Southampton Sling Meet

We need your help!

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:02:19 +0000

Thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate our 3rd birthday today, and all of you who have supported us since our first meet three years ago. This is now an appeal to all of you for your help in three areas!

1. Volunteers!
Due to other commitments and growing families, we are getting low on volunteers. We rely on our volunteers to keep the meets running. Without a team of volunteers, we simply couldn’t provide the service that we currently do. If you are interested in helping out, you do not need to have any specific experience. We can train you if you would like, but it would also be really helpful to have someone just to do the admin of sorting out hires and returns to free up our other volunteers to demonstrate how to use the slings. If you think you might be able to help, please email us our talk to one of us at our next meet.

2. Reviews
Our reviews section on here helps inform other parents when they are trying to choose a sling to buy or try out. Please do leave a brief review of any of the slings listed that you have tried – the more opinions the better! If you’d like to review a sling that isn’t listed, just email us and let us know.

3. Sling returns!
Please, please, please return your hired slings on time. Hired slings are due back between 12.45 and 1pm on the day of the meet. If you can’t make this time slot, you can drop them in to the Children’s Centre any time before the meet (if you left a cheque as deposit and would like it returned, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope with the sling, otherwise we will destroy it. If you left a cash deposit, please email us to arrange its return to you). We have many parents who come to our meets to try a specific sling or slings. If they are not returned on time, then they are not available for these parents, who have often travelled a fair distance, to try out. This is also the reason why we are reluctant to hire slings for more than one month at a time. Obviously we appreciate that there are occasions where unforeseen circumstances prevent you from returning a sling on time – in this case, we just ask that you let us know as soon as you are aware that there is a problem. We hope you understand that we are trying to make the slings available for as many people as possible to try, for as long as possible between the meets, and that you will support us in this.

We look forward to seeing you in 2012 on our new Sling Meet day (first Friday of the month, 1-3pm) and wish you and your families a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

Southampton Sling Meet is three years old!

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:09:05 +0000

Our December 2011 meet marks our third birthday. At our first meet in 2008, we had just one Mum and baby turn up and just the one sling hire. Since then, our meets have grown beyond all recognition, with us now regularly welcoming around 40 families to each of our meets and hiring out more than 25 slings at most meets. Since we started, new Sling Meets have also been set up on the Isle of Wight, in the New Forest and in Fareham, reflecting the growing number of babywearers in our local area. As we mark our third birthday, we would like to thank everyone who has supported Southampton Sling Meet since its launch and look forward to celebrating our birthday by sharing some cake with all those who can make our ‘birthday’ meet on December 5th. See you there!

New year, new Sling Meet day!

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:47:50 +0000

We would like to give you advance notice that the day of our meets will be changing from the start of 2012 to the first Friday of each month. We currently have the first four dates of 2012 confirmed. They are:

6th January
3rd February
2nd March
30th March (the first Friday in April is Good Friday, so this will be our ‘April’ meet)

We will continue to meet from 1pm until 3pm at The Windmill Children’s Centre.

Sincere apologies to anyone that this change inconveniences – it is due to our volunteers’ other commitments. We are also now recruiting volunteers to help out at our meets – if you are interested in joining our team of volunteers, please email us or speak to one of our volunteers at our meets.

Important information regarding the running of our Sling Meets

admin — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:44:13 +0000

Due to time constraints and insurance issues, we regret that our volunteers will not be able to teach parents how to use a new sling at our Sling Meets. If you require tuition on how to use a sling that you are unfamiliar with, we recommend that you look up the information online, using a site such as Sling Guide, or that you book a consultation with a qualified Babywearing Instructor (you can find details of your closest BABI registered instructor here). You can, of course, still hire slings that you haven’t tried before, but we remind you that your baby’s safety whilst you use these slings is your responsibility, and we suggest that you practise using the sling with a doll or similar until you are confident in putting it on and taking it off, before attempting to use it with your baby.

Our volunteers will be happy to show you how they would use any of our slings and can help you tweak your use of any slings that you are familiar with to make them more comfortable.

These changes will take effect from our next meet on Monday 4th July, 2011.

Southampton Sling Meet turns 2!

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:45:59 +0000

Our December 2010 meet marked our second birthday. Southampton Sling Meet has grown beyond all recognition since our first meet two years ago, and we would like to thank everyone for their ongoing support. As our meets continue to grow, we are now recruiting some new volunteers to help us run them. If you are able to commit to coming along to most of our meets, getting there half an hour or so beforehand to help set up, and staying for about half an hour afterwards to help pack away, then please do email us. You do not need any specific level of experience in babywearing as we will happily train you up on any of the slings that you are not used to using!

Southampton Sling Meet would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2011. See you at our next meet on Friday 7th January, 1-3pm at St Paul’s Church, Oak Road, Bursledon (please note change of both day and venue due to the Bank Holiday and decorating work at our usual venue).

2011 Sling Meet dates confirmed

admin — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:49:47 +0000

We are very pleased to announce that we have confirmed the dates of our 2011 meets at The Windmill Children’s Centre, which will be as follows:

Monday 7th February
Monday 7th March
Monday 4th April
Friday 6th May, 9.30-11am *
Monday 6th June
Monday 4th July
Friday 29th July, 9.30-11am *
Monday 5th September
Monday 3rd October
Monday 7th November
Monday 5th December

All meets take place on the first Monday of the month, from 1pm until 3pm, other than those marked with a * which have had to be arranged for an alternative date due to bank holidays or our volunteers’ holidays.

Our January meet will take place on Friday 7th January, between 1 and 3pm at St Pauls’ Church, Oak Road, Bursledon due to decorating work which is being undertaken at our usual venue that week.

Our remaining 2010 meets will be on November 1st and December 6th. We look forward to seeing you there!

New additions to our library

admin — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 15:57:01 +0000

Thanks to the generosity of manufacturers, we have some new slings in our library for you to try out. Our new arrivals include:

Action Baby Carrier soft structured carrier
FunkySlings fleece pouch
Je Porte Mon Bebe stretchy wrap
Joey Sling mei tai
Pouchlings pouch

All of these will be available for hire at our Sling Meets – don’t forget your chequebook!

Join us to celebrate International Babywearing Week!

admin — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 09:28:37 +0000

International Babywearing Week 2010 runs from October 6th until October 12th this year. To celebrate, we are holding two events next week. We have our October Sling Meet on Monday (4th), 1-3pm at The Windmill Children’s Centre, Long Lane, Bursledon. Then on Thursday 7th October, we are joining forces with the Isle of Wight Sling Library to celebrate IBW at The East Cowes Children’s Centre, Beatrice Avenue, East Cowes. There will be a raffle with some fantastic prizes and a cake stall as well of lots of opportunity to socialise with fellow babywearers. Further details of this event can be found here.

We look forward to seeing you at these events!

July meet another busy one!

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:04:41 +0000

Our July meet was yet another very well attended event and it was lovely to see so many new faces there. If anyone didn’t get a chance to ask any questions that they may have had, or if you have forgotten how to use the sling that you have hired, please do email us and we will do our best to help. Our next meet takes place on Monday 2nd August, 1-3pm at The Windmill Children’s Centre – see you there!

Next meet – 5th July

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:15:43 +0000

Our next meet takes place on Monday 5th July, 1-3pm at The Windmill Children’s Centre. For more details on how to find us, please click here. Don’t forget to join our Facebook group and/or our mailing list to receive reminders of our meets and any other special offers.