Kidz Klubs don't appear overnight. With the correct planning and considerations, you can give yours the very best chance of a successful start, with many fruitful years to follow. Use these 12 steps to help you get started.

 

1. Gain the Support of your church leaders.

Running a Kidz Klub for the long haul requires a huge amount of people and financial resources. If your church leadership is not fully behind the vision, you simply won’t be able to sustain it. Talk to your leaders about the Kidz Klub vision and ask them to come with you to visit an established Kidz Klub. If one of your leaders wants to accompany you on a Kidz Klub training weekend, we can make someone available to talk to them about the impact Kidz Klub has had on our wider church body.

2. Decide on the size of the Kidz Klub you want to launch.

Once you’ve ensured that your church are fully behind the Kidz Klub vision, you need to decide on the scale of your initial work. Our Kidz Klub on a Saturday is now attended by over 600 children, who are transported to our building, from all around the city, on eight double-decker buses, but it started with 60 children, who all lived in walking distance of the church. If you’re a smaller church, you don’t have to start huge, Kidz Klub works as well with 50 kids as 500. The following facts will help you in making your decision :

  • In an area of average population density, you will probably get about 100 children walking to your Kidz Klub, without offering transport.
  • If you want to run a larger club than this, it costs £80-£100 to hire a double-decker bus, with driver, for half a day.
  • You will need a helper ratio of approximately one adult to ten children.
  • It costs about £30 per week to run a Kidz Klub session. In addition we give each child who attends a 10p sweet as a reward for good behaviour.


3. Set a budget.

Running a Kidz Klub can cost anything from £45 to £800 a week, so it’s important that you set a realistic budget before you start. If your church can not fully support your work, you will need to think about fund-raising (see How to – Fund-raising.) Local charities will often give you a one off grant to help with set up costs. The areas you need to budget for are as follows :

  • Set up costs – these can vary hugely, depending on whether you want to invest in PA and lighting equipment. These are definitely not essential, but if you can find the money, for example from a local authority grant, they will add some extra razzmatazz to your club.
  • Termly costs - We suggest that you will need to spend a minimum of £200 a term, on props, costumes, music and set paint.
  • Weekly costs – In an average club these come to about £30. £15 is spent on games equipment, props etc. and £15 on prizes. We give out fifteen prizes a week, for winning games or as a reward for good behaviour. It’s really up to you how much you spend per prize. We spend about a pound and buy them from a local wholesaler, so the things we buy retail at about twice that amount.
  • Sweets – We give each child who comes to Kidz Klub a 10p sweet each week. This is a great incentive for good behaviour.
  • Transport – As mentioned above, hiring buses is expensive. If you’re planning to bus kids in, this definitely needs to be included in your financial planning.

It’s worth deciding at this point, whether or not you want to charge for your club. In poorer areas, this may deter children from coming, but in more affluent areas it has the advantage of giving the club more value in parents eyes. Making a small charge can make Kidz Klub seem like a more worthwhile activity, akin to brownies or drama classes, as well as helping to provide you with some income.

4. Recruit your team.

We suggest you recruit your team 3-6 months before you plan to launch. Including them in your planning stage, will greatly increase their feeling of ownership. Meet with them monthly for training or brainstorming sessions, where they can input their ideas. As part of this training phase bring your whole team on a Kidz Klub training weekend.

5. Establish your child protection policy

If your church does not already have a child protection policy, contact CCPAS for help. (web details here.) They will also help you to police check your volunteers. Use one training evening to make sure all your volunteers understand your child protection procedures.

6. Buy your resources.

At this stage you will need to buy your first term of Kidz Klub UK resources. The resources give you all the ideas you need to run a weekly Kidz Klub, plus memory verse colouring sheets to use on your home visits. Spend one team meeting, familiarising people with the resources and putting practical plans in place. These will need to include

  • Buying prizes and sweets
  • Producing some form of set or painted backdrop (if required)
  • Producing props relevant to the terms theme
  • Producing costumes relevant to the terms theme
  • Buying a selection of music to use in games and your praise party
  • Producing a Kidz Klub introductory letter for parents (see below)


7. Decide on your initial target area.

Once you know how big you want your Kidz Klub to be, it should be fairly easy to establish what area you want to work in. As mentioned above, if you work in an area which is 5-10 mins walking distance from your building, in each direction, you will probably draw about 100 kids. At this stage it’s worth walking around the area. Choose a sunny weekend afternoon and see how many children are playing out. Look at the housing. If it’s mainly student accommodation or bed-sits, there won’t be a high density of children in the population. Think about the roads. If you’re expecting children to walk to Kidz Klub, main roads will present an obvious barrier.


8. Contact other churches or community groups.

In the past we’ve made the mistake of blasting into new areas with little regard for what other children’s work is already established there. We’ve then spent months repairing the damage. Take the time at this stage to contact all the other churches in your area and let them know what you’re planning. Also get in touch with any community groups offering children’s activities. Find out what they run and when, and choose the day and time of your Kidz Klub with this in mind – you obviously don’t want to conflict.


9. Contact local schools.

About two months before your launch date contact local primary schools. Primary heads are very busy, so we’ve found a succinct letter, explaining who you are, when Kidz Klub will launch and how it will benefit the community, works well. In the letter, ask if they will allow you to come and lead an assembly, publicising Kidz Klub, in the week before your launch. Follow up the letter with a phone call a few days later. Once you have an assembly date, ask if the school will send letters, publicising Kidz Klub, home with all the children on the day you do your assembly.

10. Begin publicising your Kidz Klub.

About two weeks before you launch, start putting posters in shop windows publicising Kidz Klub. It’s worth giving away some sort of star prize on the first week, for example a giant water gun if you’re launching in summer or a new football shirt in winter. Make sure the prize is detailed on the poster. The week before, lead assemblies in all the local primary schools. (see the How To – Schools section for a sample assembly.) Produce an introductory letter explaining who you are and what will happen in a Kidz Klub session. Our letter is double sided. One side is more of a zany flyer aimed at kids. The reverse is a letter for parents. In the letter, include everything you can to assure parents that Kidz Klub will be safe and well run. Explain that all volunteers are police checked and make it clear that parents are very welcome to attend the club with their children. Give a stack of the letters to the school, for them to distribute, on the day you do your assembly.

11. Recruit on the streets.

A couple of days before the first Kidz Klub, send your team out in pairs, at an after school time, to talk to children and parents about Kidz Klub. It’s really important that your volunteers have Kidz Klub T-shirts on, so they are easily identifiable. We also suggest that you produce photograph ID badges for all your team. Give all your volunteers a stack of Kidz Klub introductory letters. They can chat to children who are playing out, enthusing them about Kidz Klub, and then ask those children to show them where they live, so they can introduce them selves to parents.( For more information on how to do this look in the How to – Visit section. )

12. Your first Kidz Klub.

You’re ready for your first Kidz Klub session, Register all the children on the door. Use this register to form your visiting lists for next week. (Again see the How to – Visit section.) At your first Kidz Klub, run some sort of promotion, to encourage children to bring their friends next week. Everyone who brings a new friend could win some sort of prize or could have their name go in a draw for a star prize eg. a new football kit. Once you’ve started, use your Kidz Klub UK resources as a weekly guide for running your club.

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