New to area - meeting other parents with preteens / teens

[hado]

We're in our 40s and we've just moved to a village outside of Halesworth in Suffolk from Worthing in West Sussex with our daughter aged 10 and son aged 14. We've been focusing on getting the kids settled in their new schools, and that's all gone well, and now we're looking to meet other parents in the local area. Our new neighbours are lovely but none of them have kids - it's quite an elderly population around us, and we both work from home. We're going to start doing playdates for our daughter and both my son and daughter are in sports clubs so I chat to the parents there. Our village is scattered over 3 miles so it doesn't have a centre or events. The local towns have groups but they are mostly for parents of younger children or elderly My wife is an artist so is going to link in with the local artist community. How do people meet other parents with older children?! Ideas please!

Do you really need to meet other parents or just make friends? If the latter, both of you need to get hobbies.

Why would you want to? A 14 year old will want to make their own friends at school or extra-curricular events, parents are largely irrelevant to their social lives except as taxis. (Unless the teens are at boarding school, as boarding parents at some schools do make an effort to get together occasionally.)

Are you not willing to make friends with other adults unless they have teenage children?

Obviously you’re still likely to come into contact with the parents of your younger child - at least until she starts senior school.

@DelilahBucket @MuddlerInLaw you’re both right. A lot of my friends in Worthing had teens, mostly because they were people with kids who’d grown up with ours. So I think I’d just carried on that thinking. Having said that, some of our really close friends don’t have kids. Our kids will make their own friends, so scrap needing to meet other parents, what we need is to make friends. Any ideas!

I'm also in Suffolk, opposite side but similar rural community.
Firstly embrace friendships across the ages, I'm just 40 and have friends from 20s to 70s!
Secondly, find something you're interested in and join local groups. Wild Swimming, Running, Book Group, Amateur Dramatics, start at the local library as Suffolk Libraries are fantastic and often have groups running at the library.

Thanks @POTC . I've joined a running club and am going to throw myself into everything chrismassy.