Bumps, Babes, and Beyond Summer 2016 | Page 11

NCTeenies is a stay and play toddler group held at Staines Congregational Church, on the corner of Kingston Road and Stainash Crescent,TW18 1AY. The group is aimed at children from 1-4 years old (although younger siblings are very welcome, we have a seperate baby area for the little ones to play).

We have a fantastic range of toys, including trampolines, a slide, ride-on cars, a toy kitchen, dolls house, train track, puzzles and a car garage. We also run a singing session at the end of each session before we tidy away.

There is no need to book you can just turn up and we ask for a £2 donation towards the running costs. You can help yourself to tea, coffee, squash and biscuits for the little ones (or a sneaky one for the adults!)

We are entirely run by volunteers, all of whom are Mums who come to the group with their own children, this means that we need at least two, but ideally three, regular volunteers, because with only one person if any of the children are unwell (which we all know happens at lot with kids), then the group has to be cancelled at late notice. And currently we only have one regular volunteer, which is me!

The volunteer roles are really straughtforward: the main thing we need is extra people to help set up the hall before the group starts at 9.45am. Many hands make light workof all those toys, so the more volunteers the better. I actually always find that my daughter loves the set-up, because there's not so many kids competing for her favourite toys!

We would also love a volunteer to take on arranging some weekly crafts for the children. These don't need to be complicated, in the past they've relied heavily on paper plates,crepe paper and toilet roll tubes, but it's fantastic to have this.

Finally, we need some sypport to arrange the Christmas Party this year, in particular we need help with arranging the raffle and the party games.

Getting involved really doesn't need to take much time: you can arrive at 9.15am for the set-up, or spend a short time organising some crafts the night before. All of our volunteers are regular attendees anyway, so the extra time required to help out is hardly anything.

If you think you'd like to get involved in any way, email Katie: [email protected]

What is NCTeenies?

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by Katie Griffiths