A local homemakers club volunteered to watch our kids this year. In a survey that was done last year one of the reasons for parents not attending was lack of childcare.

High school clubs often have students to do community service as do college clubs (such as soriorities and fraternities).

We have a teacher's aide watch all the kids, there's about 5-8 at every meeting. This number also includes siblings that are not it school yet. Infants are brought to the meeting area and not left with the teacher's aide. We do pay her, but I'm not sure of the amount. We adveritise it our monthly newsletter to try to get more participation.

Originally posted by kmamom:
We're a really informal bunch and just let people bring their kids. Everyone is pretty good about making sure their kids have something to do (homework etcetera), though a couple of times we were desperate and let them run around like wild animals in the hallway. It got loud, but nothing we couldn't cope with.

We found this definitely helps with attendence as a lot of the families have at least one parent who works late (my husband being in advertising is one) or works a night shift. We've also received comments about it making people feel more comfortable and less uptight.

When do y'all meet? We meet during the school day my son comes to the meeting but I always bring him some toys or books to entertain himself during that time.

We're a really informal bunch and just let people bring their kids. Everyone is pretty good about making sure their kids have something to do (homework etcetera), though a couple of times we were desperate and let them run around like wild animals in the hallway. It got loud, but nothing we couldn't cope with.

We found this definitely helps with attendence as a lot of the families have at least one parent who works late (my husband being in advertising is one) or works a night shift. We've also received comments about it making people feel more comfortable and less uptight.

[ 03-09-2005, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: kmamom ]

We do not have a babysitter, but we do allow people to bring kids. We have an area in the room we meet where the kids can hang out together.

We pay $25 to our school secretary to work as a babysitter for our meetings. We give her extra when there are a lot of kids. We have also started having Key Club students from the local high school come and do art projects with the kids during this time. It works for us!
Good luck!
Kelley