Essex Mums January Newsletter

Happy New Year to all Essex Mums (and Dads... and Grandparents...!)

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are currently enjoying your first of many enjoyable and restful days in 2010. Things here at Essex Mums have been hectic over the last few weeks but I hope you'll be able to see the results of my labours in the form of two new exciting areas of the website.

Health & Fitness Special
We all tend to overdo it at Christmas, and then make resolutions to get fitter and healthier on January 1st Well, this year Essex Mums is here to help you make that happen! On the homepage you will see January's special feature on Health and Fitness, with links to lots of great ideas for getting fit, eating well and getting your kids active. As well as information from fantastic organisations such as MEND and Change4Life, schemes and classes from Hockley playcentre Monkey Bizzness and Basildon gym David Lloyd. we also have help and advice from our very own forum members, which is probably the best support you can get. Come and post in the dedicated Health & Fitness support thread if you need some advice or would just like to talk about your own health and fitness journey.


Alternative Shopping Guide
Following the success of the Alternative Christmas Gift Guide, Essex Mums now has it's own Alternative Shopping Guide, featuring lots of fantastic ideas for gifts, toys, clothes, house and home. It has everything from practical purchases for new parents to the most gorgeous handmade clothes you could wish to see. Come and take a look, and if you would like to be featured or have an idea for something that would fit in, let me know.


Events for January and February
I'm now compiling the events calendar for 2010 so if you have anything you would like to see added, please send it to events@essexmums.org. Likewise if the details of a class or group you run are not on the Classes and Groups page, please let me know. There is currently a lot of information on this calendar so in the new year it will be broken down into areas to make it easier - keep an eye out for that!


Specials this year
Over the next few months I'll be running special features on using cloth nappies, and on young parents. If you would like to get involved, please let me know.


Competitions and offers
I've had lots of people asking if they can run competitions on the site and offers for Essex Mums. I can hardly refuse now, can I?! In the next couple of months you'll see a new page for these, so if you have anything you'd like to be featured please get in touch!

Come and say hello!
If you haven't stopped by the forum in a while, make it your new year's resolution to come and say hello! You'll be guaranteed a warm welcome in the introductions section, can just dive right in to one of our friendly daily chats, or see if anyone in your area wants to meet up. I can say with some certainty you're unlikely to find a friendlier group of Mums this side of the internet!

Everything else
As always there is lots to work on, and I'll be adding more to the Map and the Useful Website page. The forum continues to tick along nicely with everything from daily chatter to storming debates happening every day. On top of that we have the much-anticipated results of the Essex Mums Awards 2009 so keep an eye out for that! Once again I'd like to say that if there's anything you'd like to see on the site, please do let me know!

Thanks for all your support and hope you have a lovely 2010!

Louise
www.essexmums.org

Do you have a star in the making? Find out at Debutots!

I took my son Felix to Debutots this afternoon and it was really good fun! He was a little on the young side I think (he's 2yrs 2 months and most of the kids there were around three I think), so he was a little uncertain at first but was really enjoying it by the end.

Even though he doesn't have as vivid an imagination as a lot of the older kids and was a little uncertain of what was going on at first, he's at that age now where he's starting to engage in more imaginative play, and after a little while of hanging back and watching the other kids he started to join in and was actually pretty good at it all.

The class was very freeform with the kids deciding on the direction it took. Obviously there was a structure to it but it seemed to follow the kids rather than having them stick to a rigid plan. The story this week was about an elephant, so the kids were encouraged to pretend to be animals, stomp around the room, explore a zoo etc. The kids who had been there the previous week certainly remembered things they had done prior as one decided he would be a dinosaur!

It looked like madness, but was so much fun. I think it will give the kids involved a real confidence boost and certainly help them use their imaginations, as well as providing some ideas for us Mums for games to play with them. Felix spent the whole journey home telling me about various colour dinosaurs that were hiding in different places we passed while I just looked like a nutter.

Debutots is held every Monday from 1.45 until 2.45pm at the Palace Theatre in Westcliff. See here for more details.

By Louise Ford, louise@essexmums.org