usedtolivenearby

hello, Found this thread by checking out search links for my own class and thought you would like to hear the other side. As a parent, I do agree with some of the things you have said, but like most things in life there are good and bad types of classes. I run messy play classes, sadly not in East Dulwich although I used to live nearby, which is spooky. I do appreciate it's slightly different in the Big smoke to where I live now, but to give you the jist- Our outgoings consist of hall hire (?23 per morning, we're talking countryside prices here not your London prices), PL insurance (absolute must), equipment and materials. Being a craft/messy play group we have quite a few more material outlay than other types but all types of equipment gets wear and tear with 20-30 children using it more often. We also have had to have enhanced CRB checks, build and maintain a website, build and maintain a level of publicity and marketing. Those quarter page adverts in glossy parenting magazines cost from ?70 upwards per issue. There's also the issue of time, it takes me up to an hour to prepare and pack my car for a class, half an hour set up and an hour to clear up, pack the car, unpack and clean up at home. So, an hours class is about 3 hours of my time. And that doesn't count the time taken to update the website, phone people back, arrange marketing.... So, it's sadly not as much of a money maker as it seems, although there is money to be made otherwise we would all be in the looney bin for doing it. We don't charge a registration fee and our classes are ?3.75 at the moment. We do ask for payment half termly, as knowing how many we have helps to keep our costs down and we pass back to the parents but if our parents know about a holiday/doctors appointment in advance we discount it by those weeks. Which is quite generous as we still have to pay our overheads. Having said all that I do agree with a lot of your thoughts- if you go to all and sundry it can cost a lot of money, children don't need to do classes all of the time and some classes are not great value for money. However, some are, and I know our children get a lot from it, the parents/carers get a chance to get out and meet others and in our case many parents would rather pay us ?3.75 for 7 activities which they would never do at home (yes- even the playdough) in a million years.:)) Which kind of makes it all worthwhile LOL.