Activities
Teas happen every week.
Parties are organised twice a year.
Tabletop Sales are run when there is demand.
Maternity Clothes Bank is available for any member who needs it.
Teas
Tea mornings are organised twice a week, hosted by members. Attendance ranges from one to half a dozen parents and child(ren). They are friendly, relaxed affairs and people often go fairly regularly, so they get to know each other well.
Though you may have once been a grown-up quite capable of making social arrangements, as parents we can be hopeless at planning ahead to do anything (let alone able to organise a group of others to do the same). This means it can be wonderful having something to do that you have not had to organise. Just turn up some time between 10am and midday, sit on someone else’s sofa and drink a cup of tea or coffee you did not have to make yourself, and talk to grown-ups in sentences using words with more than one syllable.
For children, other people’s toys are far more interesting than their own. The toddlers have others to play with, and the babies look on, entranced by the activity.
To summarise:
- Members volunteer to host a tea, either at time of joining or later on.
- No money changes hands.
- You provide tea, biscuits and space.
- It’s only a couple of hours long.
- Then you enjoy going along to someone else’s, next time Tuesday or Friday comes around!
You may even decide you’d like to host a TPP Tea. Here’s what Katie G, an erstwhile co-ordinator of the quarterly Tea List, has to say about hosting.
Parties
Summer party
This is the main social event of the year – in late summer, generally in Whittington Park, with entertainment for the children and shared food and drink for a giant picnic together.
Christmas event
A slightly smaller party in a local hall, again with entertainment.
Table-Top Sales
Organised to meet demand, an opportunity for a spring-clean sell your unwanted baby/children’s stuff, or to snap up some bargains. Members may book a table for a small fee and you keep the proceeds from your table.
Maternity Clothes Bank
This is unique to the TPP and no money changes hands. We have an astoundingly enormous collection of clothes donated by members never wanting to use them again, available to borrow for as long as others need them – after which they return them. From posh Formes trousers to useful plain T-shirts, it has saved members thousands of pounds.