resume and maybe address the reason(s) you want a specific job/to return to the workforce in your cover letter. Your best bet for a job though is through someone you know -- they will probably already know you have been out of the workforce for a while and hopefully will know of your accomplishments in between.

That said, I would NOT overstate your skills by using things like "domestic engineer" or "fundraising guru" for what you have done. Use words like coordinated,organized, mangaged, oversaw, tracked...events/projects, etc. Interacted with community leaders, business leaders, county officials to complete required documentation, etc. Raised $x through events and projects. If you can show a progression of how you started as a volunteer, to committee leader to event coordinator, that might show some leadership ability over that time frame.

Can you get at least one school administration employee (Principal or higher) to put as a recommendation?

just some thoughts.....but part of your perspective should also be aimed at your audience...what type of position are you looking for?

I would say long-term volunteer work for a non profit school would definitely count. The titles that you're using (Vice President, treasurer, etc.) should be consistent with the titles used by the school while you were volunteering.

I wouldn't include one-time volunteer experiences.

I also wouldn't include something like throwing a birthday party for a friend as an official volunteer position, for example (a real example that I just received on a resume - she called herself a volunteer event planner).

I would absolutely include a 40-hour/week volunteer position at a school on a resume. If you don't have an official title, I would suggest taking to the principal or volunteer coordinator to ask for one.

I also agree with your statement about focusing on the skills for the football mom, etc jobs instead of listing actual positions.

I write resumes for a career counselling company. We don't do functional resumes, although I know others do recommend them for some people. In your case, I would have an "Experience" section for your paid work and a "Volunteer Experience" section for your unpaid work. Both sections are done chronologically and include the same sort of header for each position with company/organization, job title, dates, and location.

I would included any position that spanned significant amount of time or that included any sort of important accomplishment. You will want to highlight different achievements depending on what sort of work you'd like to do.

I agree with being upfront about the gap in employment. In the summary section of a resume like yours, I would include a phrase like 'returning to the workforce' in there somewhere. Your situation is not that uncommon and I don't think there's any reason to try to hide the truth.

Does any HR department even read resumes anymore? I can't think of any company that doesn't require an online application and resume upload so some shitty software can pick through looking the perfect combination of "key words". Then HR claims there are no candidates that fit the position. Meanwhile, millions are un or under employed.

Something to keep in mind, is not all hiring committees are actual HR people. So what an HR person thinks about a resume is moot, at least where I work. Our HR manages the online portal resumes are posted to but they don't filter the resumes in any way. They just are a contact point.

Our hiring committee is made up of first and second level supervisors and anyone they feel should have input into who is accepted into the job. I know the team I've been with the past month is mostly interested in the skill set of the people so a functional resume is the quickest for us to see if an applicant has the skills were are looking for. It has also opened up some discussion on skills we hadn't considered wanting but an applicant has that we can see a way to use that skill.

Once we decided who we wanted then we told HR and they took over from there for the back ground check etc.

A lengthy time out of the work force also isn't looked down as much as women make it out to be UNLESS you are expecting to apply for jobs in the seniority range of where you would be if you hadn't stopped working for 10-20 years. There is a point where years of experience does matter. But there is also lots going on at the entry or near entry level where volunteer experience does replicate the work experience.