Starting a coffe morning? (Tried in chat and no reply, still boring but can anyone help?)

[BuckBuckMcFate]

I have a group of friends (met through antenatal, baby clinc, playgroup) and we have been meeting up weekly in a coffee shop in town but due to school pick up and the increasing number of us, now up to 10 mums each with at least one child, it is getting too hectic.

We have been told that we can hire a local village hall for a reasonable amount, which would give us the chance to still meet, be on time for school pick ups, (not cause chaos in coffee shops!)

We don't want to start a playgroup as such, as there is already a local one, meeting once a week (and don't want to step on any toes), it is quite structured, lots of activities, set break time, set music time etc. so would just like to have the hall for meeting up and coffee and let the kids 'just play'

Does anyone know if we need to conform to any guidelines re health and safety, have a first aider, form a committee?

TIA

No I don't think you have to, just as a group of friends meeting up. If you started advertising for more members and you became more like a community toddler group then maybe you would.

I used to run a long-established toddler group for a while and the Pre-School Learning Alliance Rep used to come a couple of times a year and make suggestions on health and safety but there wasn't anything we had to comply with, more common sense stuff like not putting hot drinks where the children can get them. They suggested setting up a reigster of members with phone numbers and possible medical probelms (allergies for example) so we had a number to phone if something happened to the mum but I wouldn't have thought it was necessary for you if you all know each other.

We also had a committee of 2, or on occasion it was 1(me!) but as I said we were open to the public so to speak and it was held in a church which had a few rules. Maybe you need someone to do the finances because presumably you will be buying joint coffee and biscuits and also paying for the hall. Is there anybody happy to take that responsibility alone? If not then a couple of people who are prepared to be the point of contact for the group would be enough.

Sorry - a bit long. Just a few of my musings.

I wouldn't worry too much.

If it's just a private hire for you and your friends then I don't think you need anything official.
I will watch this thread with interest though as I have thought about doing this with my friends - we normally trash meet in each others houses but we're getting too many in number for that now.

Thank you for your replies

I'll discuss with the others and see how they want to go, private or advertise.

Thanks cat64

We're very much an all muck in together bunch so I think we'd all be ok with regards to tidying etc.

I think we'll pick one of the 'organised' mums to do the money, which rules me out! lol!

One of us lives opposite the hall and has agreed to keep a large toy chest in her house and bring it over each week and everyone has said they'll donate a toy to go in it too.

We want to try and keep the child stuff to a minimum as they all do some sort of craft thing/baking/painting at home/nursery each day so we wanted to let them just have a bit of a 'run wild'

The hall is quite large so we were thinking we could do a Bring a scooter/ride on day too as lots of them received them for christmas but its been too damp and nasty to play out.

I think you are right not to bother with to many toys and to allow ride ons.

I used to go to another group in quite a large village hall before I moved and the best fun the children had in the whole session was running around a large empty room at the end, when all the toys were put away. Second best thing was the ride-ons which you don't have room for in your average house.