(Religion aside) what makes a good godparent?

[caffeinequeen]

First of all, SORRY if this has been done to death before but I was inspired by this thread and conscious that I've been rather neglectful of my two charges.
I am very touched to have been asked to be godmother by two close friends (they were both my bridesmaids). So I have a god daughter (aged 2.2) and a godson (aged 1.6). Dh and I don't have any dc of our own yet, though it's vaguely in the 5-year plan
I am aware of my spiritual responsibilities to both children. But I want to know what else I should be doing for them. Is is too soon? My godmother was a valuable unbiased adult voice from outside the family when I was going through my teens.
Babysitting to help parents out isn't overly easy as they're quite far away.
What would you expect/desire/award virtual brownie points for?

Hopeful bump? Are there really no thoughts on this?

hi - we chose our son's godparents for lots of reasons - religion being a small part of it. We felt they were loving and kind - they have been wonderful, supportive friends to us for many years. They are "solid" IYKWIM and a very loving couple ... we feel they would be good mentors/friends etc when our DS is older as well. They do live near and help out but it is more that we know they can be relied on to support our DS ... hope this helps a bit. It was a tough decision as i wanted my sister to be a godmother too, but maybe next time LOL!!!

Another bump? Anyone have any ideas?

Our kids have the same godparents, they are our oldest friends, we trust them and would expect of them:

to be a guide to our children,
to be someone to turn to should they feel that they could not talk to us or another member of the family.

traditionally the godparents were the people nominated by the parents to be the guardians of the children should anything happen to the parents, this is not the case with us, my sister would be our kids guardian but she is not a godparent, we didn't see the point in having someone who is already related to the children being given the role as they are already involved and our idea was to have someone outside the family they could go to.

We are religious but only one of our godparents is (and it's a different one!), we would hope that if religion was an issue that they would be guided as to our beliefs but mainly we hoped that they would act as a 'mentor' to the children.

We think, these people are important to us and should be to the children, obviously they will never be in the same way they are to us, so this is a nice way to keep them involved.

Our son is three and a half.
He has three godparents.
One is my brother, who is 24 and the other two, are two good Swedish friends. (We were living in Sweden at the time when he was created.)
The Swedish friends initially felt bad that they couldn't be as 'involved' with our son as the other children they are a godparent to in Sweden.
We told them all we wanted is for him to have people he can turn to (if he needs to) when he is older. To help foster this I said they should show some interest in him (which they do, they call and want to speak with him) That they acknowledge his birthday, just a card would be nice (well they always get him a pressie.)
Whenever they visit or we visit them, they are fab with playing with him, getting to know him and develop a bond.
His godparents are spiritual rather than religious I think is best to describe them: but they are great people who I know will always be there to show support when/if he needed it in the future.
Same as MammyM, these people are very important to us and we want our son to know what special people they are