Drop-in day report

On Wednesday 30th September, we held a drop-in day for all members of SAMBA. Alison, Kathleen and myself hosted the day and we were thrilled to have such a great turn-out.

It was especially exciting to see the babies and toddlers and meet the parents. The youngest set of twins was 8 weeks old and there were loads of ages ranging from baby to toddler to school age. The play equipment at the kindy got a work-out and it doesn't take many sets of multiples to fill a room!

Alison and I had a moment talking about how clucky it made us (I said it was a moment and it was brief) and how quickly and easily you forget just how little and cute they can be! We had both left our boys with our mums (given that the kindy is not our property and neither of us were brave enough to unleash our robust toddlers), but Kathleen brought her tribe of three along.

There was lots of story-swapping, from difficulties with conception, babies conceived naturally and via fertility treatment, how huge we all got in pregnancy, how quickly/slowly we bounced back, and lots of sharing of the "moment of realisation" - being told at scans that there was more than one heartbeat. I'll never forget my own personal moment, when told there were two heartbeats, I said "But how can a baby have two hearts?"!! To hear the different emotions and reactions was great fun.

Then the inevitable discussions of feeding, sleeping, weaning, milestones, etc. .. all subjects I never tire of talking about. Again, Alison and I struggled to recall details but as soon as we heard other mums talking it all came flooding back!

It was great to see tired but happy mums come along, and have all those babies lined up in prams -- just too cute!

We have to make a special mention and thanks to Tracy for running an impromtu story time and singalong session, which was a great source of entertainment for the children in the afternoon.

All in all we had a great time. For those of you who came along, it was great to meet you and we hope you found it worthwhile. For those who didn't, we hope to see you next time!

Marnie and Alison

SAMBA Christmas Carnival

Soutar Park
Albert St, Goodwood

Date: Sunday 6th December 2009
Time: 11am til 2pm

What's on
11.30 - 2pm Face painting
11.45am Father Christmas arriving
12.30 - 2pm Life. Be in it. activities

Plus
Raffles with lots of great prizes!
Sausage Sizzle and drinks for sale

BYO
Chairs, rugs etc
Families to supply own children's presents
for Father Christmas to deliver

Gold coin donation welcome
to cover costs of activities, etc

Drop-In Day

This is just a quick reminder that the SAMBA Drop in Day is being held this
Wednesday 30th September between 10am and 2pm at the kindy behind the office at 46 Lockwood Road, Erindale.

Hope to see you there!

SAMBA @ the City-Bay

Well done to all the SAMBA participants in the City-Bay this year! Whether you walked or ran
the 6 or 12km distances, whether you took the kids or left them at home, it was a fabulous
effort!

Luckily we had great weather for the day, sunny but not too hot. Scott and I both ran the
12ks this year, and really enjoyed it (even if we were a bit sore the next day!).

With nearly 30,000 participants it was always going to be tricky 'finding' people on
the day, and unfortunately we had some difficulties in coordinating meeting spots for the
different distances. We'd appreciate your feedback on whether you would enter in a SAMBA
team for future years. If you would like to comment, please email me directly.


Liz Hall
SAMBA City-Bay team coordinator

President's Report September 2009

The following is an edited excerpt from the Mag

Happy Father's Day!

I hope all you Dads of multiples get spoilt. It takes other families with multiples to truly understand how hectic and hands-on it can be for the dads of multiples. One of my friends once told me they had a lovely routine where her hubby would get home from work and bath and dress the baby while she had a half hour to herself. This was every night! I couldn't believe it, how lovely for them!

Thank you to all those who sent in profiles and photos for the Mag this month. I've loved reading them all. A common theme seems to be the difficulties in having one on one time with our multiples, and I'm sure this extends to time with other siblings too.

We have quite a few events coming up, including
- the City-Bay fun run on Sun Sept 20th
- our Drop in day on Wed Sept 30th
- the Christmas picnic on Sun Dec 6th

The committee hopes you are all enjoying the printed Mag every month - do you wonder what it takes to put it all together? Unfortunately the printer/photocopier is on its last legs and is causing our office staff numerous headaches, particularly in printing the Mag each month. The printer has produced over 280,000 pages in the last 4 years - 5,800+ pages a month!

We would like to purchase a refurbished machine to keep producing the Mag... we have been asked about emailing newsletters and have mixed feelings about this, but this is something we will continue to consider further down the track, and once our member database has been updated. We do believe a new photocopier/printer is still necessary, however.

We would really appreciate any donations to our "Replace the Printer" fund, no matter how small. Remember, all donations over $2.00 are tax deductible. If you can help, please contact the Office for more information.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this and recent magazines, I really appreciate it..

Take Care,
Anne

HOM Report August 2009

Hi everyone,

Since my last report, our HOM group had an enormous turn-out for morning tea at my place - it was a tight squeeze! Fortunately it was a fine day weather-wise so some of the brave could play outside. One of the mums said she counted more than 35 people at one stage.. In all, 11 families were in attendance.

It was an excellent opportunity for the mums to chat and for the children to play.. when it was time for little people to have their day time sleeps, there was a mass exodus!

Noah, Zoe and Sophia will be celebrating their fourth birthdays in August, so it's a very exciting time in our house at the moment. They have just started pre-entry at kindergarten too, so it's all happening. I'll have an update on all of the above next month.

Until next time,
Bianca.

President's Report August 2009

The following is an edited excerpt from August's Mag.

Hi All,

Welcome .. I hope those with kindy and school-aged children enjoyed the school holidays. My two are still six months away from school but lots of their friends are starting to go and they can't wait to be "schoolers" too.

In this month's Mag we have lots of information about useful resources and feeding multiples.

There are books mentioned by members that are stories for children about being twins (are there any for higher order multiples? If you know of any, tell us!) .. In addition we have lots of information about upcoming events in September - including a Dads Night Out, the City-Bay fun run/walk and a Drop in Day (see previous posts on the blog for details of these events). It would be great to see as many members as possible at these events... they are great opportunities to meet with other families of multiples.

As a final reminder our next issue will be themed around Father's Day - do you have any photos or stories you'd like to contribute?

Take Care,
Anne.