We teamed up with Nottingham City Council’s Family and Community Team and Neighbourhood Management Team to run a special event for Bulwell providers of play and youth services last Saturday – at the Top Valley Community Centre.

The event gave groups the chance to meet one another and find out more about the help and support that’s available to them.

Groups also took part in a choice of workshops, one about how to recruit more volunteers and the other about how groups can promote themselves for free, or with limited funding.

The event had some interesting outcomes with groups saying that they’d like to get together again regularly. To find out more please call Celia Knight or Emma Shaw from the City Council on 0115 915 3232.

Steve Parkinson from the toy library was on BBC Radio Nottingham last week, talking to Richard Spurr about the toy library and our new reading project ‘Listen with Lorraine’.

You can still listen to the interview here for a few more hours!

If you don’t want to listen to the whole show, you can scroll along 1 hour 43 minutes to hear Steve talking.

It was a great interview, despite the toy library being introduced as the Mansfield toy library by mistake!

To find out more about Listen with Lorraine click here

We’re launching a brand new project to give families a fun way of enjoying stories together!

The idea has been inspired by the BBC’s classic ‘Listen with Mother’ radio show which featured stories for little ones read aloud by presenters.

We’re updating the idea for 2012 by developing a website where you’ll be able to listen to stories as a family, with children of all ages.

At the moment, we’re looking for authors who would be happy for us to read their stories aloud as we need the writer’s permission to feature books online.

In the future we’re hoping to expand the project so that local children can get involved in story-writing for example.

We’ll keep you posted!

Reading aloud to children from a young age has loads of great benefits for them and research shows that children who are read to go on to do better at school and in later life.

Click here to read the full story

Many thanks to our volunteer Sarah Martins for talking to the Nottingham Evening Post about how she helps the toy library – and how that has helped her with her career.

Find out what it’s like volunteering with the toy library by reading the article in full

We’ve got a great story in today’s Nottingham Evening Post about our mobile creche service.

Hopefully it will help us to expand the service, which will help the toy library to raise much needed funds for other activities like our play sessions for children.

Many thanks to South Notts College family learning co-ordinator Claire Cullerton for your very kind comments!

Claire spoke to the Post about how the creche benefits parents with young children who attend the college’s family learning programmes.

To find out more about the mobile creche service and how it could benefit your organisation please read the Evening Post story in full or feel free to get in touch with us on 0115 975 3898.

Did you know that the toy library runs a mobile creche service for public and voluntary sector organisations in Nottingham?

The service costs from just £33 an hour and includes qualified childcare staff, toys and equipment.

We can run the creche at any suitable venue in Nottingham for as long as you need us – whether you’re planning a one-off event or a regular activity.

By offering a mobile creche, you’ll make it easier for parents and carers with young children to use your service – so it’s well worth talking to us about how we could help you!

Click here for more information or call us on 0115 975 3898 to find out more.

Seven lucky girls and eight lucky boys who regularly attend our play sessions we’re asked to test toys for Debenhams recently, so that the store could create a ‘top toys for Christmas list’ – based on real children’s views.

The full story is in today’s Nottingham Evening Post and it’s well worth a read!

Click here to read the story on the Evening Post website

Plus of course, you can find out what children really want for Christmas this year!

Debenhams donated £40 worth of toys to the toy library and gave parents vouchers and children goodie bags to thank us all for our time.

Our new play sessions at the Bulwell Riverside Centre on Main Street/Coventry Road are proving really popular.

The sessions include free after-school activities for older children and daytime play sessions for babies and under 5′s which cost just £1 per family.

Click here for a full list of play sessions at the Riverside or to find out more.

We also run play sessions for children of all ages at other venues in Bulwell including outdoor play sessions at Bulwell Hall Park woods.

For a full list of play sessions for children aged 0 to 5 please click here

For a full list of play sessions for children aged 5 to 13 please click here

Read our response to the Barnardo’s report published yesterday…

Our response to Barnardo’s report revealing UK’s negative attitudes towards children

Debenhams in Nottingham has asked children from the toy library to ‘road test’ toys this Friday – to help them find out what kids really want for Christmas!

Debenhams says it’s turning the tables and getting local children to advise them on the best buys this Christmas – after all children are the experts when it comes to play!

Six families with 11 children between them, aged from 5 to 10, will be testing the toys on Friday from 4pm onwards.

The children will test a number of different toys during the session with the Debenham’s store team keeping track of the top toy picks. The top 10 will be published in store and used as a guide to help present-buying parents.

Debenhams store manager, Ivor Davies, explains:

“Christmas shopping is notoriously stressful for parents, so hopefully having a proven list of toys that we know kids love to play with will help ease the pressure a little.

To thank the children for their time, we’ll be donating a number of toys to the group so that they can be enjoyed by everyone.”

As our project manager Steve Parkinson says:

“For a kid, having to test toys is a dream come true so they are all really looking forward to Friday.”