News about Portsmouth Sling Meets

Portsmouth Sling meets have sadly come to an abrupt end, as the Surestart centre has decided we can no longer meet there. While I have loved running the group and helping everyone for the last 3 years I shall take this opportunity to concentrate more on my family.

I am still happy to try and give advice via email, as much as I can. The closest sling meet is in Southampton, Southampton Sling Meet, they have an amazing extensive sling library and it’s in a great venue. It’s easy to get to on the train being only a 15min walk from Bursledon station. There is also a sling meet on the Isle of Wight, Isle of Wight Sling Meet, if you fancy a day out to try out slings. You can check out the Sling meet site for details of other meets in Hampshire.

To find help online then www.slingguide.co.uk is a great site with lots of information about choosing and using slings. There are forums for slings users where you can read reviews, talk to experienced sling users, ask questions about slings, and buy used slings if you want a cheaper option. Natural Mamas is a UK based forum and The Babywearer which is an American based forum.

I shall leave the Babywearing Portsmouth & Southsea facebook group running in case anyone wants to use it to arrange meets with other local sling users.

Thank you to everyone who came to the group and has made it a special experience for me.

More sling meets

More sling meets are booked in for early summer:

Thursday 20th May
Thursday 17th June
Thursday 15th July

All 10am-12pm at the Kings Sure Start centre on Elm Grove, in the creche room.

Happy New Year 2010 meets

Happy New Year to you all.

The meets for Spring 2010 are:

Thursday 21st Jan 10am-12pm
Thursday 18th Feb 10am-12pm
Thursday 18th Mar 10am-12pm
Thursday 15th Apr 10am-12pm

all at the Kings Centre on Elm Grove as usual.

Slingguide website

A fabulous new website has been created to provide information about choosing and using slings, Slingguide.co.uk. It has been created for parents by some of the lovely mums at Natural Mamas a great babywearing and natural parenting forum.

The slingguide site has loads of info about slings as well as a great page of links to instruction videos for all types of slings and carries.

Please take a look.

International Babywearing week celebrations

We had a great celebration on Monday for the International babwearing week. There was a great turn out in Bursledon (home of Soutampton sling meet), and we raised over £200 for charity in the raffle, auction, and cake sale. Thank you to everyone who attended, I hope you had as much fun as we did. Photos can be seen on the Southampton Sling Meet site.

Pompey Sling meets

I'm happy to say that the Pompey Sling meets will continuing at least until Christmas due to a rise in the attendance. The next meetings are as follows:

Thursday 22nd Oct
Thursday 19th Nov
Thursday 17th Dec

Next meets

The August meet was busy then it has been for a while so things are looking up for the group continuing. I am still going to wait until after the meet on 10th Sept before I make a final decision. I have booked dates up until the end of the year in hope of the group continuing, so here are the provisional dates:

Thurs 22nd Oct 10am-12pm *to be confirmed
Thurs 19th Nov 10am-12pm *to be confirmed
Thurs 17th Dec 10am-12pm *to be confirmed

I'll confirm whats happening to the group after the next meet.

International Babywearing week celebrations

We are celebrating International Babywearing week (21st-28th Sept) inconjunction with Southampton Sling meet. The celebration will take place in Bursledon, Southampton at the Windmill Childrens centre which is where the Southampton Sling meet takes place. We've chosen to hold it there as there centre has more space then ours. Details on how to get to the centre can be found on the Southampton Sling meet website . Though I have been there and it is quite easy to get there from Bursledon train station, just a 10-15min walk.

There will be a cake stall (please do brings cakes along to sell), and a charity raffle/auction. The Southampton Sling library will also be there to try on.

We have received some very generous donations for our charity raffle/auction:
The prizes to be auctioned include

An Onbag which is a fantastic babywearing bag. (I have one and love it!)

A custom made Dreampod which is a Podaegi baby sling

A Napsack which is a Mei Tai kindly donated by Slingjax

The raffle prizes will include:

Babylegs - legwarmers for babys in slings
Slingview mirror - a little mirror to hang on your sling to look at baby when in a sling on your back
And money off vouchers to Natural Nursery, Natural Connection, Little Possums, Tumbebe

All money raised from the raffle/auction and cake sale will be donated to Best Beginnings.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Change to meeting day/time

The meetings are now going to be Thursday mornings from 10am-12pm, still at the Kings centre. Sorry to anyone who preferred having it on a Friday, but the meetings have been very quiet so I thought a change of day/time may work better. The next meetings are on:

Thursday 13th Aug 10-12pm
Thursday 10th Sept 10-12pm (to be confirmed)

As you may be aware I run this group on a voluntary basis because this is something I am passionate about. But if the attendance to the group does not improve over the next couple of meetings I will probably stop running it for now.

