PATCH comes
back to St Mary’s
No, Patch isn’t the church’s pet dog! It stands for Parent And Toddler Christain Hospitality
and it’s meeting on Friday mornings in St Mary’s church hall in Portreath
Anyone who has ever been in that position knows how just isolated you can feel when you are looking after young children. The group welcomes not just mums with toddlers but dads, grandparents and child minders too every Friday in term time from 9.30
to 11.30am.
It’s a chance for both adults and children to get out of the house, chat with other people and make friends. Peta Redmore
explained that after the Gala opening the organisers wondered how many they would see the following week but were delighted to welcome seventeen adults and over twenty children, despite the fact that the local pre-school group were also holding an event the same morning. ‘It shows what a need there is for a parent and toddler group locally’, she told me.
PATCH used to run regularly in the church hall but stopped some time ago. I spoke to Megan and Katie who explained that they
had felt it was time to start something up again, and together with Peta and Michelle had planned and worked to make it happen.
All the equipment had been given away,’ Peta told me, but they advertised, asking for help and donations, and were delighted
with the response. St Mary’s was offering the church hall rent free, Camborne Lions had donated £200, Pool Improvement Fund another £100 and people had given toys and games.
It was certainly well equipped with sit-and-ride toys inside and out, a craft table with play dough, a dedicated baby area with soft rugs and baby activities, and the garden outside. By 10.15 the place was buzzing, with children making a beeline for the open air: the sand pit on the decking and the playhouse on the grass.
Although the morning is deliberately structured like the local pre-school, with snack time together round a table splitting two sessions of free play and a communal singsong at the end, the atmosphere is very relaxed. Parents move around chatting and keeping an eye on one another’s children, with coffee freely available. There is a plan to have a health visitor available once a month to answer any questions. Links with the local pre-school are good and some of the parents present also took their children there, but people had come from outside the village too.
A surprise guest was a two week old baby who ended up attending the event planned as his own baby shower! Peta is also making plans for an under fives Messy Church and Christingle in St Mary’s on the 15th December for children and parents from the pre-school and PATCH.
Deb Grigg
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