Real Nappy Week - Auckland

[sb]

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.

Panmure Community Centre is humongous, we'd definitely get more than 15 stalls in. Upstairs is two flights of stairs up. Heaps of parking.

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.

Is the one near Aotea Square Ellen Melville or the Pioneer Womens Hall? If it is, its upstairs above Pumpkin Patch in High Street. There is only one small room downstairs, there is a lift to the rooms and the hall upstairs. The downer about town is paying for parking.

Western Springs is nice (right next to Dennys), close to the Motorway, good parking, 100% accessible so good for prams and preggy people. Also good visibility from the road, which Panmure lacks.

I'm not familiar with Freemans Bay, Avondale is another option.

[nova]

pay parking could be a bad idea cos then you'll get people who either won't come at all, or won't necessarily stay as long as they'd like cos they've skimped on parking money

[bee]

Good morning,

Just putting my hand up to help out if needed!
Cheers
B

[Ethan's Mum]

Morning guys.

As promised here's the "hit list". Not a HUGE list but man it took a while to get some of these details - the easy ones are TNN'ers, the rest I trawled from a google search and from online directories. If you know of any others that should be on the list please let me know. I've included Waikato & BOP. How far and wide do you think we should include invites? I guess some of the bigger nappy businesses from further down the country might be interested in sending a rep??

And are we going to include non-nappy related WAHM's? Or just keep to the nappy theme.


Auckland & Northland
Aquabub
Counting Sheep Knits
CutieBums
designerbums
Fuzzi Bunz
Honey Child
Knittabots
Little Cloth Kiwis
Mothers Instinct
Organic Baby (an online info resource but they do trial packs???)
Organic Island Baby
PikoBaby
Real Nappies
Snazzipants
SweetP Designs

Nappy Hire Kits
Heathers Hire Kits
Lucybelle's Kits NB/Small
Kete Kope Hire Kits
Nina's Kits Size Small
Little Grasshopper NB/Small Kit

Other
Breastmates
Bee Dezine


Waikato
Baby Cuddles
GreenBeans


BOP
Nappy Days
Moon-Eze
Baby Harmony
Karma Kidz

[Ethan's Mum]

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.

Just waiting to hear back from them

[Ethan's Mum]

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.

I have plans to go to a LLL meeting at 10am next Wed but can come to yours after that?

[Ethan's Mum]

Where do you go on the Auckland City website to see the Western Springs Venue?

[Ethan's Mum]

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.

Just waiting to hear back from them

Just heard back and Windsor Park is booked out.

[karmiec]

Western Springs If you hunt around they have a venue search which although limited does make things quick.


If Panmure really is huge we could maybe get away without hiring the annex and making the stage the play area and the dinning room the demo room to reduce costs. I'm hoping that if we get a discount that we can hire the lot for next to nothing (I'm nothing if not hopeful) as I'd rather have more space that less IYKWIM.

My opinion is that if we start with a space, first wave of invitations to hold a stall goes out ot Nappy sellers, then the second wave to other child/eco related WAHM's until we feel full enough IYWKIM.




As for Wednesday at my place, I need to make a decision today as we are going away for another few days. Either a lunch meeting 12 till 2pm or an afternoon tea meeting from 2:30. We are on the north shore about 3 minutes from constellation drive... If you post on here today to state a preference then I can check tonight/tomorrow before we leave and try and accomodate as many people as possible coming. We have a cot and portacot available if anyone needs them.

[Ethan's Mum]

As for Wednesday at my place . . . Either a lunch meeting 12 till 2pm or an afternoon tea meeting from 2:30. . . . If you post on here today to state a preference . . .

I can do either time - I'm free all arvo next Wednesday.

[Ethan's Mum]

Western Springs looks good - and most people know where the zoo is so it's a good landmark to head for to get to the venue!

We'd be eligible to apply for the discounted rate too.

[mermaid13]

we should be available all day as our la leche not back on yet

[karmiec]

Quick Venue hunting update:

I have spoken to the council and on their advice made a preliminary booking for my three prefered venues (well of the ones I enquired about) which is a no-cost penciling in untill we have our meeting next week - then we need to confirm, or cancel.

Basically talking to the guy these three are all very central to the motorway and are in well known suburbs and are easy to find etc. If eligible discounts are 25-50% off the hourly rate. In all cases if we hired just the main hall at full price for 9-3 it would only be $168. At this stage I would say we could extend to hiring from 9-4 and having the expo hours as 10-3 giving us a full hour both sides to unpack/clean etc.

All of these incurr a bond of $200 refundable if the hall is still standing and clean when we leave. If TNN Inc can't help us with this I would like to go halfs or quarters with someone?? Basically because with a newborn I won't be able to guarntee that I can come to be bossy on the day and make sure I get my bond back IYKWIM.



Panmure: the main hall (including dinning room) and the conference room (upstairs) are free, the annex is booked till lunchtime. If it really is big then we can use the hall for the stalls, stage for play/feeding area and the dinning room for demos. Maybe if we were planning a big feature demo that needed the space we could book the annex for just the last couple of hours? At this stage I wouldn't book the conference room unless WAHM's and Volunteers wanted to pool some money and pay for it and have an onsite babysitter or two.

Ellerslie: Both spaces are available Ellerslie War Memorial Main hall includes a stage and mezinine floor. Again I think the upstairs room would not be suitable for public use but maybe for onsite babysitting.

Western Spings:
Is available.


If anyone has been to these venues and has any reliavant info for us that would be great, either post it here or PM me and I'll print it out for the meeting. Especially if anyone has been to a market or something at one of the halls and has an idea of how well they work with foot traffic etc.

I was thinking of the "other section" that could include places like eco-store (washing powders and nappy creams), Next Generation or Tui Bee Balme (although they are out of Auckland)... if we were rolling in space maybe washing machine comapnies LOL!

[nova]

wow thats quite some wahm list! go you for putting that together!!

sorry i've missed something, but do any of those venues have attached play areas? cos that could be an excellent bonus

i'm pretty sure we won't be expected to pay ourselves for bonds etc... and i think it would be feasible to invoice the stall holders to pay a wee bit in advance too...?

perhaps the waitakere & north shore hire kit schemes might be interested in a table too, to promote their kits..? i know wcc is looking for promotion ideas & this does seem like an obvious option to me!

eta- on a minor note, i'm gonna be hunting for someone who is making themselves a nappy stash at around the time, for a step-by-step diy display, cos i've decided i don't want to commit to leaving my stash unfinished so close to my edd!

[karmiec]

Meeting time set for Lunch (12) on Wednesday. If you need my address pm me and I will answer on Tuesday.