private members' club for families

[pippiLS]

So do you think £10 per week for access to a stylish child-friendly club (with tasteful soft play areas etc) is a big ask?

DH thinks it's too much and no none would pay it whereas I think £520 for annual membership of a place where people with babies/toddlers go and meet other mums/dads/nannies, have a decent coffee (maybe even a tasty, healthy lunch), relax in comfort and attend classes with their little ones is an OK price to pay.

Am I being unreasonable to be considering opening such a place as a business venture?

I run a very specialised play space. You need to know your market very well and have a water tight business plan.

Staff costs are massive and hugely eat into takings.

Plus, have back up plans for good weather.

Cash flow issues can keep me awake all night for days at the moment as I'm still in the early days.

Just because your competition is a charity, doesn't mean they don't run on business lines - they may make a profit and reinvest it, for example.

I wouldn't pay £10/class though. If the soft play was big enough then £10/week would be fine. For 2 kids that's reasonable. My friends and I did go to the same soft play every week with our kids. The kids did a class there, then we had 2 hours of softplay, inc lunch.

Op have a look at Blue Skies play cafe in Cheltenham, it sounds a similar idea to what you are looking for. Membership is £10 a month though for unlimited access, or £2.50 for pay as you go. I can't see anyone wanting to pay £40 a month for something similar.
Personally I would love someone to open up a yoga / exercise studio with a crèche, play area and cafe and would happily pay £40 a month for that - the classes would have to be included in the price though!

Take a look at bubba hub and hungry catterpillar play cafe in bristol. They have entry fees not weekly fees. Similar idea though, you could easily end up visiting 3 times per weeks but I think a weekly membership fee would put people off.

You'd expect to pay more for the crèche though, surely? And then with a crèche there'd be more childcare redtape and hassle for the owner. OP sounds like she wants a place for mums and kids to be together, not offering childcare I don't think. Although I guess there'd have to be some such solution during adult classes. It's a tall order without pots of cash.

I completely fail to see the point of this. If I want soft play, I go to soft play. If I want baby cinema, I go to baby cinema. If I want yoga,music,craft sessions etc I go to these. All reasonably priced and all run by professionals who know what they're doing.

I would not spend £10 a week on something I would only use in bad weather, and only perhaps twice a week at best.

I imagine the only people who would pay more than £500 a year for this type of thing are people who want to avoid the hoi polloi. That sort of snobbery really sticks in my craw.

all ball pits and soft play areas smell of wee after a few months

fresh air is much better for kids

I have checked back at the OP and she mentions babies/toddlers. That's when I would have used it. Possibly a few times a week. When they were really small and I needed something to just get me through the interminably long days.

I imagine the only people who would pay more than £500 a year for this type of thing are people who want to avoid the hoi polloi. That sort of snobbery really sticks in my craw.

I wouldn't have paid it because of snobbery, more because I had an anxious toddler who liked familiarity.

I nearly joined Maggie and Rose but felt I would have to go 2/3 times a week to make it worthwhile and that wouldn't fit our schedule as it's not on the doorstep. If it was 10 mins walk no parking I probably would have. Then it also would have been full of parents I already know from various places.

When I looked round there were a lot of nannies. That again put me off as I don't have much in common with 20yr old Swedes.

I wanted to join also as our flat is very small and we haven't got a lot of play space. Plus we have the constant smell of dope drifting in from neighbours if we are in the garden. Not exactly great for play dates .

It's too much to pay (£800) for going once a week which was likely the scenario.

Are you thinking of having outside space? You'd need that to get people in in summer.

I think you would need a good school holiday plan, would parents go with their older DC to play with the wooden toy?

Am I the only one at the intimate Haven feel. Sorry OP but I just couldn't resist.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=haven+holidays&oq=haven+holidays&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2335j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Have for £500 for the privilege .

Business plan and marketing needs sorting if I'm perfectly honest.

Ok, I used to be exactly your target market.

Middle class, fairly affluent, extended career break. Twins so very keen to get out the house.

I'm very sorry but given the business model you've outlined here I wouldn't have considered joining.

I live in a pretty well off area. For just a wee bit more than your proposed 80 per month we did 3 classes per week (bear in mind fees x 2) were members of a safari park, 2 farm parks, NTS and Historical Scotland. That's not including all the time we spent rounding free museums and art galleries and parks.

With twins I found cafés and soft plays unbelievably stressful although my singleton friends used them approximately once a week.

Re wooden toys. In my time I've volunteered at 3 different baby/toddler/play type groups wooden toys do not last well. They get chewed and stained and scraped and are harder to wipe clean.

IME kids would get bored pretty quickly going to the same place all the time unless you had a) big expensive type toys they didn't get at home b) lots and lots of variety which necessitates both investment and lots of storage.

It's not a haven if you are expected to volunteer.
The time you need a haven for is very limited (max up to 1 year I'd have thought) how many babies are being born in your area?
I don't need help with my CV. As a pp noted I used my connections when it was time to return to work.

I might have attended your business occasionally on a wet day when my children were older on a payg basis. But it would need to be properly staffed, clean and pretty spacious.

