Be a Playgroup Leader

One of the big attractions MOYC has for prospective members is the playgroups that it offers. Currently, we have the Create and Playgroup on Fridays that is open to all ages and all members.

MOYC also organizes more intimate age appropriate playgroups for members. Each playgroup has approximately six to eight members.

One of the challenges the playgroup coordinator faces when forming a new playgroup is finding a playgroup leader. Many people are hesitant to take on the responsibility.

What exactly does a playgroup leader do? Here it goes.

When the playgroup coordinator, which this year is Dana Landis, gets enough members with children together to form a group, she forwards the names and phone numbers of those members to the person who has volunteered to be the playgroup leader.

The playgroup leader is then responsible for contacting each of the people on the list, determining what time and day of the week will work best for the group, and scheduling the first meeting.

At the first meeting, the group can decide what types of places that they want to meet, in homes, at parks, or other activity locations.

The playgroup leader puts together a contact list with names, addresses, emails, the names of the child and birthdate, and distributes it to the members. The playgroup leader also puts together the decided upon schedule of locations.

The playgroup leader is also the point of contact for incoming members and lets the MOYC playgroup coordinator know if they need more members.

Even the closest knit playgroup will change based on school schedules, dance classes, Mother’s Day Out, and work schedules. In order to keep a playgroup ongoing, it is good to have an open policy on new members.

I’ve been a member of a playgroup with each of my two girls. The playgroup for my older daughter met at a rotating schedule of parks. Each week, a different person was listed as a “back-up.” The back-up person was responsible for deciding on an alternate location in case of rain and calling people and letting them know.

The playgroup for my younger daughter started when she was just a little over a year old last year. Since the playgroup was for babies and toddlers, we decided to do Kids in Action on Thursday and met at homes the alternating weeks.

Since our children were now more mobile, we decided to move to parks this past summer and also met a little earlier to beat the heat.

So do you have what it takes to be a playgroup leader? Can you use the phone and write a list? Well then, yes you do!

Are you new and don’t know anyone? Well that’s what playgroups are for!

Don’t know where to have the playgroups, we’ve got it covered! The resource section of kingwoodmoyc.org has directions and maps to many of the parks in Kingwood. If you need directions to a park that isn’t listed, email me and I’ll give you directions.

The “Thinks to Do” page on kingwoodmoyc.org lists a number of activities to do as a playgroup outing.

Below are some places to go on rain days.