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JennGM
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A bit of background info: In our local area we have two Catholic homeschool groups. The one nearby is very large, almost 200 families. It is a ministry of their parish, and provides many academic classes, co-ops, and clubs.
Our group is not a ministry of our parish. We have 70 families at the most (with some crossing over in both groups). The other group was a split off from our group originally when the other parish was created. With that split, our group has decreased in more academic areas. We have more social and Catholic activities, but they are not many.
But now the other group is getting too large and having to turn people away. There would probably be interest in academic and other offerings if we had them.
Therein lies the problem. We really don't have experienced leaders from the past to show and lead the newer members on how to host these kind of activities. I've only done one co-op with Nature Study, and I really had no experience. Can you say clueless? I'm one of the leaders here and I just don't know to lead in this area. I need to motivate new members and younger moms to pick up in these areas.
What we would like to do is help our members understand ways to run co-ops or activities or clubs in ways that they don't need to carry the whole responsibility, but can share the burden. And also keep the cost down is extremely important.
Since we have a very large parish with a school, it's hard to get the facilities. That makes it more difficult to provide nursery care or something. We would have to break it down into several homes, for different ages and preschool.
Right now we have some book clubs, some clubs for girls, Art Class, PE.
We want to offer some brainstorming or perhaps compile some notes of suggestions on how to organize and run some clubs or classes. Examples of other activities would be Saint of the Month Club, Spelling Bee, Geography Bee, History Fair, Nature Club, poetry recitation, etc.
Academic classes examples would be science, writing, etc.
I know MaryM has some fabulous co-ops, as a new member has moved here and told tales.
So my long-winded request is to solicit descriptions on how you run clubs or co-ops, and if you have any resources to suggest, that would tremendous.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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JennGM
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Another example, Lego Clubs. We have a Builder's Club, but it's a casual meeting that everyone brings their own Bricks to build.
I really am inspired by the Lego competitions and incorporating science into the building. But is there a way to do this for less money? That is a real restriction.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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JennGM
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Well, I thought someone would be able to comment. I pulled out Alice Gunther's "Haystack Full of Needles" to get some refreshers.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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jawgee
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Sorry, I have no ideas! Our co-op is small (10 families). I am semi-involved with another that is much larger, but I'm not part of the planning or administration of that one.
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Monica
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JennGM
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jawgee wrote:
| Sorry, I have no ideas! Our co-op is small (10 families). I am semi-involved with another that is much larger, but I'm not part of the planning or administration of that one. |
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Monica, any description would help! I'm not looking on necessarily how to run it, but even a description on how it flows. How many moms lead, what do you do with non-school age children. Do you have several clubs meeting at the same time? What does one meeting entail?
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Erin
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Jenn
Haven't run a formal co-op as such but why don't you send out an email/call a meeting and ask each woman to share/write down what talents they have. It might not be anything they had considered talented but it is.
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Erin
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Betsy
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Jenn,
I am sorry that you haven't gotten more responses. I have activly avoided co-op due to my health for many years now. 
However, a long time ago when I was a part of a group, one thing that we all though would be important is to 1. lay out rules very clearly and the consequence if they were broken. A very wise Mother once told me when when she was starting a group that you need to define a group and it's goals very well up front or the people joining will define the group. 2. Have the Fathers be a part of the "governing board" to take out some of the emotion that women can bring to a situation.
Whenever I want to start/join a group like this I think of the story of The Little Red Hen. Many people want these opportunities for their children but few are really, truly willing to do the work. 
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sunny
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Jenn,
In the co-ops I have been involved in, they have started casually and have been great!! Is it possible that you are "over-thinking" this. Each mom volunteered to teach something they were comfortable with. One mom was not so comfortable and she taught a single sign language word each time. That was all, but it was fun. The other moms took on more serious subjects. I am simply suggesting that if you start small, your co-op will most likely build and take on a personality of its own.
Where I live now, we have the problem of space!! The diocese will not allow homeschool groups to use church spaces without sufficient insurance. Many homeschoolers cant afford a contribution to the co-op significant enough to cover that cost. :(
I would love to hear how you deal with this problem in other diocese!
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JennGM
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Well, my long-winded intro is definitely not clear.
I personally don't want to start any co-ops. But I'm looking for tangible ways to encourage others in our group to start some classes. I just want to provide some inspiration and descriptions so people can think "I can do this".
Intention is to be just low keel, casual. They will have to be in their homes, because our parish facility usually has no space available on a regular basis.
(And our homeschool group has insurance, which is expensive, but it covers the liability problems for PE and such. But if we use parish facilities we are covered by the Church insurance.)
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Kristie 4
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Ours organically formed out of our biweekly chess club. We divide the year up and figure out how many sessions we want, divide it up among the moms and get the ball rolling. We have two session each Tuesday afternoon with a snack in between. Each session is an hour and usually has two options. Our group has 10 familes and 23 kids so the two options are often quite different so there is something for everybody. Within those sessions are some clubs that are biweekly- book club, current affairs club, writing club etc. We also put on a Shakespeare play every year that eats up 2 to three months of sessions (and then some!).
Hope this helps....
Oh, and we have no insurance, but just ask families to sign a waiver.
