Starting up a baby group

[yevans]

I've seen a few people recently on social media talk about starting their own 'official' baby groups as there's very few operating at the moment.

Does anyone know how you would go about doing this? I belong to a church who would love to get their baby group back up and running but can't seem to find any info on how/if this is possible. In England if that helps!

(Please don't just say 'just meet up regardless'. We want to do things by the book as it will be associated with the church)

Thanks!

I guess at the moment contact your local council to see what you need to do to be regarded as Covid safe then take it from there. Anything with children will surely need to be regulated in some form.

Well you could presumably only have 3 mins and 3 babies at a time so I'm not sure there'd be much point right now.

@titchy

Well you could presumably only have 3 mins and 3 babies at a time so I'm not sure there'd be much point right now.

Not true, I was at a baby class today with about 20 parents. As it’s a business, with social distancing in place they can still go ahead.

I started a baby and toddler group

Such groups are officially in the category of voluntary community group - which is a non-profit group run by volunteers but without an income large enough to warrant registering as a charity.

Official running should be in the form of a committee - you'll want a chairperson, treasurer and Secretary ideally, so 3 people as "management committee". Then as many committee members you like, who get to vote on matters regarding running the group.

Your local council will be able to help you write a constitution (which is a required document to qualify for funding) and how the committee system works. Usually you just copy and adopt the document the council provides.

That's the management - then source some equipment. Either donation or through funding (again, council will probably know some funding sources. A reasonable amount you could expect for finding would be £1000-£3000 per year. You will need:

• baby toys
• toddler toys
• ride ons
• big equipment (play house, slide, kitchen etc)
• quiet toys (books, puzzles etc)
• tables and chairs for about 30
• craft equipment (and ideas)
• enough toys to maintain a rotation of equipment
• somewhere to store a lot of equipment (buy a shed?)
• regular booking of a hall
• kitchen facilities - tea, coffee, milk, squash. Biscuits, fruit, toast? Who buys these every week?

Then advertise and open!

Good luck.

@FATEdestiny thanks that's really useful! Unsure how much of it I'll be able to use as it's a church run thing so the money/building etc will all be church provided but that helps as a starting point, thank you