TORBAY PLUNKET COFFEE GROUPS
WHY JOIN?

I was a new Mum chatting with my hairdresser when she mentioned that the kids from her coffee group were off out to dinner that night, wow I thought how does that work, imagining a group of babies hanging out at Chand!! It was then she said they were all 16 years old, wow! Our coffee group is nearly 5 years old and in the 5 years that we have been a group I have made some fabulous friends who I know will be friends for life and my kids have started their own friendships that I hope will last through school and into adult hood.
Coffee groups are a bit of a Kiwi institution!  Having coming from the UK and at that point being childless I wouldn’t have had the faintest idea of what a ‘coffee group’ was, just people who drank and compared coffee? But everyone here knows what a coffee group is and most Kiwis have been part of one at some point or another.
My coffee group was a lifeline for me in the early months with my first daughter, we caught up every week and compared notes and it made me feel really normal that I wasn’t the only one who had a child who always seemed to be uptight after 4pm until bed (the witching hours)! It made me realise my child wasn’t different to all the others and I wasn’t the only one exhausted and often feeling teary and thinking I wasn’t doing the best job and thrusting my daughter into my husbands arms as soon as he walked in from work!
We still compare notes but on different things.  These are now the girls and their families who helped my family when we added two more kids to our brood. Bad morning sickness was more bearable when they brought me meals, made me coffees and cleaned my house.
 
So to me and I know a lot of our committee members a coffee group is an important part of their journey as a Mum. So we decided we want to help local Mums who wish to become part of a coffee group and give them the opportunity to be part of a great group of Mums who like drinking coffee and having a natter!!!
We have decided we will host a coffee group at the clinic each month to help Mums with babies of the same age to get together.  We would love people to come along for a coffee and a piece of cake and swap stories and meet other locals.  We will then make sure you all have each others contacts and arrange for you to meet again and start your own group.
 
We have the following dates arranged:

October 15th        - for babies born in June and July
November 19th   - for babies born in August and September
December 17th   - for babies born October and November
January 21st         - for babies born in December

These birth dates are not strict so please know that you are welcome to come along at any time, it is just nice to be with Mums with babies of a similar age.
The groups will be held at the Torbay Plunket Clinic between 9.30 and 11.30am on the dates above. Please come along and we look forward to meeting you.
 
I hope like myself and many other people I know that your coffee group brings you as much friendship, laughs, tears and fun as mine has and still does.