Right, wise and clever MNetters. Tell me the best and worst thing about your M&T group and what your ideal one would be like.

[Olihan]

I've just joined the committee of our village M&T group and we want to introduce a bit of change but need some ideas of what will (or won't) work.

So, what do you like about yours, what would you change and what's your general opinion on it?

What sort of activities are available and what would you like to see? Same with toys, etc.

Also, how does the setting up/tea & coffee/tidying away work? Is it just committee members or does everyone muck in?

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[mrsgboring]

I go to three M&T groups and like them all for different reasons.

All of them have helpers who set up and do tea and coffee. Singing at the end is brilliant - in fact singing in the middle (as one of our groups does) might be even better, as it means mums who have to go and do a school pickup etc can leave early without missing it.

Two groups do snacktime food for children which is great, but one doesn't, which is hard on my greedy DS but better for those with food allergies. Consult mums on what food should be available.

Toys: think big toys that may or may not be available at home - lots of sticklebricks, lego, a layout of Brio track nailed down to a board for ease of playing, big car garage with lots of cars and a dolls house with people and furniture, lots of play food, with kitchen, cups and plates. Separate baby area with mats to lay babies down on and baby toys. A play house / wendy house is a mixed blessing as it causes fights, unless you can run to a really big one so it's not all about pushing each other in and out of the door. If you have an outside area, get lots of outside toys, ride-ons etc. You can sign up to get things like this from the current Tesco sports equipment promotion. There should be a policy of regularly reviewing and buying more toys from funds - the group I go to which does this has by far the best toys.

One of my groups does craft - you volunteer to provide a craft activity on a rota. At that one, there's also a rota for setting out and cleaning up, which you sign up for, but at the others you don't have to do it at all. All groups everyone tidies the toys away though.

Last but not least, one of my groups "The Committee" decided it was a bad example to eat biscuits in front of the children and stopped providing biscuits for mums. This is a terrible idea don't do it. Seriously I nearly stopped going at the sheer cant of it. Especially when a whole toy McDonalds set complete with till and Drive Thru speaker appeared in the play food.

[Slubberdegullion]

At my M&T group we have a rota (that everyone is encouraged to sign up for) .
Jobs are:
Door duty (opening door at start and end for people with pushchairs and locking the door so kids don't escape.
Setting out and putting away (2 people)
Refreshments (2 people)
Craft activity.

We have 2 rooms, one full of all the big toys and a baby area at one end, and the smaller room for the craft table and mega blocks, train set etc.

We do tea/coffe & posh biscuits for the grown ups (must stop saying Mums as we have 3 Dads and 2-3 child minders that come), and water/squash and plain biscuits for the children.
There is currently a revolt happening in my commitee to instate toast at snack time.[the horrors of it]

We do singing at the end including happy birthday.

We have recently bought a mini bouncy castle and at the end of each term have a party (with face painting, cake, baloons, music etc).

What I would like to change is more people helping out on the rota as I seem to be doing everything at the moment!

[Slubberdegullion]

Olihan where abouts in Cheshire are you....and have you just joined my commitee????

[Slubberdegullion]

Just looked at your piccies, I don't recognise your (beautiful) DC, but I am a bit rubbish at remembering faces

[MuffinMclay]

I go to 2, and like one much more than the other.

Number 1:
-Walking distance
-lots of good toys
-lots of space to run around
but
-very disorganised - tea/coffee arrangements very haphazard and don't always happen
-nobody really in charge, no register of names, nobody welcomes new people or tells them how things work
-other mothers not so friendly to new people or outsiders
-some mothers seem to deliberately leave early so that they don't have to help tidy away!

Number 2:
-craft activities for those who want them
-sing song at the end (children seem to like that, although I could happily live without it)
-properly organised by a lady who doesn't have children with her so isn't distracted by all that - she opens up, makes tea, remembers birthdays etc
-people take it in turns to set up, but everyone mucks in really

Both are very small village groups though, with maybe 10-15 children.

