Home School Support Group Ideas - (Guest Maureen Schmidt from Grande Prairie shares!)

(Hi all, I hosted the Support Group Session at the AHEA Convention this year and sent out an email to Support Group Leaders to attend.  I encouraged those who couldn't attend to share what works for their Support Group by email.  Maureen did so, and I am pleased to have her share here as a guest.  Enjoy reading her tips below!  Terry)

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I am the coordinator of the Grande Prairie and Area Homeschool Fieldtrip Group. We are open to families registered with any homeschool district. When I started with the group around 7 years ago, there was a list of around 30 families who were interested in arranging fieldtrips to gather the children together to do. Now we are a list of 140 families and I have been able to establish a vision with this group which is three-fold:
1. to connect families by taking time to build relationships
2. to provide opportunities to educate our children in different environments by different individuals
3. to expose our children to events, jobs, and learning opportunities in our community

This vision helps me as a coordinator know which information should or should not go out to our group (eg. I would send out a firehall fieldtrip notice, but not a business opportunity to join) At this time, our group has agreed that they don't want their email in-boxes overloaded with peripheral things, so I try to only send out material that I feels fits what we have set as our vision. I wrote the vision myself...because trying to do that with many people is often very difficult and we have over 30 people at our once a year meeting. Then as we went through it at the meeting, there was discussion and we refined it to what the group could agree on. I believe it is best to come to a meeting with some things already brainstormed on paper.

We meet once a year in early Sept. Our people don't want more meetings than that. I plan a get- to-know-you activity to help people try to connect with each other, we discuss any business and then we plan. After this meeting, all communication is through email. If anyone has information to get out, it comes to me, I edit it if needed and then send it out to the group. In our group, parents organize activities and then put the into out to the group for others to join in. If parents didn't volunteer to plan activities, nothing would happen. We have everything from monthly art classes, track meets, science fairs, swimming lessons, weekly ice skating, tours of museums, stores, clinics, departments, used curriculum sales, ski days, money management courses, robotics classes, wood carving, bowling, wall climbing, and much more. At the beginning, most events were for younger children. Now, we have events for all ages of school children (some specific to Sr. High. even).

This started with a few parents who wanted to connect now and then with other homeschoolers. It has grown considerably and people are grateful for the opportunities available. It is common now to have between 3 and 5 events planned per month for families to choose from. I suggest starting with one a month and growing as the group grows. The most popular events....well that's a hard one because it depends which needs are needing to be met in each family. Our largest turnout is always track and field day in May with over 100 kids participating. For events that meet in smaller spaces, we cap the number allowed to come and it is first come first served. Some events are multi-aged, which works well for HS families, and others are aimed at a particular age group becuz of safety, or material appropriateness.

The only struggle I can think of is that some parents have different ideas about what I should be forwarding on to the group, and what I should be policing. I have brought this to the group and the group voted that they didn't want more emails that weren't directly related to our vision, so I use my best discretion. Occasionally, I have a parent who makes a comment, but I have more parents who affirm me regularly for sticking to this agreement. So I guess my advice is....to the group coordinator.....stay true to what your vision is. It will help you deal with those few others who have different ideas for what they want to see happen with the group. Explain as best you can, don't worry about it or take it personally, and then let it go. When you have lots of people together, there will always be one or two that think a little differently, but you have to go with the majority. Be kind, but don't give in....and you can bring it to the group again when you meet for further direction and support.

I hope this is helpful for you to get a glimpse into our group.

Maureen Schmidt  {jcomments off}