Talked to my mum about starting a new group yesterday, just as a real life, no personal interest type sounding board and managed to get quite excited about it again – clearly unfinished business there then!
This morning I have had a couple of scary letters so I bit the bullet and made a couple of phone calls and instead of not picking the phone up when it rang with withheld numbers I answered it both times it rang today on the basis I’d rather know about something about to happen and try and prepare myself for it. Anyway both calls were from HomeEducators, one asking about the Worthing Group (is that news travelling very fast or A Sign? 😉 ) and one trying to track down a HEer she used to know who lived on a houseboat and had a child called ‘Noname’ or something equally out there. Clearly not the sort of HEer *I’d* be in contact with ;-). I told the bloke after a local group roughly what he could expect if he came along to one I was considering setting up and he was really up for that, so my first attendee recruited!
So my vision for a group then, for Joyce, reading from her duvet 😉
Venue – needs to be accessible to public transport, have adequate and free parking, be ground floor, have some sort of kitchen and toilet facilities although a kettle and a bucket could suffice ;-), have tables and chairs, not be too immaculate ;-), an outside space would be utterly fab but not essential and it needs to cost no more than about £10 an hour. Worthing area ideally over to the west of the town as that is the direction the gap is in although not too far as that is moving away from me!
Group – running for two or three hours. As good a mix of ages and gender and educational philosophies as comes really. I guess I’d be striving to replicate what was good about WAG on a good session and that was:
A weekly theme which most attendees brought something related to – a craft activity, an idea for a game, some books or posters.
Fairly structured activities with very little of the running completely wild for two hours although I am not averse to a last half hour of that aslong as there is no wilful descruction going on with it.
The main aims for me are some socialising – the chance for the children to be in a room full of other Home Educated children for a couple of hours a week, the chance to engage with peers (which I consider to be any child under about 13 rather than within a year’s age range of them), the chance to participate in activities as a team and allow skills such as leadership, teamwork, cooperation and so to develop. And the chance for me to meet other local HE parents/carers. I enjoy the sitting and drinking tea while debating the ups and downs of our lifestyle choice for an hour a week rather a lot!
I do know that the possibility of grants and other fundraising is possible although that would be a bit of a back burner type priority.
I would like to use the benefit of being a group to get discounted entry to places and organise field trips / educational trips. I would also like to get in people occassionally to run music sessions, drama sessions, science workshops etc although it is possible that there might be parents or contacts within the group who can provide this.
It’s not so far away from where we started in the very beginning last time but I think there were too many of us involved in what the group would be about and too much politicising went on. Because I’d be doing it alone I would be less worried about ensuring every individuals needs were met and more inclined to say ‘this is what the group is, you either want to be part of that as it is or you don’t’….
The houseboat nutter hunter rang me! Then proceeded to ask me personnal questions about my life and children, our path to HE etc etc etc and are we joining the carnival. I don’t even know what her name was!
Shinies was refused a grant.
Two of the things I really like about you: 1)you can make me laugh at least once a day 2) You have control freak tendencies that nearly match my own, which is rather uplifting 🙂
Oh I hung up on her while she was drawing a breath having said ‘Sorry, no I don’t know any such person!’ 🙂
Joyce, I aspire to your tendancies and am working towards then 😉
Yes Public Transport – you put it right there at the start of your list of priorities! Thank you! It gets forgotten surprisingly often, am quite touched.
*thinks, we’ll get her on those lentils yet, evil laugh, mwahhahaha*
Seriously I think you will be far happier with a group that you start to your own requirements and where that is made clear from the start (i.e. yes you are a control freak and the best thing to do if you are one is to go with it, go with it, go with it, unless you are a meta-control freak in which case you would try to control your controllingness I really wish I could stop digressing like this sorry)
Good luck! Monday meetings of East Worthing WAGHEF are still publicized in newsletter I see, with your contact details and Hayley’s.
Oh arse! That’d be why I’m getting all the phonecalls and emails then wouldn’t it! 🙁 Will get that sorted for next month then, wonder what Hayley’s been telling people (giggle!).
And no, the public transport is so I can gather masses of loyal followers with easy access, due to my mad powercrazed controllingness, not an indication of me eating lentils anytime in this lifetime!
Aah you’ll be on a bus with a handbag full of Cheezly before you know it.