Archive for the ‘After School’ Category

We’re asking everyone to vote for our girls’ after school club to win funding from NatWest bank’s CommunityForce initiative, so that we can keep the club going next year.

As you may know, our girls’ club gives girls aged from 9 to 13 the chance to get involved in activities after school such as arts, crafts, games and discussions about things that they choose.

The club is just one of hundreds of charities and projects that are competing for funding from CommunityForce nationally and there are just three awards of £6,000 each up for grabs in each CommunityForce region – so we really need your votes!

Voting opens on 26th September and you can vote online by visiting the CommunityForce website or by calling the CommunityForce helpline on 0800 2100 246. Anyone with hearing or speech impairments can contact CommunityForce on Minicom number 0800 0155 545.

Voting closes on 23rd October.

The three projects with the most votes in each CommunityForce area will win the awards – each worth £6,000 so please help us make sure that one of those projects is our girls’ club – by voting for us to win!

Many thanks for your support – it’s always appreciated.

We’ve teamed up with the Nottingham Contemporary art gallery in the city centre to help families in Bulwell make the most of their local woods at Bulwell Hall Park – as part of our Play on the Wildside project.

Artists Sian Watson and Gillian Brent will work with us and families living in Bulwell to create free resources, designed to help other families explore and enjoy playing in the woods.

Resources will include a storybook based on families experiences of playing in the woods, together with hands-on play activities for children of different ages and creative maps designed by children to give other young people a ‘child’s eye view’ of the woods.

For example, the maps will include children’s favourite trees, great spots for hide and seek and lots of ideas for making up your own stories.

When we were researching our Play on the Wildside project, we found that many local families weren’t using the woods in Bulwell Hall Park, as they didn’t know the woods were there, or weren’t sure what to do there.

To help, we run regular sessions in the woods for children aged from 0 to 14, plus special family sessions every second Saturday of the month – which are open to the whole family including friends and grandparents.

Sessions give children and families the chance to enjoy adventurous outdoor play activities such as hide and seek and laying and following trails in the woods; whilst finding out more about nature and the environment and learning ‘bushcraft’ style skills like making campfires, building dens and cooking outdoors.

Hopefully the resources we’re creating with Nottingham Contemporary will help children and families even more. They’ll be available to borrow free of charge from the toy library from October onwards but we’ll keep you posted!

View details of Play on the Wildside sessions

Read more about the story

Thank you to everyone who came along to our Easter events on 20th and 27th April.

Both events were really successful with around 500 people coming along on both days.

It was great to see the lovely family atmosphere and children having fun playing outdoors.

Thanks also to all those who helped to make the events such a success – including our staff and volunteers.

If you were at one or both of the events why not tell us what you thought of them by leaving a comment below – it’s always very helpful to get feedback so we can arrange even bigger, better events in the future!

If you’re looking for a great way to entertain the kids tomorrow, come down to our free Easter holiday event on Bulwell Hall Park on Sandhurst Road tomorrow – 27th April – from 11am to 3pm.

We held a similar event last week and over 500 people came along!

We’ll have lots of free activities for all the family – so why not bring a picnic and make a day of it!

See you there and remember it’s all FREE!

We’re very excited to say we’re launching a brand new project on Friday 1st April called Play on the Wildside.

The project will offer ‘nature inspired play for all the family’ and will include regular nature-based play sessions held at Bulwell Hall Park. It’s being funded by the Big Lottery Fund through Natural England’s Access to Nature Programme for 2.5 years.

Activities for 5 to 13 year olds

Play sessions will include regular outdoor play sessions for 5 to 13 year olds. These will run during term time on Wednesdays and Fridays from 4pm to 6pm and on Saturdays from 11am to 3pm. During school holidays sessions will run on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11am to 3pm. Sessions start on Friday 1st April and will include adventurous play, woodland and nature crafts and games, campfire cooking and lots more muddy fun!

All sessions will be run by our experienced play workers.

Children are welcome to come along to these sessions at any time but because of the nature of the activities, we ask that all children take home a membership form to be filled out by a parent or guardian before they attend their first session.

Coming soon – new sessions for under 5′s

The project will also include ‘Play & Lend Woodland Sessions’ for children aged under 5 and their parents and carers. These will be held on Wednesdays from 1pm to 2.30pm. The first session will be on Wednesday 4th May but you’re welcome to get in touch with us now to find out more.

Coming soon – new play sessions for all the family

Plus, the project will run monthly family sessions which will be held every second Saturday in the month. The first session will be on Saturday 14th May but once again, feel free to contact us before then if you’d like more details.

The monthly family sessions are a chance for the whole family to get outside and have fun and activities will include exploring Bulwell Hall Park, making bird boxes, family challenges, nature trails, making things to take home and trips to other nature-rich venues in Nottingham.

To find out more please call Jane on 0115 975 3898 or email jane@toy-library.co.uk

Download our  Play on the Wildside Flyer

Children from our Crabtree After School Club have been so worried about the funding cuts, and how they might affect the club, that they even wrote to the Queen in December.

They did so without any prompting from us and clearly saw the Queen as the best person to write to!

We’re delighted to say that we’ve now had a reply from the Queen who said it was ‘most thoughtful of the children to take the time and trouble to write’.

The Queen also requested that her office send the childrens’ letters to Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, so that he knows about the children’s concerns and that they wrote letters to the Queen.

Her majesty also sent the children her ‘very best wishes for the future’.

At present, we’re waiting to hear about our funding from Nottingham City Council.

You can read the letter in full below or for a copy please feel free to get in touch with us:

To find out more about what the children wrote to the Queen click here.

We’d like to say a huge thank you to Carillion for their support in replacing our stolen container and equipment.

In addition, thank you to James Mellors Amusements, for helping us to secure the new container.

We really appreciate all the help and support we’ve been given.

We’d like to thank everyone who has offered to help us following the theft of some of our toys and equipment.

It’s incredibly heart-warming and reassuring to know that so many people care about the work we’re doing and about helping others.

We’ve had offers of help from individuals in Colchester, Leicester and Canada including parents who have offered to send us their children’s surplus toys. Plus, we’ve also received offers of help from Carillion and the Early Learning Centre.

Thank you again for everybody’s support this week – it’s certainly been an emotional rollercoaster of a week!

We’ve tried to respond to everybody personally via email but once again THANK YOU – we so appreciate your help and generosity.

Thank you to everyone who’s supported us following the theft of toys and equipment from Pulley Park, including the Nottingham Evening Post, BBC Radio Nottingham and Kemet FM.

The Nottingham Play Forum ‘Playworks’ has also been in touch with an offer to lend us toys and equipment so many thanks to them as well.

Our outdoor play sessions at Pulley Park are still running so please come along and join in.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sadly, we’ve had a freight container full of toys, games and equipment stolen from Pulley Park on Hoewood Road, where we hold our outdoor play sessions.

The police think the container may have been stolen for its scrap metal value so it would be great to get all our toys back. They’re of no value to the thieves surely, but they’re worth a great deal to us and to the children who use them.

As soon as we know more we’ll update you.