There are those who meet the criteria for the OPs target who just won't be into the idea, prefer other activities or have options they prefer to spend that money on. When I joined M&R I was pregnant with a toddler, didn't drive, no family nearby, first of my friends to have kids. I was a bit lonely, not very mobile and utterly seduced by a place that made my day to day life less isolated and easier. There must be other people like me, the question is are there enough to populate the OP's potential business?

I am sure there are people who enjoy the exclusivity members club element but that's certainly not why most people I have met signed up. I like that everyone who comes in the door is signed in and accounted for as it allows me to feel safe letting my 3 year explore.

Some people wouldn't join simply because of the exclusivity aspect. Wouldn't you just be wondering if others are looking at you thinking "god, how did SHE get in here?"

Seriously, the moment people start going on about an "exclusive membership" you've got to remember that regardless of how many babies are being born in that area, you can cut a huge chunk of those off simply because of the whole "exclusive" part - either because they find it distasteful or because they would be in your "riff raff" section.

There are less expensive but still "proper" clubs you can join i.e. the Royal Automobile Club and that's not much more than double or triple what propose.

I have a place just like you're describing not far from me.

They have a fantastic, comfortable seated area with plenty of well looked after toys. Within this area is access to computers / wifi. There is a reading corner. We have a well used toy library. The staff rotate a theme each week with toys appropriate to the theme. There is a beautiful sensory room which can be used by anyone, but sessions can be booked. Plenty of mums meet to have a coffee and bring their own food for the children. They offer various groups - rhyme time, crafts, singing, visiting mini-farms etc. There are various professionals also using rooms in the building for education, healthcare and so on.

This is all free at the point of delivery.

What you are proposing, and what I've described above is what the local children & family centre provide (Sure Start). The centre is well used by the community and includes all socio-economic groups inclusive of children / adults with learning difficulties.

I wouldn't pay when it's available for free.

I will confess to have never been to a sure start centre, I prefer to spend my time in more aesthetically pleasing environments. I've done the National trust thing, picnics in the park, trips to the farm/zoo and soft play. I've also done the baby ballet, baby swimming, baby yoga, music time, jumping beans, art classes, story time etc but I can't say that I was particularly inspired by the decor or food. Maybe I'm getting old but nice decor and nice food make me feel good.

For it to work you would need something for the parents to do.

You can play with them in the house and I would want someone qualified and experienced updating my cv - and they would charge a fortune.

I was a member of the Nuffield gym when my kids were in the age group you seem to be thinking about. They had a crèche where I could leave them for an hour for a couple of pounds when I did a class. Then I got them and we went swimming together. Then they played in the nice soft play while I sat and read the free papers and drunk coffee/used the free wifi etc.

They also did free music class and art class for the kids each week.

In the run up to Christmas they did shopping days - leave the kids for a few hours while you shop for about £10.

They also had a hairdressers/beauty place which did deals with the crèche - eg get your nails done at 10 o'clock this Tuesday and put the kids in for free.

The play area had free juice/water and fruit for kids when you bought a coffee.
Also Lego tables and various plastic baby toys.

Quite a few members of staff were paediatric first aiders - loads of head bumps with little ones and especially with hard wooden toys.

This cost about £50 a month.

We also had membership of the local farm park with a massive indoor soft play -£15 per month.

I wouldn't pay £40 a month for a "posh" play group

At the very least you need to know what your competition will be!

I will confess to have never been to a sure start centre, I prefer to spend my time in more aesthetically pleasing environments.

If you've never been how do you know it's not aesthetically pleasing?

For me if you are offering a haven then you need to know what parents want.

For me when my children were younger (and would have used one) would have been for qualified staff to look after my dc while I had a 5 min break with a hot drink.

I think one of your highest cost will be staff (after rent/rates) as to offer a service at a cost then the users will want to see staff and toys and everywhere to be very clean.

Just to clarify, this is a business idea, one I may or may not run with (it's looking less and less likely the longer this thread goes on). I have done some v. rough costings based on membership numbers.

At £520 a family and 100 families you're looking at £52K which really isn't that much to do anything with so you see I would have to get some income some other way.

I understand the mark-up on food is pretty good (say 60% profit) so if 25 people per day spent £5-6 on food that would be £90 per day up so another approx. 20K.

Based on this thread I can see that I would have to offer some classes for free but lets say 50% of families do one class per week, that's £500 per week with 50% of that profit, so another 13k.

We're at 85K now. The mortgage on the venue would be in the region of 3K per month so -36K and we're at 49K. -5K for utilities and we're at 44K and so it goes on...

I will confess to have never been to a sure start centre, I prefer to spend my time in more aesthetically pleasing environments.

I'm giving up on helping you and offering you advice now. Most sure start centres I've been to are lovely. They also had qualified staff and arranged wonderful courses from first aid for parents, to baby sensory and sign and sign. Why do I know they are often lovely and what they provide? Because I've used them. I've used them for free or for very low cost activities with my DS.

What you describe isn't what parents want that they don't have access to already. What you are describing is something you want, something you haven't thought through, something you seem to know very little about.