2012年4月24日星期二

Now We Can Chat Here

Get Your Tots Out now opens our blog

You can communicate with both Nikki and Louise

We are happy to see all of you

We are going to update the information here as well


Please leave a message and tell us your ideas.


Get Your Tots Out


Hi, im Nikki Wilkinson, one of the founders of the Get Your Tots Out.
 
Get Your Tots Out is a community project, established in 2007, with the aim of helping parents find fund things to do with their pre school children.  It was set up by 2 Newcastle Mums, Louise Wilson and I, who were struck by the number of lonely or bored mothers they met and wanted to help.
Our initial idea was to produce a booklet, full of ideas about where to go and what to do.  This was funded by charitable donors and distributed via Health Visitors. (Community nurses who visit all new parents in their homes during the first months of a child’s life). The booklet was an immediate success. In year 2, we were contacted by Sure Start Newcastle, who asked them to update the booklet and offered to pay for the printing of 15,000 copies. These booklets were distributed by Sure Start Centres across the city and by Health Visitors.  Sure Start continued to fund an annual booklet until 2012 when the money ran out!
From 2009 – 2011 Get Your Tots Out also wrote a regular feature for the Chronicle Extra (Newcastle’s free paper).  Here we told parents about any new activities aimed at children (festivals, films, plays, exhibitions etc). This essentially fizzled out due to lack of time on our part and lack of space in the paper.  
We know that there are still thousands of parents out there who want ideas and suggestions for entertaining their kids. There is lots going on for children in the North East, but it isn’t always easy to find out about it.  Those in the know tend to book all the spaces very quickly.
We want to continue supporting local parents – making sure they know what’s happening and where to go.
We hope that moving Get Your Tots Out to social media will encourage people to share their own news, views and information about activities for children.  Lou and I can’t possibly know about every toddler group and coffee morning happening across the region. It would be great for a lonely mum in Cramlington to hear about an activity just down the road where she can make new friends and have fun with her children. 

Follow us on twitter please. @ getyto     https://twitter.com/#!/getyto