General Chat

How about having just one session a week for a mixture of the groups and perhaps just seperate them off?

If you were near me I'd book my son in now :) joanne

Oh Thanks joanne. Yeah will think about that one Robyne. I'm going to print all your comments off and show my friend later. cheers.x ;)

sounds liek a fab idea. don't have kids myself but have a lot of friends who do who would gladly welcome something like this in their local area Nichola x

Hi Catherine, I work in a children's nursery and would offer the comment that if you charge termly you could spend half the term chasing some of the fees from some parents. Better to charge as and when if it's only for an hour or so a session.

Hi Helen The reason we thought fees upfront is in a way to keep your child's place in the 'club' as it were. Fees would be requested upfront, along with the joining fee. That's why the first session would be free, to see if they liked it. My daughter does gymnastics and all fees are charged like this, if she dosen't go then she looses out and so do I cos I have paid upfront. Maybe for a couple of times we could do it as a pay now thing. I have worked in nurseries before, and this was one area where (maybe the only one I worked in) the staff and managers didn't encourage messy play, we even had a woman from surestart come in with huge trays of paint with cling film over for the children to put their hands in.You can guess this eventually went everywhere and no-one apart from me and the kids were impressed. Such as shame,cos it wasn't organised properly, ie: kids wearing old clothes etc.

I think it's an excellent idea Catherine. Dianne xx

£4 sounds a lot especially to us on low incomes. And as for paying for a term I wouldn't pay upfront. None of the Nurseries I have sent my children to have had that its weekly and the play places they go to its when you go. My ones had memberships and then got a reduced rate each time we went and some of them also do the first monday of each month is free if you are a member. As a guide for you I pay £2 for tiddler for one and half hours of play and activities with drink and biscuit and if I want a tea/coffee I pay 50p.

Mine are all grown Catherine, but they all loved the painting. With daddies old shirts on! LOL I think you will probably do very well. Good luck. Deanna X

Thanks Deanna and everyone else for your advice and kind words in our venture. I'm so excited that I have finally found something I want to do that I love. I have spent the last 6 years doing this voluntary for my Rainbows and It's time to put my skills to good use and make some money too. I will still do my rainbows as I love it. catherine