Setting up a babysitting circle in NW1 - what works?

[littlemole1]

I'd like to get out in the evenings and do a class at citylit or simply go out to the cinema from time to time. I can't rely on a partner to be at home in the evening to let me do this. Has anyone here set up a local babysitting circle with mum friends and made it work? I live in NW1/NW5 and could use some pointers from mums in the know! Thanks.

You have to have a gathering place to meet and recruit a core group of mums, eg a mother & toddler group.

Set up a little committee so that you can agree how the group will work and communicate with members.

The group I was in worked on tokens. Everyone was given 20 tokens, and used them to buy babysitting. We had an amnesty every couple of years to get the tokens redistributed.

We use babysittercircle.co.uk to coordinate everything - it's very easy, you just go to the website to request a babysitter, your request gets e-mailed to everyone in the circle and if anyone can do it then they go to the website to sign up. After they've sat for you, you settle up with your on-line tokens. Everyone starts with 16 tokens (I think), each worth half an hour of babysitting. One member acts as the coordinator, which isn't an onerous role at all, she just approves if anybody recommends somebody new to join the circle.

We decided to limit it to people on our road (our road is full of parents with young children) on the grounds that we wanted to be sure we all knew one another and didn't have to go very far. It works pretty well - some people are keener than others on using it, but generally speaking it's a good thing. I love babysitting for other people - sitting in someone else's house for the evening you never feel as though you really ought to be doing the ironing, I just put my feet up and read a book. And the children are really happy with it - I just tell them that so-and-so's mum is going to come round to babysit and they know exactly who I mean.

There are various dodgy babysitting circle websites out there which try to charge you for their services, but babysittercircle isn't one of them - it's free and very straightforward to use.

I live in NW5 and am looking for ad hoc nanny or babysitting work if this doesn't work out littlemole. I am a qualified early years teacher and have references and a CRB clearance :)