Interview: Katie, Organizer of The Babies and Mommies of Doylestown
When we took a look at the Parenting groups with the most RSVPs last week, we noticed a pretty undeniable trend: the vast majority of groups who made it into our top 10 boast powerful leadership teams.
Katie, the Organizer of The Babies and Mommies of Doylestown Meetup Group, helped shed some light on the situation.
Read on for all the insider info! Whether or not you organize a Parenting Meetup, and whether your Meetup is big or small, we’re sure you’ll find Katie’s answers as helpful as we did.
You mentioned that you have a great Leadership Team. How is the team structured? Do members have specific tasks that they’re responsible for?
We have five Assistant Organizers and three Leaders. The Assistant Organizers help post events to our calendar and keep it full (we are the only five people who can post to the calendar). One Assistant is in charge of age-specific play dates, and one does our Mom’s Night Out events, book club, and game nights for the moms. We all really just pitch in to help each other whenever!
As Organizer, I bounce ideas off of my Assistants and always get their opinions before making bigger decisions regarding the group. One heads our “Meals for Moms” program (members cooking meals for other moms with newborns). One is our “Health and Fitness” leader, running “Stroller Bootcamp” and provides info about other fitness and health related activities. And the other heads up “Beyond Bucks” activities (things that are happening outside of our immediate area).
How did your Leadership Team come about? How did you find members to help you out?
Our original Organizer and founder, Amy, was running the group solo for a few years. Once the group got to be pretty big (100+), and the needs of the moms were more than she could handle herself, she got a couple of Assistants. I believe the first two Assistants were members that Amy had gotten close to, she trusted, were reliable, had a strong drive to make this group even better, and she knew their partnership was a good one.We typically try to approach specific members first before we simply open it up to the entire group, just to avoid “too many cooks in the kitchen!” Sometimes we bring people on who have proactively expressed interest to get more involved in leadership. If a member is really passionate about something (like health and fitness or community service) it has worked well to let them run with it! We are always open to including members who want to step up and get more involved. We realize that everyone on the leadership team will eventually want to step down as their children grow and get more involved in school and other activities so having a team in place helps to hand things down and ensure the success of the group’s future.
I have always felt that “this isn’t MY group, it’s YOUR/ALL of our group” - Yes, I started this for me, as I was new to the area, new to Mommyhood, but I was more into the “team” idea…working with others, and the community to make this “bigger than me” - and It WORKED! The responses I have gotten over the years has been overwhelming and I’m so happy I started this through Meetup, as they are as much a part of my success as the moms that have joined the group.
Katie rocks as part of Meetup’s Community team. She’s especially keen on Parenting Meetups.
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