Childrens Circus club

[bluebert]

Hi all,

I am in the very early stages of starting a children's circus club network in Edinburgh and am looking for a bit of advice. I work professionally in Circus, and at events parents often ask me where their children can learn circus skills - juggling, acrobatics, stilts, etc, but at the moment I know there are no youth circus skills clubs in Edinburgh, with the exception of one which only teaches aerial.

What I would like to know is , first of all, do you think it's a good idea, and that children would like to come?

Also, which area, or areas of Edinburgh it should be in. I'm already talking to Summerhall, near the Meadows, and Out of the Blue on Dalmeny street. But are there areas around Edinburgh that don't have many after-school or weekend clubs?

What form should the club take? I'm thinking either of a weekend circus school where children would be able to learn a mixture of acrobatics, juggling, clowning, and other circussy things, and that would last about 3 hours with kids of different age groups rotating around the different learning areas. Alternatively, there could be different clubs for different things, for example a unicycling club that would last an hour, that any age group could come to.

Lastly, what is a reasonable cost? Either per hour or per 3hr session.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Also, if you know of any circus skills classes that I haven't mentioned then I would love to hear about them.

I've just booked a circus workshop for my brownies in February.

Corstorphine would be a good location too. St Ninians Chuch there has a number of halls and are very reasonable for renting.

I'd say from experience that about 90 minutes is long enough from about 7-8 years and maybe if you wanted to do younger classes 45-60 minutes is ideal to keep their attention.

Many classes are about the £4-5 per hour mark. I'd look at how much your rent is and try to ensure you cover that too. I'd also go for block booking if you can't afford to loose money.

Sounds like a great idea and with hard work and plenty of advertising, I'm sure you would get lots of people or children interested.

Thanks Grooveecar,

I know that the brownies have a circus skills badge - many of the people I work with go into brownies to do the workshops and I think it's fantastic. Just a thought...is there like a Edinburgh brownies central place that I could give information to, for when classes get set up for any children that want to keep on developing their skills?

And thank for the pricing info too - that's roughly what I was thinking of, and I think that will work fine if I get the right venue. I'm determined to make something happen anyway, because I get asked for it too often now. And did you know that the National Youth Circus had its big annual event just outside Edinburgh this year...

Any other advertising pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks!

This is the county website for Edinburgh Girl Guiding Edinburgh GirlGuiding

Facebook have a few Edinburgh Parenting Pages, may be worth joining a few on there. A facebook Page is always handy for people like me. I've had a lot of our outside workshops from facebook pages.

My children are older now, but it would have been something I would have had an interest in.

Handing in flyers to local schools as well can help as well as leaving them at local libraries. Also the local Families magazines which are found in libraries too may do an article on you giving you more exposure. Maybe even the evening news once you are starting up too.

Hope this helps and if you let me know when you are set up, I'll share it on my facebook page as well as my friends who have younger children.

I started a facebook page a couple of weeks ago actually and it is steadily growing. It's called Edinburgh Youth Circus, so feel free to join and share it. It is a brilliant forum for sharing what there is at the moment. I will have a look for Edinburgh parenting pages and join a few of them.

When I have a more solid idea of when and where the classes will be, then I will make flyers etc. And thanks for the Girlguide link!