Real Nappy Week - Auckland

[karmiec]

I am happy to do as much as I can up (including being bossy) but baby is due in the first week of April...

I guess in my mind the situation with me is I'm happy to co-leader up till that time (if we can hopefully have the worst of it done) and then step back a bit when baby is due/here. Does that make sense? In which case I would say we would need to work towards having the venue and stallholders sorted by late March - if that is practical? I can host meetings at my place (as I am transport impaired too) we could also look at a virtual meeting in a chat room.

I'll offer to host a meeting at my place on the 30th (next wednesday) durring the day if that helps?

I guess that leaves us with the question is anyone willing to take over with the last minute stuff like supervising on the day and sorting out any late requests for stalls etc.



I've been thinking about the funding/cost side... our biggest issue is going to be balancing the cost of hireage with the available stalls. What are our small WAHM's able to afford?

I prefer Saturdays as I would be busy at Church on a Sunday morning and then DH likes to do something with Church friends in the afternoon.

I like the sound of the Sandringham set up (the three rooms in particular) how many stalls do you think would work in the main hall? If we have $120 hall hire + advertising all divided by the number of stalls that will give us a rough estimate to take to the WAHM's, hirekiet holders etc. In terms of demos if individual nappy places want to put on their own product demo (eg: a honeychild agent) I would assume they would book the demo space (maybe an extra $5 or 10)


My other thought is if we find ourselves limited for space how are we prioritising? Nappies to buy/hire, DIY should be high on the list... but like the P&C show there are alot of opertunities for people to share a stall and for people who stock a mixture of products.

I'm definitely of the mind that we need to have a Nappacino and an Expo as the WAHM's won't be free durring the Expo to talk as freely as they would like. But that both should be sociable. Hopefully if we can have a play/social space in the hall that will accomodate knitters/chatters... but what else can we do to make it more sociable?

[Ethan's Mum]

I'll offer to host a meeting at my place on the 30th (next wednesday) durring the day if that helps?

Thx for offering your place for a meeting Lisa. I can do next Wednesday in the afternoon. Be good to get things rolling since the expo is only three months away!!

I've started putting together a list of Auckland WAHM's. When I've sussed out as many as I can I'll post them here so that if anyone knows of a WAHM I've missed you can let me know before I send out an email for them to register interest in participating at the expo.

We'll need to confirm a venue soonest so we know how much space we'll have, and how many stalls will fit etc

My DH suggested the Windsor Park Baptist church as a possible venue option - it's on the Shore and not far from the Constellation Drive exit off the motorway. They have HEAPS of parking. Windsor Cafe (v.child friendly) is next door too which would be a bonus Link below outlining their facilities:

http://www.wpbc.org.nz/Conference%20Fac ... lities.asp

[karmiec]

I've started putting together a list of Auckland WAHM's. When I've sussed out as many as I can I'll post them here so that if anyone knows of a WAHM I've missed you can let me know before I send out an email for them to register interest in participating at the expo.

I was going to say do you have honeychild agents (and other nappy agents) on your list? even if the agents don't hold a stall someone might do a demo?

Oh and Soakers/Longies sellers: Counting Sheep Knits and Sweetpea, Aussienana might also be interested... I'm thinking thats a way of getting knitting involved without doing a demo or KAL. As much as I love knitting its not really a spectator sport.

I had thought of a couple of community centres on the Shore but don't know how people felt about coming over the bridge (seems to be a mental block for some people - like my mum). I hadn't thought of churches though


Nova was it you looking at the DIY stand? Perhaps you could find out if one of hte PUL sellers or DIY kit sellers would sponsor the stand? So you get some advertising material from them (maybe even a kit or two)... as long as they are still ok with you showing off the book of samples (since you aren't actually selling anything)

I do have a question about distributers and multiple sellers of the same nappy brand... So each stall should have different nappies, so if you are a retailer and you stock two brands but one brand is already going to be at the expo you would be focusing on the other brand for the expo, not saying that you couldn't display some or have a poster with your full product range or something. What do people think? When they register interest putting down the nappy brand that they are focusing on for the expo.

[nova]

Nova was it you looking at the DIY stand? Perhaps you could find out if one of hte PUL sellers or DIY kit sellers would sponsor the stand? So you get some advertising material from them (maybe even a kit or two)... as long as they are still ok with you showing off the book of samples (since you aren't actually selling anything)

i can find out i know from last year that having fabric would be a bit of a PITA, unless it was *tightly* controlled amounts of nappy cuts.. but DIY kits would have gone down a treat!

my only thing would be, i don't think the people (wo)manning the tnn info stands (incl. diy) should be selling stuff/handling money & product for wahms i reckon we have to remain unbiased seeming..

but umm... what fabric sellers are there now? GBs, Baby Cuddles, Wigglebums.. anyone else?

another thing with wahms is you might not want to restrict it to just akl wahms (tho perhaps priority given) cos i know last year charity seemed to do a roaring trade! i think as long as they can definitely provide a decent amount of stock & a knowledgeable rep then its all good lol i reckon i might *just* be able to convince sarah (GBs) to have a little road trip!

i've got no transport for at least a couple of weeks (buying a car! yeah yeah! ) so i'm not much use for meetings

[Ethan's Mum]

I've started putting together a list of Auckland WAHM's. When I've sussed out as many as I can I'll post them here so that if anyone knows of a WAHM I've missed you can let me know before I send out an email for them to register interest in participating at the expo.