New dates for the spring

I've booked some new dates for sling meets for the spring. They are on:

Fri 17th April
Fri 22nd May
Fri 19th June
Fri 17th July

They are all from 1-3pm at the Kings Sure start centre on Elm grove (details on previous post).

New dates for 2009!

Hi All,

Along with the meeting next week (12th Dec) I've booked a few meetings for the new year as follows:

Friday 9th Jan
Friday 20th Feb
Friday 20th Mar

They are all from 1-3pm at our new venue, The Kings Sure Start centre on Elm Grove (details in previous post). The meetings will all be in the 'creche' room apart from the January meeting which will be in the parents room. There is a reception where you can ask for directions to the rooms.

Change of venue

I just wanted to warn everyone that from December The PortsmouthBabywearing group will be moving to a new Sure Start centre. It is theKings Centre on Elm Grove - here's a map linkhttp://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=464380&Y=99384&A=Y&Z=1.

The address is 37 Elm Grove Southsea, PO5 1JF. Its inside the Kings church building (used to be a snooker hall a longtime ago) at the west end of Elm grove just before the shops start. It'squite easy to find and has very similar facilities to the Landportcentre. We're using a great child friendly room with lots of toys andfacilities for babies and older children, and there is a kitchen so wecan still have a cup of tea. This centre also has a little cafe if youmissed lunch before the meeting.

The december meeting will be on friday 12th from 1.00-3.00pm. And a quick reminder that the November meeting on 14th Nov 1.15-3.00pm isstill at the Landport centre.

Video of baby's perspective

Here's a video of a baby's perspective of being in a pram and being worn in a sling.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zga_mW9vqnE

It's in Norwegian, but it gets the point across.

I've booked some meetings for the group, they are on:

Friday 19th September
Friday 17th October
Friday 14th November

They are at teh slightly earlier time of 1.15-3.00pm. Again they are all at the Landport Surestart centre. The centre is fully booked for December so as yet I'm not sure if there will be a December meeting but I'll keep you posted.

Summer Sling Show 2008

Last year saw the first Summer Sling show in London. There is another this year on the 27th July if anyone is interested in going along. There will be different vendors there, opportunity to try out and see different carriers as well as a wealth of information on babywearing.

More information can be found here:

http://www.summerslingshow.co.uk/

Here's a great blog post on the safety of 'bag' style slings, well worth a look at.

http://babyslingsafety.blogspot.com/

New meeting dates and Sling Hire

So some new meetings have been set up, these are on:

Friday 20th June
Friday 18th July
Friday 15th August

These will all be at the ABC Surestart centre in Landport (opposite Asda car park) as usual.

From June there will also be a change to the price of sling hire, the deposit is still £30 but the cost of one months sling hire is rising to £10. This is so we can purchase more slings for the library and be able to provide handouts/materials for people to take away. We now also provide a hire pack when you borrow a sling which has lots of information on safety, benefits of babywearing, purchasing information, as well as instructions.

News

Well I've been busy attending a Babywearing course in London. Yes they even do babywearing courses now! It was run by the only Babywearing school in the world, Trageschule Dresden, which is based in Dresden,Germany.

I learnt a lot about how to teach slings and different carries to parents, and also the theory behing babywearing and why babies are programmed to want to be carried. So I am now a qualified 'Babywearing Consultant' with a certificate and everything, albeit in German.

It was very hard work, but I had lots of fun too! Here's a photo of a carry I've invented for those of us who are a little less photogenic!

Sling Meet Dates April & May

Sorry it's taken ages to sort this out, I've been very busy with a new job and taking a babywearing course in London. Sally is taking over organising the meets in the future, although I'll still be helping out. We've decided to stick with Fridays in the same venue. Dates for new meets are;

Fri April 18th 2008
Fri May 16th 2008

Venue is The Sure Start ABC Centre - Landport, 221 Arundel Street, Portsmouth. PO1 1NF . The Sure Start Centre is diagonally opposite the ASDA Fratton car park in Arundel Street. You can find a map is here http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Portsmouth,+PO1+1NF,+UK&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title

The room we are using in Sure Start centre is purpose built for families and has plenty of toys and space for toddlers and a fenced off area outside to play in. Please remember this group was set up by Sally and I to promote babywearing. The Slings we hire out are from our own collection, therefore there are a limited amount so there is no guarantee that you will be able to hire the sling you want, when you want. We are organising a reservation/waitlist system for future and are buying more slings with the money raised so far.

Can I please ask that everyone has read the safety post here;
http://pompeybabywearer.blogspot.com/2007/09/please-remember-safety-is-paramount.html

Please e-mail sally@smashinggirl.co.uk if you require any further details.

Sling meets

Due to our having to change the day and venue for the Sling meets we haven't been able to arrange a meeting for February, but are hoping to get the meetings up and running again in March. We'll post dates, and details of the new venue once arranged.