We have child care at every meeting. Our middle school has a "volun-teen" program and these kids are great. We "pay" each volun-teen with two McD's gift certificates.

I've used it quite frequently and my daughter (who is now in 5th grade) likes to "hang" with the older kids.

Our insurance policy states that we must have 2 ADULTS present for baby-sitting. We included a new category ("babysitting")on our volunteer sign-up sheet sent out to parents this year. So we'll see how that goes--already have received 3-4 volunteers!

I believe child care is essential to meetings. I think it is hard for any child to sit through a meeting, it is hard for a parent to pay attention to the meeting when dealing with their children at the same time, as well as it gives the parents a chance to be adults with adults. Our attendance went up and stayed up when I made child care arrangements last year. My oldest son (16 yrs) made $10 on PTO night (budgeted) and my husband volunteered as an adult supervisor so that I could run the meetings. Be very careful to always have at least 2 people in with the children incase of an accident, an illness, or just a difficult child. I had one care giver for every 5 children as a rule. Also, make sure your insurance covers childcare. It is a very touchy thing, but well worth it in the long run.

We offered childcare for our first meeting this year. We asked 2 local Girl Scout troops to watch the kids, they needed volunteer hours, & we decide to make a small donation to their troops. Each troop sent 2 girls, one troop was highschoolers, and the other jr. high(their leader stayed to help) We had about 30 parents in attendence & 6-8 kids. A few moms said they could only come because of the free child care we offerd.(single moms)
I am not sure if we will continue to offer it all year long. Our attendence usually drops after the first 2 meetings. Our meetings are held in the library, and the librarian hates the kids making a mess, mixing up the books etc.. so we had the scouts & kids play on the playgroud. Good Luck! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The President's teenage daughter does our babysitting and she recieves community service credits for the time she is with the children. No she is not in trouble just wants them for the work she does with their church. I personally want to do something for her but see what happens.

our morning meetings we pay for a sitter (included in our budget) our night meetings we have volunteers from our local high school "donate" their time -- it increases attendance and decreases meeting interruptions