I was going to say do you have honeychild agents (and other nappy agents) on your list? even if the agents don't hold a stall someone might do a demo?

:smt045

Oh and Soakers/Longies sellers: Counting Sheep Knits and Sweetpea, Aussienana might also be interested... I'm thinking thats a way of getting knitting involved without doing a demo or KAL. As much as I love knitting its not really a spectator sport.

I have Knittabots and have just added CSK. I haven't heard of Sweetpea - who's behind that? And I'm not sure about Aussienana since she's in Aussie and Aussiemum is in Canterbury?

I'll try and finish my searching and get my list up tomorrow so people can let me know who'else might be missing

[rochellej]

[

I have Knittabots and have just added CSK. I haven't heard of Sweetpea - who's behind that? And I'm not sure about Aussienana since she's in Aussie and Aussiemum is in Canterbury?

I'll try and finish my searching and get my list up tomorrow so people can let me know who'else might be missing

Helen... Sweetpea is Gabes

[Ethan's Mum]

[

I have Knittabots and have just added CSK. I haven't heard of Sweetpea - who's behind that? And I'm not sure about Aussienana since she's in Aussie and Aussiemum is in Canterbury?

I'll try and finish my searching and get my list up tomorrow so people can let me know who'else might be missing

Helen... Sweetpea is Gabes

hehe thanks Rochelle. I was just coming back to say I'd figured out who Sweetpea is - it's SweetP Designs! lol

Have added her to the list!

[karmiec]

Oh Yay for getting a car Nova!! I have a speaker phone if this meetings comes off you can tele-conference LOL! Good point about keeping a seperation of volunteers from retailers in terms of not doing sales etc.

Maybe once we have a list of Auckland stall holders and their products we can look outwards and see if any products are being missed? and particularly people close enough to travel to auckland for a weekend or day trip. Maybe once we start asking for expressions of interest we will get some of the outside of auckland WAHP's organising a rep or sharing a stall with someone else? I'm thinking of how Flea and Bumbles worked together for the P&C show...


Is there anyone good with finances who can help with keeping budgets and records?? I'm thinking we need to make sure that is covered early on. I'm thinking once we book halls we might need to keep track of deposits/receipts etc so that we don't get caught out.

[karmiec]

Just a thought but can we keep a list of what everyone is doing, once confirmed I'll copy and paste to the first page of this thread so we can refer back... (and 'cause my preggy brain will forget whos doing what!) Then we can also update the first page with event details once everything comes together.

RNW Expo
SB and Karmiec
Ethansmum
Nova

RNW Nappacinos / How To's
RochelleJ
Pukeko Possum

RNW TNN Rep WCC
Clothconvert
(also co-ordinating with Darny for TNN website RNW 08 updates)


Not saying that people aren't overlapping and helping in multiple capacities just so that we have a quick reference for people.

[sb]

I am happy to do as much as I can up (including being bossy) but baby is due in the first week of April...

You go girl, I'm happy to pick up the reins when you have had enough.

I guess in my mind the situation with me is I'm happy to co-leader up till that time (if we can hopefully have the worst of it done) and then step back a bit when baby is due/here. Does that make sense? In which case I would say we would need to work towards having the venue and stallholders sorted by late March - if that is practical? I can host meetings at my place (as I am transport impaired too) we could also look at a virtual meeting in a chat room.

I reckon we get the venue sorted asap and vendors by the end of Feb.

I'll offer to host a meeting at my place on the 30th (next wednesday) durring the day if that helps?

I'll be there

I guess that leaves us with the question is anyone willing to take over with the last minute stuff like supervising on the day and sorting out any late requests for stalls etc.

as above

I've been thinking about the funding/cost side... our biggest issue is going to be balancing the cost of hireage with the available stalls. What are our small WAHM's able to afford?

If we do a sliding scale based on size of display space, that might make it affordable for smaller wahms, and like you said, some of the smaller ones can team up. Of course the cost of stalls will depend on the cost of the venue.

I prefer Saturdays as I would be busy at Church on a Sunday morning and then DH likes to do something with Church friends in the afternoon.

Yeah, I always think of Sunday as a family day.

