In article .com,
wrote:
My 3-year-old daughter and I are in a wonderful playgroup that we've
been attending since her birth. We've been meeting one weekday morning
a week, plus having once-a-month "mom's night out" dinners.

Most of the group is stay-at-home moms, with several of us working part
time. For the past 3 years, we've all been arranging our schedules
around this group because we really want to stick together. Some of use
schedule our work schedules around it, we don't take certain classes
because of the conflict, and so on.

Next fall, nearly all the children are starting preschool. Some will go
Mon/Wed/Fri and some Tues/Thurs, which means there is no day we can
continue meeting when most people can come.

Have you been in a playgroup like this that survived preschool and
stayed in close touch? Any tips on how to do this?

We're spread over a fairly large geographical area, so we don't
generally all run into each other as part of other community events or
organizations.

We've considered:
-- we will definately will keep having the mom's night outs, but we
don't think that will be enough to maintain the cohesiveness we have
now.
-- We might have 2 playdates a week, one for each sub-group. We worry
that this will deteriorate -- if we have a bunch of weeks where only 2
or 3 people show up, it will probably fall apart.
-- We talked about meeting in the afternoons, but most of the
3-year-old nap then. Many people have younger kids too, who will be
napping for years to come.
-- meet occasionally on the weekend. Again, afraid attendance will be
low.

Any experience? We have about 12 kids in the group. The weekly
playgroups usually have 3-9 kids each time now.

The group I'm part of is surviving the preschool age just fine. It's
a large group these days -- maybe a dozen families with more than 20
kids. The oldest are 4 or 5 now, and many have 2-year-old siblings.
When the older kids moved from two naps to one, we shifted the time
from midday to late afternoon. When the group grew (a couple of families
joined and new siblings were born), hosting the group at people's
houses became a major chore, so we started renting out a church basement.

We now meet on Fridays from 4:00 to 6:00. It's perfect; lots
of space to run around in, a toy area, a kitchen that we can use,
and tables to eat at. One mom "hosts" each week, which basically
means making sure folks are bringing food and drinks and making sure
the place gets cleaned up at the end. There's often pizza or some
other substantial food, and always lots of munchies (healthy and
otherwise). Most weeks we celebrate somebody's birthday with cake.
Usually my girls eat enough at playgroup that I don't have to do much
about dinner. Nowadays the kids mostly entertain themselves while the
moms (and dads) get to sit and chat.

We also have a mailing list that helps keep us in touch. We're
constantly passing around information about local events and getting
up groups to go to concerts and such. We do a mom's night out every
few months.

My suggestions a
1) change the meeting time to late afternoon, post-nap, so everyone
can attend without affecting school, etc. It's still early enough to
get the kids home and to bed if you're going out that night. If the
food is right, you don't need to worry about making dinner.

2) find a meeting hall you can use so that nobody has to host

3) grow the group a bit so you have a critical mass.


Hope this helps!
- marty (mom to alex & andie, 5 years old)