How to: Start your own Mama MeetUp
When my neighbor Irene Koo started a Mama MeetUp for the moms on our street, it was like a revelation to me: Go out? For dinner? With adults? It took only a blink of an eye to decide I was in.
“I was having supper with two of our neighbors and they asked whether I invited other people on the street. I said no, but I should have!” recalls Koo, a Toronto mom of twin boys.
She quickly organized a monthly dinner out at a local restaurant, which would allow both stay-at-home and working moms to participate and have the freedom to chat without kids underfoot. “We needed a break,” she explains. “Moms needed the time together, not the kids.”
While it’s much easier to join a MeetUp already in progress (just check out our new Mama Meetup Directory), creating a new group isn’t all that difficult. It just takes a bit of thought and planning. Here’s how to get started:
Coming up with a focus
- Will it be just for moms or combined with a playgroup?
- Who is the group for: stay-at-home moms, working women, pregnant women, moms of multiples, etc?
- What will the group name be?
- How often will you get together and when?
- Will membership be limited or open?
- Will there be membership fees?
Planning the activities
When getting together, what will you do?
- If just for moms, consider a dinner date, a spa afternoon, a movie night, an evening walk, a cocktail hour.
- If playgroup, will it be educational, activity-based or informal?
- Educational: hiring a sign-language instructor, a music-class teacher, a baby-and-me fitness instructor, etc.
- Activity-based: Every session is based on one theme, such as arts & crafts, music, story-telling, sports, etc.
- Informal: Each week, you come up with a new idea – from an outing to the library, to hanging out at someone’s house, to a combination of educational and activity-based.
Determining the location
Another important consideration: where will the MeetUps occur?
- With a moms-only group, meeting out – away from the mess, the kids, etc. – may be the best option. But you can also rotate among members’ homes, so no one has to worry about playing host every time, or do a combination of both.
- With the kids in tow, picking a location becomes a bit more complicated, depending on the activity and the number of children involved. Again, rotating among members’ homes is one option. But you can also look into booking or renting a space at a local church, community center or park (some parks do not allow free MeetUps when the group exceeds a certain number). Make sure the location has washroom access, stroller parking, enough room for children to run around safely – because as much as you hope, they will not all sit in that circle to sing songs – shelter if outdoors, clean-up staff if you don’t want to be responsible, and any other amenities for your particular activity.
Publicizing the group
You’ve come up with the greatest Mama MeetUp group ever. Now, how do you get the word out?
- List your group in MySweetBaby’s new Mama Meetup Directory, of course.
- Email all your contacts, and ask them to email theirs.
- Post your group at community centers, toy stores, neighborhood associations, area daycares, libraries, and any other local family-frequented spots.
Keeping in touch
While Koo’s group sticks to a simple email about the next MeetUp or any other relevant information (new babysitter in town! Baskin Robbins is only 31 cents tonight!), you can certainly go bigger:
- Create a Facebook page.
- Relay messages via Twitter.
- Invite members to a shared Google Docs document, where you can post a calendar of events.
- Send automated messages via PhoneTree.
- Poll members to determine what they’d like to do next or any changes they’d like to request through SurveyMonkey.
Koo’s advice: “Just do it. Don’t worry about the structure too much. We have no real criteria, no real rules.” If the planning and execution gets too stressful, share the responsibilities or hand it over to a willing someone in the group. The last thing you want is to make more work for yourself – you’re looking for fun and a chance to relax, not to add an extra headache to your already busy day.
Although the mom’s group has been wonderful for getting to know new moms, receiving advice and sharing resources, for Koo, the greatest reward has been the community spirit – from increasing street safety, to sharing childcare duties to borrowing a missing ingredient. “It’s the kind of street people imagine they’d like to live on,” she says. “I think it’s been a successful group.”
