I'm thinking of starting a mother and baby/toddler group............

[Eddas]

I have lots of ideas and have searched the archives on here and found some useful threads.

I really wanted to see if anyone on here has set one up? I'd love to get in contact if anyone has and is willing to answer any questions I have! Is there anything I need to know about legally, insurance wise? Obviously the parents stay so i would assume each child is still the esponsibility of the parent? Would anyone need first aid training?

I am thinking that this could be an off-shoot of the local preschool(i'm on the committee and have yet to approach them!) They only run in the mornings and I was thinking of an afternoon group a couple of days a week.

I would definately charge for a family not per child. Maybe £2.50 per family? They'd get a free drink/snack for that.

Would I be able to set this up quickly? DS is nearing 18 months so it'd be nice to get him doing something!

Any advice greatfully received.

TIA

If you are going to have the group at your home then I would think that £2.50 may be a bit much per week.

If you are planning to hold it in a local hall you should find out if there are charges for the space in which case you may need to get money up front. It might be worth looking into setting up something like this:

here

There was one run by the community where I used to live and it was brilliant. We all paid a membership fee which allowed us to borrow toys but also paid for the hall rental and a storage room for toys. Then we also had a parent and toddler group which we paid £1 to attend and covered coffees, snacks and juices for the little ones...

oh no, not in my house! I'd use the local church hall, hence the charge per family. I based the charge on another local village's charge(a friend is on the comittee for that one)

Right, well it might be worth looking into setting up a toy library - it works particularly well in a village community and is run by volunteers on a committee (most often parents). You have relative freedom in terms of how it is structured although toys do need to be available on loan (the group I belonged to just loaned out toys on the morning of the toddler group.)

thanks, i'll have a look at that. It sounds good, not sure about the storage issue, the church hall is pretty jam packed with things, but it does sound like a good idea. Children get bored with toys and it'd be nice to be able to swap them regularly.

I'm watching this thread, I'm a coordinator for Chums4Mums and want to start up a group.