How to Run a Successful Playgroup

Starting the group.

Meetup.com is a great forum for starting a playgroup. But if there is one in your area, or close by, you may want to join it before you begin your own. This will give you an idea of how it works, what is good and what needs improvement. And if the group is full of drama or lacks participation, you may be able to convince a couple of the moms you connect with to help you start a new, more organized, less drama-filled group. Don't be fooled into thinking it's possible to have zero drama in a play group, but it IS possible to keep it to a minimum so the group can run smoothly and be enjoyable for the majority of the members. Give yourself enough time in the other group to develop some genuine friendships and to find the right time to start your group. You may be in another group for a year before this happens. But you will find that if you put that time in to observe and make those friendships, you will have a much easier time making a success out of your own group in a shorter amount of time.

You may be wanting to start your own group because you are already in a group this is unsatisfying to you. If that is the case, you probably have made a friend or two who have complained about how the group is run and would be willing to jump ship with you. If you are the type of person that other people get advice from and call to see if you are attending an event, then they will likely react favorably to the idea of you starting your own group. But make sure you are up for it.

Running a play group is no easy feat. You cannot be a highly sensitive person, except to others' needs and feelings. If you are easily offended or tend to jump to conclusions, you are better off staying away from a mom group altogether, let alone running one. Call the moms you like and schedule your own play dates. But in a meetup group in particular, where there is a lot of online communication, you need to be able to take what is said/written with a grain of salt and assume the best of other people.

So if you are NOT easily offended, take the bad with the good in people and play well with others in general, you may have the right temperment for being a group Organizer. So sign up, pay for the group and email invites out to the people you think would want to join you. Asking a couple close friends to be your assistant organizers is a great way to ensure not only that they will join you, but that they will help you launch your group and make it successful.

Step2

Setting up the group. Once you have your two or three assistant organizers, schedule a planning meeting. It is best to do this in person, with a computer open to your new meetup site. Ask your assistant organizers to come to the meeting with ideas and an open mind. You will want to get a feel for what each of these moms brings to the table as far as organization skills and creativity. You will find that one may be better at posting successful events on the calendar, while another is good at welcoming and befriending new members. Ask their opinions along the way, but you will need to make executive decisions without coming across as bossy. Good luck;) The way you phrase everything you say is important. Your assistant organizers need to know that their opinions and ideas are important and welcome, but that you won't let things get disorganized by being indecisive. The first thing you will need to come up with at the meeting is your first event. If the weather is nice, a park day is a great way to kick off your first event. Schedule it for two weeks after you create your group. Meetup sends out an announcement of your group a few days after you create it, and you will find that quite a few people request to join your group that first week. So you don't have long to get your group rules and that first event set up. It is a good idea to charge dues for the group. $6/year is a good amount because it seems very reasonable, will cover the costs of running your site once you have 26 members who all pay their dues. That is not difficult to do in a successful meetup group. Why not offer it for free? You don't want someone in your group that would be discouraged by a $6 yearly fee. If your group is good, it is worth much more than that, and if they can't afford that, they won't get much out of a play group. And if they don't pay anything, they won't be as motivated to participate. Seems silly, but it's true.

So establish the dues and then write an about page for your group. If someone is computer savvy in your group, see if you can get them to come up with a nice graphic about page. That will attract more members. Include who the group is for and what they should expect to get out of the group. Expect this group to be more than a playgroup. If you are in it to make friends for yourself and your whole family, it will be more successful.
Step3
Accepting new members. Once meetup advertises your group to all the moms in the area who are looking for a playgroup, you will start getting new requests for membership. You should have a pre-written message to all new members welcoming them to the group and encouraging them to jump right in and participate on the message board and check out the calendar. Let them know in this message about your dues and your attendance requirements. Don't make the attendance requirements too strict. Moms schedules change. Some months they can attend a lot, and others they won't be able to come to anything. That happens to almost everyone, and if you remove members for not attending every month, your group will fall apart.

But that doesn't mean you don't have some requirements. In the beginning, you will want to let in about 10-20 moms w/o meeting them first. Let them know your group by-laws (better than rules) in their welcome email, and ask them to attend one meetup within a month of joining. You can encourage them to attend your first official meetup (at the park:) in an individual email, so you have at least 6 moms attend your first event. That will give you and your assistant organizers a chance to really get to know the new moms and show them you are a fun and friendly group.

It is important to give attention to new members. Write a private friendly email. Ask them questions about themselves and remember what's going on in their life when you talk to them next. That will make them want to go to more events and feel more comfortable participating on the message board. Make sure you have a few "pinned threads" on your message board to get your members started. A birthday list and phone list thread are important ways to personalize and connect with your group. Put your members birthdays on the calendar along with their children's and wish them a happy birthday on the message board, as well as in a private email or greeting. Welcome each new member on the message board and give the rest of the group the opportunity to make them feel welcome and get to know them. Start a few topics to get a discussion going. Encourage your assistant organizers to do the same.
Step4
Filling your calendar. A full husband is a happy husband. That goes for calendars too. The idea is to give your members lots of options, since everyone's schedules are different. As the organizer you are going to have to try to attend as many events as you can, especially in the beginning. If there's something you can't attend, try to make sure one of your assistant organizers will be there. As the organizers, it is your job to make all the members at an event feel welcome and to introduce everyone to a new member, as well as making them feel included in the conversations. Sometimes it's easy to slip into a comfort zone with the people you know well and a new member will feel like they are outside of the group and won't want to come back. Even if you don't feel YOU click with the person, someone else in your group might and you don't want to alienate them.