My mother runs a brilliant M&T group which has about 50 children each week. They have craft activities in a quiet side room, lots of toys and climbing frames, and things like bouncy castles and ball pits.

[Fimbo]

I used to be on the committee of our local one and what a nightmare that was.

No-one wants to take a turn making the tea/coffee so usually that ends up with the committee members making it (whilst you ignore your child!) - the remedy to this is to say no tea/coffee unless people are willing to put their name on the rota, this usually shames 1 or 2 but not them all.

Putting toys away at the end - there will be the usual few who slop off leaving it to the usual volunteers.

Child minders will turn up with a squad of children (happened constantly at ours and is not a go at childminders but they used to sit and chat with their other childminder pals and ignoring Johnny bashing the living daylights out of wee Suzie etc).

We went round boot sales etc looking for good quality toys to save on funds - we ended up with loads of Little Tikes stuff, half of which is not made anymore i.e. a beauty salon with chair. What we thought about doing was if the children got fed up of certain toys then you could if it is unusual i.e. the beauty salon - sell it on Ebay and then plough the profit back in to purchase other stuff.

My ds also liked running round at the end when the hall was empty. Sometimes we used to get the brooms out and let the children "help" sweep up. Although usually they turned them into "horsies".

[Olihan]

Ooh, lots of ideas, thank you all .

Pruners, like the idea of letting them charge round the empty room at the end. When the rrom's full and all the toys are out there's not much space for running about.

mrsb, will bear that in mind about the biscuits . Toys are our biggest problem as far as I can see at the moment as we don't really have enough to vary what is out each week. Although we do have a very healthy bank balance so we will be remedying (sp?) that asap.

Slubber, I'm in South Cheshire, near Nantwich/Tarporley. I'm not on your committe as we only have one (very long, skinny) room but someone on MN goes to mine as it's on MN local and it's a tiny village. We do toast for the kids and to my mind it's a PITA as whoever is on snack duty spends their entire time in the kitchen buttering frigging toast! I'm working on my encouraging skills, our rota is full of the same names, strangely.

Muffin, ours seems a bit haphazard at times because we're all mums with under 2's. I'd love someone with no dcs to help run it.

Fimbo, yep, I'm starting to realise it perhaps wasn't the wisest move . I spent all day today running around like the proverbial fly, totally ignoring my own dcs and getting pissed off with all the nannies who come after set up then leave as soon as tidying up starts. Grrrr. Like the idea of car boots and selling on old stuff, that's definitely worth looking into.

[pinkdolly]

Hi Olihan,

I have not long taken over the running of our church toddler group. I am introducing a welcome pack to give to new members. With details about who we are, members of the team, contact details, registration forms, other activities/events offered by the church etc. And a small toy for the child, this doesn't have to cost much.

Also do you have any Toy libraries near you. We have joined and it's great, you can hire out good quality toys, some very expensive to buy in the shops, but you pay say a pound for 2 weeks. Then you takle them back and swap them for something else. Yesterday I took out the following,

1-Giant yellow bike, with extra stand on the bike.
1- wooden aeroplane ride-on toy
1- giant activity centre for babies
3- wooden push-along toys
1- electronic hop scotch
1- pedal thingy

All for 4.90 for 2 weeks. I was really pleased. Our toy library has such a wide selection, and you can have toys that you would otherwise would not be able to afford.

We have always provided, tea/coffee for the mums and a healthy snack for the children. I have just brought in biscuits for the parents which is proving to be very popular.

We offer crafts, stories, games. Plenty of free play. After snack we clear away all the toys and get the bikes out so they can race around the church which they love.

We are also aiming to do some things for the parents. We have found that someone in our local area will come in and teach first aid to parents and their babies. And hopefully will be able to offer other classes to parents.

hope that helps,
sorry about the mini essay

[slowreader]

I used to think hammocks and a bar would be nice. But I didn't go very often.