Halloween party idea!

Today I am calling local active adult communities in hopes of landing an awesome event. Our Halloween party is taking place during the week; and we thought it would be fun to go trick or treating together. Seeing as this Halloween takes place on a Sunday it is going to be hard to do. Too many dads have to get up in the morning to go to work, and most go to church that day. Instead what we have come up with is throwing our party at an active adult community room, and trick or treating our residents....
How cool is that? Some of these resident have no families around and rarely see young kids.
Here is how I am planning to do this. Next week I will pass around door hangers giving the residents information about what day and tine we will trick or treat. If the resident wants to participate they can place the door hanger on their door they day of trick or treating. I also figured our door hanger should include volunteer info for our child care program in case they would interested. Retirees are perfect candidates to watch children for our mom's day off event; they are readily available on weekdays!

Hopefully the idea will work and I'll post a review in November!
Happy Halloween!

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Fitted Leaders

I am not the best playgroup organizer. I know I could do so much better than what I do. However, I do know that I was meant to be an organizer. I thoroughly enjoy what I do.  It's only natural for me to take on leadership positions in other mom's group as well, but I know my place.

I am an assistant coordinator for my military MOPS group. I love MOPS, but there are some positions in MOPS I could never fit no matter how hard I try. Discussion Group Leaders is one of them.

A Discussion Group Leader manages about 6-10 moms in a subgroup of MOPS. She initiates conversation, mediates it, maintains it, and help cultivate friendships within the intimate group. WAIT A MINUTE! Am I a walking hypocrite?I can organize a mom's group but I can't innate conversation, mediate it, and maintain it? I can't help cultivate friendships? Sure I can. However, I would have to avoid a few strong personalities traits I have.

Sometimes I'm overwhelming. My personality gets to be too much around certain people. In conversations, I tend to dominate it, not nurture it. I know this; and I am working on it; but it's a natural instinct, so I just don't think that I would do as well as others in the position. My Discussion Group Leader in a different MOPS is pretty quiet, she has no problem with letting others have their say. She also is encouraging, and can jump in if the conversation starts to die. She keeps the group balanced. That is a good discussion group leader, and why I would could not do well. I like the spot light too much.

I could never lead a MOPS group either. My assistant coordinator position is the highest I can ever go, because while I am Christian, I am not someone destined to enlighten others. I'm very opinionated when it comes to religion, and MOPs is a Christian organization, but supports mothers of all religions. I know that I could not fulfill the Christian leadership correctly.

So where does lead to? What I am trying to say is that when you are looking for assistants, you need to know first what personalities and qualities that will fit the role. Sometimes it will be easy; like a finance person must be good with numbers, and balancing a budget. However some positions are a little more tricky. So here are come questions you can use to help figure out selecting your playgroup leaders! Happy organizing!

Questions
What is the leaders duties?
What personality traits is best for this?
Who is going to work closely with them?
What experience do they have?
What is the person's strength and weaknesses?

Recipe: Rice Mice

This recipe's orginal credit goes to familyfun.com. Unfortunetly, their instructions were not percise, and it left you with no idea how much of rice, cream cheese, and yogurt to use.

So we did some playing around. I choose to use string cheese for the tails instead of the chives. I also decided to use fresh sugar snap peas because I thought the kids would like snapping them apart. After cooking the rice and letting it cool, I tried mixing the rice with cream cheese. I used 2-3 tablespoons of fcream cheese, and 1 cup of  rice. I left out the yogurt because i cooked the rice in chicken broth, and didn't have any yogurt..so I figured it would taste good anyway.

Check out some the pictures from the playdate! Enjoy!

A Closer Look: Social Toddler

Social Toddler is a site specifically made for parenting your preschoolers (toddlers) and bring them out into social atmospheres. You can search, and run your own playgroup, find activites to do. Unfortunetly,  I am not very impressed.

Besides having a very limited system in comparison with other website I've used for organizing playgroup, social toddler does not compete well with search engine optimization. Plain an simple; for you non-geeky moms, that means when your search for 'playgroups' with your local area will not come up high in the list-- you are not going to get as much traffic as cafemom or meetup.com.

I have hopes. If it grows successfully, it will add in new features, and find new things to do in other local areas. Social Toddler does not cover my area; Spokane.

OK. Perhaps I'm bias. Check it our for yourself it may be what you are looking for!

Diversity!!

One thing that I love about playgroups is the opportunity to teach our children to be accepting of diversity. I've had trouble with acceptance in the past. When I was young, I had trouble being friendly to dark races; especially black. I still have problems knowing how to act around people with special needs.

I've been fortunate enough to meet mothers of different heritages. I met a mom whom came from the Netherlands, a couple originally from England, some from Canada. I've met blacks, Hispanics, Indian, and orientals. I've met mothers of special needs children.

One of my assistants has a sister with autism. I admit the first time I met her, I was uncomfortable (almost three years ago now!). I did my best to set the example for my children. Several months ago, we had a family of a special needs child join the playgroup. Although this is not the first time we had a special needs child join the group; this family stood out. This mother is super-mom. This child is no different that any other child in our playgroup.

I am happy to say that I am now overcoming my uncertainty of diversity. I have found that these special people; mothers, fathers, children; can teach us so much more than just acceptance. They teach us about life. They teach us about happiness. They teach about love. My heart is connected to all of them, and I hope I pass my love for them onto my children.

