Organic day nurseries in Richmond, Surrey and Hampton, Middlesex

[bubble99]

Have a look at our advert on the small business board or follow our link here

bubble- can i hijack for advice here

pretty please. btw- i'm in north wales so nowhere near you

Hey, bub, after three great ideas from me you get your site readable on a Mac, deal ? (Would love to show you how it looks BTW. Some of the nursery info pages are not actually accessible ! )

I would get as much contact info as possible. Maybe some kind of 'signing in' book - name / address / postcode / phone / e-mail (not necessarily all above in one hit) would be good. I'd also then start an Excel spreadsheet at home (or in the back room) and cram all your personal observations after you've met prospects - ds / dd names / any favourite toys / games, SN, what does mum / dad do etc / when are the kiddies' birthdays... Not just so you can 'target' them with publicity but so you can start to get a really good grasp of the profile of your clients, and how it differs from nursery to nursery etc.

Also this allows you to communicate with your prospective clients more intelligently: Some might really appreciate nursery availability only during school hols, or you might find there's a pile of city workers doing Richmond > Waterloo who would go with your nursery if you offered a couple of early morning breakfast club starts etc. etc.

Finally, this also allows you to consider promotional offers to people who have visited your nursery but couldn't afford it, or weren't sure for some reason:

One-off afternoon (at 50% off) for all 3 year olds etc. (I would guess several kids of same age / develeopmental stage are easier to entertain and teach)...

A 'French morning' (or whatever) might be called for if it turns out there are several French families in your catchment area - breakfast, some French nursery rhymes / lullaby, capital city games etc. with a bilingual assistant as needed.

I don't really know your business sector terribly well, and as I haven't yet done 0 - 5 years with own kids can't quite think up anything very stellar on the spot, but am sure that upon visiting would be able to bore you with more material.

I look forward to you boring me Hub.
You're dead right about the website. We're trying to get prepared for our initial OFSTED inspection at the Richmond nursery next week but after that Mr Bubble has promised to address the website issues. He has Dreamweaver and will start from scratch to design a proper site. I'm completely untech but he assures me that Dreamweaver is compatible with Mac.

I've got an ex-journalist mate. Three kids, not even freelancing, who is writing an article about our ethos and in particular our views on food and nutrition.It ties in neatly with the current Jamie Oliver food thing and we're going to offer a ready written piece to the local rag in the hope that they may send along a photographer to get some pictures of me and our chef in our organic kitchen. She's well aware that the article will probably be "lifted" by one of the staff reporters and that she won't be credited but has kindly offered to write it all the same.
In addition, our chef worked with Jamie Oliver at The River Cafe and, though he hasn't kept in touch, has written to him setting out our food ethos and the fact that good eating habits/nutrition need to start from nursery age, not just when children start school.

Bubble, if I can, I'll come to your open day - I'd love to meet you (and hub, you can practise nappies on DS with my blessing He wriggles more than a newborn though!).

I'd love to meet you HM. You're in West London aren't you? We're planning a supervised activity day where parents can bring their children. Our staff ( I still can't get used to saying that, I've always been an employee) will do some painting, craft type things and games/singing with them. The parents can then have some food and drink and a look around the nursery.

Yes, I'm in West London - do you have a date for your open day yet? Want to meet kind-eyed Footle and his lovely mum!

Tie-in with JO and the whole food awareness thing sounds great. Or is that 'wholefood awareness'

Your by-lined article from mate will be useful. Stick a 'News / PR' link on your site so any journos visiting have easy access to a couple of piece which clearly outline how your approach / a given day is diiferent chez bub than chez Big Chain.

Hunker.... I, erm... think I might just watch... . Maybe I can pass you the Sudocreme or some other equally important task that needs to be handled in a prompt, professional manner.

Glad to hear dh will sort Website soon. I really would not suggest veering very far away from current structure / content, just fixing the nasty Microsoft specific code bits by ensuring the site is coded to a common standard. It should still look like it's hand-knitted in North London.

On a general point, and shoot me if I'm talking pants, but would you say that it is only the food which is organic, or would you claim that the day-structure / staff to child ratio / activities planning etc. are in any way 'more organic' than normal too ?

I ask because I wonder if, from a point of view of branding / positioning, it would be feasible to particularly emphasise a possibly more holistic / organic approach to the whole place: that the kids can tend the nursery pets, or that you are active recyclers, or that there is individualised learning etc...

(not sure if I'm making myself clear... doubt it)

When I google "organic nurseries" children - I get only a small number of links and they're almost 100% about nurseries where plants are grown, so I wonder if it is possible to grab / 'own' this phrase as part of your USP / concept, IYSWIM.

This is also perhaps important for when there is a period in, say, a year or so's time when Organic food gets slated because some new study says it's all a rip off, or that it isn't sooo different from 'ordinary food' or when JO retires and the publicity machine focuses on traffic or immigation or whatever which makes the organic food element slightly less 'key.'

(am not suggesting it isn't key, and am not suggesting parents would 'stop caring' that the food a nursery serves isn't organic overnight)...

Doubtless it will be easier to talk infront of 20 screaming kids ?