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Bethany
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Well, I was a part of a co-op for a year, but then had baby #5 and haven't gone back. I don't think I'm cut out for co-op's  . Space and insurance was a problem for our co-op and because of that they are now in a building that I think belongs to a Baptist church. We did meet at a local parish and even went to noon Mass while we were members. At that time they were considered a parish organization and allowed to use the facilities for a fee and did not need insurance. However, they were then told they weren't a parish organization and told them they could no longer use the facilities. I think they had been meeting there for 10+ years . When that happened, a friend of mine who was still involved called every parish around and could find no one willing to take them in. Some parishes in our area already have co-ops, but I can only think of three and we're a large metro area, and she still could not find a welcoming parish.
Anyway, it was set up with a board of about 6 or 7 ladies who did the bulk of the planning. There was also a point system and every family had to earn 3 points a semester. You would get points for teaching a class (2), assisting with a class (1), and other things like cleaning up and posting signs for the classes each week. We had kids from nursery to high school. Our classes weren't extremely academic, unlike most of the other co-ops in the area, and would be everything from Ancient Rome to Crochet. We usually had a PE class for the younger ones and Pre-k. We also had a nursery for the little ones.
We did have a database on the Yahoo group that allowed any member to input class ideas they had and whether or not they could teach them. The board would then take ideas and set up a poll for the upcoming semester and narrow down the class choices. They did try to keep a balance of ideas interesting to girls and boys.
Co-ops seem to be very big in my area, but I would love to have one a little more "loose" like you're talking about. I was pregnant and exhausted the year we were involved. It felt like a lot of mommy work for glorified playtime. I guess some moms felt like it needed to be a class, where as I would have been happier with just having a big park day!
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KackyK
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Okay so I was a part of your original group oh so many years ago before moving and then being in the boundaries for the new group.
Here are some ideas that we did that can encourage others to realize they can lead too...
Our Saint of the Months then were done by a new mom each month. So if you put out there that you want to coordinate overall...you could go so far as to say it could be held at your home each month if the planning mom didn't want it at hers...you would just coordinate moms for each month...they could plan the whole thing themselves and then have helper moms who are there with extra hands, or maybe they would like to team plan. Way back when we would have moms signup for three different aspects each month - a mom to host at her home, a mom to plan for K-3rd, a mom to plan for olders. This gives mom a small a taste of planning and they can see how it works. It's also a good chance for new homeschooling moms to pair with veterans and to "see it happen".
The spelling bee was held every year by a mom (who lives right close to you ;) She would just put out word that she was going to be doing it and kids would sign up. She would have a list of words for each grade and emailed it to each family to study. I'm not sure where she got her list...pm me if you want her name, I know she'll share how she did it.
You have another mom who is super super close to you who pulled off a Christmas play each year (plus with the spelling bee mom). Neither of those moms homeschool any longer, but like I said I can give you names if you haven't figured it out yet
Also for a Nature type club idea, several moms were 4H leaders and they it opened it the kids in the homeschool group. They would meet once a month. It was for the Cloverbud age group 5-8. One year their theme was birds, a different one each month. Another year it was around the world and an animal at each location. There were three moms that led and rotated their planning. They occasionally met at church and sometimes in their home. They liked doing 4H because then the kids could do the 4H Fair Camp in August, they did some service projects as well.
I know that none of those moms back in the day had any tangible resource other than their noggins. I can't give you any specific book titles, but pm me and I can give you names if need/want them of who no longer homeschools, but ran a thriving club in your area.
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JennGM
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Thanks, Kacky. I do know most of those. We have a Christmas pageant taken care of, but some of those other areas we'd like to revive.
4H? that's helpful!
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Jennifer G. Miller
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gamcynth
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Jenn - How do you manage a lego club when everyone brings their own legos? I just envision mixed up legos...
Cynthia
mom to dd,1/13/04, ds 1/13/04, ds 1/13/04, dd 9/19/05
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gamcynth
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We have a co-op here in North Dallas, TX, and we have kept it purposefully small (6 families). We just had another family with only 2 children join. We are a Classically Catholic Memory co-op. It will be our 3rd year this year.
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JennGM
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gamcynth wrote:
Jenn - How do you manage a lego club when everyone brings their own legos? I just envision mixed up legos...
Cynthia
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I'm not sure how it's done. I see how my boys spread ALL.OVER.EVERYWHERE. We haven't attended, so I don't know.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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anitamarie
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We are in 2 co-ops right now and they run very differently.
Our CCM co-op is a parent-teach co-op. Every family has at least one parent teaching (in all fairness, it's just one dad). There is no drop off or down time. Everybody does something. Teaching can include the nursery. We have a nursery for kids under age 5. There are 4 or 5 who run the two rooms for nursery.
Our other co-op has some parents teaching, and some hired instructors. The moms (or dads) who teach, teach a class their child needs that year and there is no weekly fee, only supply fees for those classes. The hired teachers are paid weekly fees. We can drop-off and there is a supervised study hall. (This is a high school co-op.) There are clean-up duties, and supervisory duties. If you don't or can't do those the base co-op fee is doubled. It's a motivator to volunteer.
Both of these co-ops meet at parishes. One is at a new parish that is small and has no school -only PSR. Three different co-ops meet there. One is at a parish that no longer can support a school and so rents the space out.
From the get-go, our CCM co-op has been very clear that if you are in the co-op, you have to be doing something (work for the co-op). We have had people leave who didn't like that.
Good luck,
Anita
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Planning and Managing Co-ops
