anyone have any experience of setting up a baby musical class

[cilitbang]

I feel in our town there is a real need for more mother and baby groups. I would like to set up a 'baby musical class' Jo-jingles type of thing.
Just wondered if anyone had any experience of setting one up, what's involved, is it viable as a business or will it be more stress than its worth?

Baby music or toddler/pre-schooler music?

I'm wondering if parents could do with help learning/remembering songs. A chance to learn and swap songs in a group might be handy for some.

We used to go to a group in Bristol called Wiggles and Giggles which was set up by a mum part-time in her dining room and now she hires a hall every day and employs other people, so I think it can work as a business. She may even consider franchising in other areas of the country if you google her and track her down.

I go to a thing called Kindermusik, try googling them. The lady rents a room at the back of a church. It has a whole programme, instruments etc.

I have taken DD to both Baby College and Caterpillar Music

Caterpillar Music definitely offer franchise opportunites, and this may be a route worth exploring (I would assume that a franchise would give you the structure & support to help with things like health & safety, insurance, planning the sessions, etc). Of course, there will be loads of other franchise opportunities in this space, have a look at one of the loads of websites out there advertising these.

I work for a jo jingles franchisee and I always think she must be raking it in! Check out details here though they seem a bit out of date!

Took Dc to this class www.songsgalore.org whish was set up by a girl on her own with a young son. Think there's a pretty good demand for this sort of thing. Setting up on your own is expensice but all the money you make is your own and you can tailor session to what suits you.DCs

I went to a non-franchise one with ds - the franchise ones around us seemed a bit manic - we're doing this now, the tapes doing that, we've got to hand things in now and do this... The one I went to was more relaxed - 40 mins session, with a 5min swap-over period between classes - allowed more time to make allowances for the children and to respond to them. Each session had a theme - sometimes a theme went for two sessions - and we'd do some familiar songs and perhaps a new one or two - different classes for different age groups. Most significant outlay would be getting sufficient instruments together to provide good variety (normally had 2 different per session, but sometimes there would be a teddy or something else that related to the subject. Also have to work quite hard getting tapes ready for the sessions (but then, once you've done the tape you can reuse that specific one at a later stage)

Mistle, the one you describe sounds exactly like the Caterpillar Music sessions we go to. Caterpillar Music is, err, a franchise Mind you, the lady who runs ours is just fabulous, so perhaps that's the difference.

Ah - well I was contrasting it to the JoJingles experience I had which was very much 'head down, this is what we're doing and the children will just have to adapt to this structure..' Clearly there are others that I haven't heard about before that are more like the one we went to - so, OP, if you're going for a franchise, choose carefully!

I am a mum of 3 and started Music Bus in Sussex 11 years ago now.
If you enjoy being with children and love singing and music,then it's a great business that fits around the family. Financially, it can be very rewarding as well.
If you would like to find out more about how to go about setting up your own music group, please get in touch.I also run training days for individuals interested in starting their own local group.
((www.musicbus.com))

Oops, the link for Music Bus didn't come out properly but hopefully should work this time www.musicbus.com fingers crossed