Try to vary the events you put on the calendar each week and move around the locations to include moms in different areas. If you have a park day in one end of town, put one on the other the next week. Encourage the moms to open their homes for play dates, but don't pressure them. You only want people to host play dates if they are happy to and will make everyone feel welcome. If someone hesitates, drop it. They have their reasons and you don't want to have a play date there.

Within one week you should have one park day, one play date, one lunch or breakfast out, and something new. Try a local museum or bouncy place. Put a regular storytime at a library or coffee house on the calendar each week. Ask your members for suggestions of when and where they would like to go. Vary the times as well. You might have an early park day for those who have afternoon nap schedules and afternoon park days for those whose kids nap in the morning or have morning preschool. And there's nothing that says you can't have two events scheduled for the same day, especially at different times.

Try to have monthly events that the members can look forward to seeing on the calendar. They will set your group apart from others and often will draw more members and those who don't normally attend other events. A monthly Birthday Bash or New Member Meet & Greet are great things to have on the calendar each month. Hold them in a members home or at a park, or mix it up. Be prepared to have a back up plan if the hosting member's child gets sick or it's a rainy day. Move it to the park, or host yourself, but try not to cancel.

Step5
Make your group special. Along with monthly get-togethers with moms and kids, have a monthly Mom's Night out, Dads only events, and weekend events for the whole family. Nothing helps group camaraderie like time away from the kids:) Mix it up from month to month. Go to dinner and a movie with the moms one month and then get pedicures and a drink the next. Poll your members for ideas and dates/times that will allow the most moms to come. Start a monthly game/Bunco night that the moms can look forward to. But don't fight over it. This is supposed to be fun, not wrought with conflict, and if you aren't careful, it can easily become a problem.

Dads are easier:) They may resist attending "daddy playdates" at first, but once you can convince them to go, they just might have a great time and want to go out with the other dads again. Scheduling a family event once a month is a great way to get the dads to meet each other without throwing them out there alone. Once they meet the other dads in a family setting, they might be more likely to come to a dads only event. Have variety in those as well. Make one a day at the driving range. This is a low pressure, cheap event that will give the guys a chance to "bond". During football season, plan a Monday night football event at a sports bar where the dads can get a drink after work and watch the game. One popular event for our group is Paintballing. You may find that this is all they want to do, and becomes a regular monthly event. Still try to mix it up on occasion for those dads who don't want to play, or those families who might not be able to afford the costs of monthly paintballing.

Variety is also important with your family events. Be aware of the time of year as you plan the events. BBQ's are great for the summer as well as family swim parties or trips to the beach or a lake. As fall comes, get the families together to go to a pumpkin patch or trick-or-treating. Have a family Thanksgiving feast the weekend before Thanksgiving. Get the families together to get hot chocolate/coffee and look at Christmas lights. Take a trip up to the snow to go sledding in January, go to a family fun center in February. And as spring approaches, get those BBQ's going again, but plan an adult softball game to go with it. Have an Easter Egg hunt in April and plan a family camping trip in May. As you get to know the families in your group you will find that ideas start flying and you won't have room to put them all on the calendar.
Step6
Dealing with problems. As mentioned before, it is impossible to avoid drama altogether, but it is important to limit it as much as you can. The first thing you can do is make your group safe. From the beginning, make it a private group and require new members to post their phone numbers so you can verify that they are real moms if you are suspicious. But after about a month, you will want to require new members to attend one event prior to being officially added to the group. Not only will this ensure they are a real, non-crazy mom, but it will make them more likely to attend events in the future and not just "lurk" in your group.

Next be careful what you repeat and to whom. You will find that as the organizer, people will express their opinions about other members in the group, good or bad. Your job is not only to keep that information to yourself, but to also avoid gossiping about other members. Agree with what you agree, but also try to say something positive about the person they don't like or are having issues with and give reasons why they might be the way they are. Be prepared to have that come back to you and to be able to stand by everything you say. All the members don't have to like everything about everyone else, but you should expect them to be polite to each other.

So what do you do when you have a "problem" member? Remove them. Everyone has days where they are off and say things they don't mean. But if you see a pattern, or someone does something way out of line, it is your job to confront them. An email is best. Let them know that they can't act like that and if they continue they will be removed. Nothing says you have to keep people in the group who cause problems, and if you do, your group will become the problem. Give them plenty of warning and cause and do it kindly, but do it. It's not fun, but it's necessary.
Step7
I will continue to add things as I think of them, but this should be good to get you started and be on the path to success! Good luck:)