Sling meets can be totally informal. You can meet in the park and go for a walk carrying your babies! Coffee shops and soft-play centres are always popular venues for a sling meet. But if you find that there are several parents attending, or perhaps more to the point, several toddlers, you may prefer to hire a venue where you won’t disturb other customers.
Setting up a regular sling meet, open to anyone, at a hired venue could be a low-key affair. But we have found that there is quite a lot to think about to ensure the meet runs smoothly. So we at Oxford Sling Meet formed a committee and this guide is an attempt to share some of the thoughts we had through the process of setting up a new group.
We decided that we wanted each parent (or carer) who came to the meet welcomed, offered tea/coffee, and given the chance to ask questions about babywearing and take part in demonstrations. Babies needed a safe floor space with some suitable toys; toddlers needed a play area and toddler-friendly snacks. We also run Oxfordshire Sling Library where parents can try various slings and select one to borrow at home. This is the story of how we have tried to ensure that this takes place at our sling meets.
We experimented with different types of meet, some more formal or organized, some informal ‘roving meets’ in the park. We eventually settled on a large meet once a month including the library. The room you are using for your meet should ideally have plenty of space, tea and coffee facilities, a mirror, a teddy bear/doll for pregnant mums to practise with, and both baby and toddler zones. You’ll need loos and a change mat too. We hire a large church hall which has a toddler play area with lots of popular toys, a sofas-and-carpet area for parents with younger babies, space on tables to display our library stock and catalogues with a mirror for trying on slings and a demo doll, a separate table for the librarian to administer sling hires, a stage area which is used for group demonstrations of particular slings or carries, a kitchen for making hot drinks which can be closed off to inquisitive toddlers, and a toilet. The venue also includes an enclosed garden which is handy on warmer days or very busy meets when we need more space. This venue has been very successful for us and we are lucky to be able to hire it for a reasonable rate.
To help the meets run smoothly the committee members take on different roles. Our group’s Chair is the Welcomer, greeting attenders particularly parents who have come for the first time, and making a group announcement early during the meet to explain the running of the morning. The Sling Demonstrator helps parents try on slings and organises the group demonstrations, responding to any particular requests from attenders (sometimes these are organised in advance in response to requests on our Yahoo chatgroup). The Librarian organises library hires during the meet. Our Treasurer and Webmistress are involved in sling demonstrations and helping parents individually; the Treasurer also sets up the refreshments, and the Webmistress brings milk and snacks. Because our meets can get busy (we typically have between 20-35 parents attending each month) it really helps that there are five of us involved in running the group; it also helps when we have a core group of ‘regulars’ and more experienced babywearers attending the meets.
One aspect which has been central to the paperwork (and practice) of our group is liability. We live in a litigious age! We need to take reasonable care to ensure that attendees at a meet are safe. We have risk assessed our venue and activities, and have arranged insurance for our meets. In general even if you don’t purchase insurance it makes sense to think through the risks and make sure that you minimise them. One sticking point has been that so far we have not been able to arrange insurance for the sling library.
If you’re hiring a venue, how are you going to cover the rent, tea and biscuits? A ‘suggested donation’ per session, like a playgroup, keeps it fair. Keeping a record of who comes is a requirement for fire regulations – we have a sign-in sheet that includes a space for attenders to request to join our chatgroup, and a tickbox for attenders who wish not to be included in photographs we take for promotional purposes (e.g. publishing on our blog). This also allows us to maintain some statistics of how many parents and little ones are attending meets. Next to the sign-in sheet we have a pot for the donation. You may have some rules to set out, or information about the group, and this is a good opportunity to have a disclaimer clause, too. We display a ‘Welcome’ sheet with basic information about the group and how the meets work, and alongside this we display babywearing resources, flyers etc that parents can take away.
We have a Constitution which sets out the basics of the group – and is a pre-requisite for bank accounts, and grant applications. It is worth including
- Is the meet open to all?
- What is your policy on sales at meets – can vendors use the meet to advertise?
- Who is responsible for what?
- Responsibility for children at meets (this is a great opportunity for a disclaimer clause)
- Money (what will happen to any profit?) – we decided to make our group non-profit-making, so that any proceeds are put back into running the group, and we explain this on our Welcome sheet. If you’re going to set up a bank account, you’ll need a business plan too. With setting up a bank account comes the need for accounts and a Treasurer. You might not want a bank account, but you will need one if you are going to apply for any grants, or run a library with hire fees.
In addition, there are Health and Safety matters to think about: Do you have an Accident Book, or can you use one provided by your venue? Are any of the committee First Aid trained – and where would you find a first aid box? How about Equal Opportunities and Child Protection? We have written basic policies covering these issues, with guidance from a local toddler group. We also have an arrangement with a local family centre that should any child protection issues ever arise we can discuss these with the centre manager. A very important aspect of Health and Safety at meets is the question of diffusion of risk – if a mum is trying a carry for the first time, she needs to have a ‘spotter’ to check the baby doesn’t fall; but the baby remains her responsibility, not the spotter’s. We are careful to avoid handling other parents’ babies during demonstrations (apart for example holding a baby at the parent’s request while the parent dons a sling). Anyone demonstrating a sling uses their own child or a doll. Have you done a risk assessment of the room you are meeting in? It is worth writing this down and keeping it in a file! You probably want to check the room each meet and be continually wary of the hot-drinks hazard.
Publicity for the group is key to ensuring that it is a success! You culd produce flyers or posters with your contact information – a publicity leaflet should state what the purpose of the meet is, where and when you meet, and maybe include group rules and a disclaimer of liability. We have found it helpful to be included in the local NCT information for new mothers. A website presence is also useful if you have someone with the skills to run it and keep it up to date. Which websites do you want to link to – and are you happy for your website to link to commercial websites? In addition to our website we run a Yahoo chatgroup which everyone is welcome to join and we use this to advertise meets and other events.
It was certainly a lot of work to set up our group, but it was also an exciting time seeing it all come together, and now everything is in place it is much more manageable to keep it running. We gained a lot from learning about other sling meets – notably, Manchester, Surrey and Preston – and also found valuable support on two UK babywearing forums (www.naturalmamas.co.uk and www.slingmeet.co.uk). We hope that this guide will not put you off running a sling meet – but rather make it easy for you to set up your own group in your local area! Please treat it as a checklist rather than a to-do list. It is immensely rewarding to be involved in setting up a new initiative and we really enjoy our group.
Thanks to the Oxford Sling Meet group for sharing their story of how they set up their group. We hope it may inspire some more babywearers out there to set up their own group.
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