I like the sound of the Sandringham set up (the three rooms in particular) how many stalls do you think would work in the main hall? If we have $120 hall hire + advertising all divided by the number of stalls that will give us a rough estimate to take to the WAHM's, hirekiet holders etc. In terms of demos if individual nappy places want to put on their own product demo (eg: a honeychild agent) I would assume they would book the demo space (maybe an extra $5 or 10)

sounds good

My other thought is if we find ourselves limited for space how are we prioritising? Nappies to buy/hire, DIY should be high on the list... but like the P&C show there are alot of opertunities for people to share a stall and for people who stock a mixture of products.

Shall we cross that bridge if we come to it?

I'm definitely of the mind that we need to have a Nappacino and an Expo as the WAHM's won't be free durring the Expo to talk as freely as they would like. But that both should be sociable. Hopefully if we can have a play/social space in the hall that will accomodate knitters/chatters... but what else can we do to make it more sociable?

I agree, I think its better to have a series of events for the week, rather than one event trying to be all things to all people.

[sb]

My DH suggested the Windsor Park Baptist church as a possible venue option - it's on the Shore and not far from the Constellation Drive exit off the motorway. They have HEAPS of parking. Windsor Cafe (v.child friendly) is next door too which would be a bonus Link below outlining their facilities:

http://www.wpbc.org.nz/Conference%20Fac ... lities.asp

Looks good, do you have any idea how much the venue would be.

I doubt if we could advertise on the Auckland City notice boards if it was outside of Auckland, so we'd have advertise elsewhere, community newspapers?

[sb]

Nova was it you looking at the DIY stand? Perhaps you could find out if one of hte PUL sellers or DIY kit sellers would sponsor the stand? So you get some advertising material from them (maybe even a kit or two)... as long as they are still ok with you showing off the book of samples (since you aren't actually selling anything)

i can find out i know from last year that having fabric would be a bit of a PITA, unless it was *tightly* controlled amounts of nappy cuts.. but DIY kits would have gone down a treat!

my only thing would be, i don't think the people (wo)manning the tnn info stands (incl. diy) should be selling stuff/handling money & product for wahms i reckon we have to remain unbiased seeming..

definitely

but umm... what fabric sellers are there now? GBs, Baby Cuddles, Wigglebums.. anyone else?

Bumbles?

another thing with wahms is you might not want to restrict it to just akl wahms (tho perhaps priority given) cos i know last year charity seemed to do a roaring trade! i think as long as they can definitely provide a decent amount of stock & a knowledgeable rep then its all good lol

I agree, we should not restrict to Auckland wahms - espeically because other centres are doing different days to us, so they could feasibly do more than one event.

i reckon i might *just* be able to convince sarah (GBs) to have a little road trip!

having GreenBeans would rock!

[karmiec]

Ok for next week DS sleeps in the afternoon from about 2ish... I can try to put him down on time or a little early and make it a 2:30 meeting otherwise mornings while he is awake.

My aim is to have a shortlist of venues for the meeting so we can discuss options (and hopefully be able to book something), and some ideas/info for where we can advertisek, and other random contacts and ideas.




Funny thing happened today... last night I mentioned this to DH who is a little bit funny about the whole "nappy forum" thing... anyway he is sending me emails from work with ideas about venues and stuff. He doesn't really get the demographic and its all foot traffic and bus routes but bless him he is trying to help.

[karmiec]

Another venue to consider:Panmure community centre

It is available on the Saturday (although the person answering the emails is not winning any favours) Hire of hte hall includes the dinning room, if we also hired the annex that should give us plenty of space. The conference room is upstairs so not much use as we couldnt' get pushchairs up there (and it would take forever if you were pregnant) so I wouldn't bother hiring that unless they were throwing it in for almost nothing and the WAHM's/Volunteers wanted to get a babysitter on site?

I have posted the application for discount form in the committee discussion as it might be worth seeing what help we could get. Would be less than $300 at full price (ie no discount both spaces) and should hold plenty of stalls, with lots of space for demo's etc.

Just based on the capacity I would say about 15 large tressle table sizes stalls more if we had different sized stalls but I could be wrong... that would make a base cost of $20 per stall but we would then need to add cost for advertising/printing, but balanced by booking demo's to stall holders and other interested parties.

In my mind the annex would suit demos' and the dinning space perhaps a child/mum friendly space.

I grew up in Manukau/Papakura and now live on the Shore. Just from my experience and people like Mum / MIL panmure is somewhere that seems very central where as some of these other places I would have to look up in the street directory as they sound like they are "way" out west

I've sent in a few emails to Auckland city council about venues including freemans bay, and western springs if you want to check out the website and give some feedback... there is one really central auckland near aotea square but I'm not sure about access with pushchairs etc.


ETA - ramblings

[mermaid13]

lisa you doing a great job of organising
I am very keen to help out