Participating in playgroups gives a family multiple advantages. Teaching children (and even ourselves) about acceptance of differences is a great one. If you ever have the opportunity, embrace the chance with open arms. Believe me, you'll be glad you did.

Group Rules

One question that a lot of newbie organizers ask is what 'rules' they should use for their group. I can tell you right now, I don't know. Every group is different. Ultimately, it depends on you and what you want out of your group. So here are the questions you need to ask yourself;

Are you going to organize on or offline?

If your organize offline, you'll need to have a regular meeting day, time, and place. You'll have to print out schedules, and a phone list for your members.

Online groups tend to have members that fall off the map or slack in parcipation. Some online groups have rules regarding consistant activity in playgroups, online activity, or RSVPs.

Do you have a set time and day or do you want diversity?

If you are planning on having multiple days, times, and places, you may want to also insure your attendance follows through. Many groups, esp. online groups may have an attendance requirement of attending so many playgroups in a certain time frame (for example, once every month.)

Do want a large group, or small group?

Some leaders want to inlcude everyone that would like to join. Some want to ensure they are really going to get to know all the members. To do so, organizers will limit the memberships and require their attendance to be frequent. The downside to this that members do grow out or graduate out of groups and finding new members might be harder than anticipated.

Is your group diverse in religious beliefs, race, culture, ethinicity?

Unfortnetly diversity can also bring about conflict. It can be toxic and may need to be controlled.  I am not saying groups should divide into pregigious arch-rivals. Sometimes diversity promotes growth and understanding; which is a good thing. If I remember correctly, the phrase from A Day No Pigs Will Die; "Fences bring men together". If your purpose for joining or running a playgroup is to connect with individual families who carry a specific simiularity like religion or race, by all means; state this in your group rules.


How should allergies, sicknesses,  and chronic diesases be handled?

Sometimes children can be deathly allergic to foods, such as peanuts, where even the smell can hurt them. When it comes to sickness, some families are very concerned about exposure, while others do not even shudder at continuious coughing and running noses. The question organizers should consider is how to handle allergies should the issue come up. Should all members be unable to bring certain foods? Is there a process in place for emergencies? Should members with specific allergies be excluded from certain activities?

Is solitation allowed in the group?

Many moms try to supplement income by running businesses out of their home. On occasion, you will find a mom joining seemingly only interested in promoting their business. If this is a concern for your group, you may want to develop rules for this, and the concequences for violation.

In the beginings of my adventures in organizing, I believed that rules were needed. Two years ago, I had enough of rules, and tried to organize as rule-free as possible. I'm still trying to find a happy medium. I can say this--if you choose to implement rules, you MUST apply them to everyone in the group; You must have consquences and you must follow through them as well. Otherwise you'll end up with a half-baked group and two eggs short of a waffle.

Stay tuned for more on advice on groups guidelines in the weeks to come!!! Happy Organizing!!

Media and Playgroup Discrimnation

Time for a personal, emotional post. It never crossed my mind that I would EVER want to write about this, but I had an epipheny as I was brushing my teeth last night. This is something that desperately needs to get out there.

It is completely natural to protect our children from threats; but aren't we going a tad bit overboard? I'm not talking about rubbing sanitizer on our hands or even putting on those grocery cart covers. I'm talking about extreme measures we take; like not allowing them to use the public restroom, or play in a community pool because of the possibility of germs.

THIS (not quite) JUST IN: germs are everywhere. Do you know how many germs at in an ER room? You  don't avoid taking your child to the ER if they are extrememly sick do you? For your child's sake I hope not. Why is it that our children's phyiscal health so much more important than their mental and emotional health? I'm serious. If you limit your child from participating in fun activities because of germ, you are limiting them from enjoying the life that you strive so hard to preserve.

Media hype tend to send people in a whirlwind frenzy. Even blood relatives did not want to visit with me for fear of getting 'infected' (Since when did I become a walking diease?) Here's where I get rather upset. I was removed from a playgroup (over a year ago now!) because the leader considered me a 'threat'. At the time, I was struggling with relaspes from an infectious diesase. Normally removal is a matter of unreconcible differences, or violating guidelines; which is understandable. This dismisal is completely out of line because;

• I never attended a playdate if I had an active infection
• I am very good about keeping hands clean and santized
• My household members have been free of infections (at the time) for over a year! (Now it's almost two years! I might also add I am cured, but no--I'm not rejoining that playgroup).

"I don't feel comfortable........ Afterall, I have a newborn to think about" the leader emailed. YEAH. At the time, I was eight months pregnant; I also had a newborn to think about. Doctors assured me I have nothing to worry about. "From things I've read and talking to family members who agree, I'm going to ask that you and your children do not attend playdates."

So here's my bone and I'm gonna pick it. Should we limit who our families interact with because of their health history for 'chance' of becoming infected? Absolutely Not! Ask any doctor, and they will tell you, unless your child is a specail health risk, you are more at risk by going to the grocery store than by playing with someone with a history.

So.....stop freaking out about the latest Media hype. The people being hospitalized for it is only a small percentage, and most of those infected experience a very mild case. If you educate yourself on the symptoms and follow directions to prevent, you shouldn't have a problem. AND If you are really concerned talk to your family doctor-- not the media.