Spring onions 21/03/2012
 
Spring is definitely in the air. I got my summer hat out today and I've been taking every opportunity to walk places. Isaac is very happy to be on his bike and Eva can be pulled along on her scooter. And it beats waiting in a queue at the many temporary traffic lights which seem to be encircling Brockley at the moment. 

Dads drinks at The Crown in Blackheath last Wednesday night - 10 dads in all, with a strong Lee-Hither Green contingent. James very kindly acted as chauffeur again. Sadly I couldn't be there as we were packing to visit family in Devon for the weekend. After 6 hours of driving with the kids I have to say that I'm a convert to in car DVD systems.... So thanks for coming to the drinks guys and do join us again on 31st May at the Princess of Wales in Blackheath this time. 

Today John and Eva and James and Maddie joined Isaac and I at Pat-a-Cakes for some refined sugar. They're doing fresh organic bread there now, which at £1.80 a loaf is not bad (and I hear in fact it's pretty good). 

Eva's second birthday presents arrived in the post this week. There was much interest in the box from both her and Isaac. So, do I pack the presents and take them to Grannie and Grandad's? or give them to her when we get back? I kind of think at 2 she's not going to know which day is her birthday. She's bound to be more excited if we get some of her friends round when we're back. 
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In January eight lucky dads took part in the first dads cooking course at the ever popular Blackheath Cooks. Joy and her band of helpers taught us some great recipes which we all cooked together and then enjoyed a taste of the end results over a drink. Some of it even made it home! The bread making was a real success – see the photos of us kneading away, and the happy chefs with their bags of buns and focaccia.
We all took home some American-style cinnamon breakfast buns – plenty of butter and sugar, not one for the diet. They were such a success that my 4 year old son said ‘daddy, you made them lovely! You are the greatest chef’.

We also made some full meals including a delicious tagine dish, healthy snacks for the kids and authentic curries. And from what I've heard all the dads have managed to continue making the recipes at home. 

The course was partly funded by our Co-operative funding, and we hope to be able to offer another round of the course in future. Any dads wishing to find out more should contact us: info@selondondads.org.uk. And check out Blackheath Cooks: www.blackheathcooks.com

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Happy New Year! 15/01/2012
 
Hi Dads,

Wishing you and your families all a happy and healthy 2012.

The stay & play sessions are all now starting again, If you haven't been before make it a fun new year by going along - the kids have a great time, they make friends and learn to play nicely, and it is nice to see some fellow dads in a very relaxed place.

I have an update from one of the Forest School organisers:

Forest school at Invicta is now just on Tuesdays until further notice due to lack of interest for the Friday sessions. Tuesday is still open to all and meet at school gate at around 09:50, not the children's centre. Could you please also state that there is now a Facebook page.. This is the link: http://en-gb.facebook.com/invicta.childrenscentre. Many thanks, Dan

We're starting to think about the next set of dads events, so if you would like to suggest, host or organise any activity, open house, social meet or visit, do get in touch. It isn't limited to the stalwarts you see in the current schedule, and you may notice that most of the activities require quite minimal organisational effort.

One early spring event will be an NCT Nearly New Sale at John Roan School on 4 March. There may be a table from this group there, to contact new dads, so if you might like to spend an hour at the table chatting and eating cake (and possibly pick up a bargain or two), reply to this email.

I've got another one of these free taster session offers that sometimes come our way - Soccer Stars Football Academy, catering to boys and girls 2-7 in three different age bands. Contact soccerstarsfa@yahoo.com or telephone 07522 425 931 - if you're interested, reply to this email too - we might be able to get a session as a group event.
 
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Drinks tomorrow night
just a quick reminder that we'll be sharing a few drinks at The Crown in Blackheath from about 8.30pm tomorrow night (Tues) so do come by. If you can't make this one we're thinking about drinks in about a month's time before Christmas so make yourself free for that one!

Costume Open House
Crofton Park SE4 Friday 4 Nov from 10am - 12pm
Kids love dressing up, and it's that week between Halloween and Firework Night so please come to my place for a little open house/tea party. Please come in costume if you can, dads and kids, all efforts accepted, or just dress up fancy or a bit funny: hats? I don't care, let's just have a bit of a laugh with the kids. Please also bring party food to share if you can. For anyone with a morbid fear or mums, be aware I am also inviting a few of my kids' friends and their attendant maternal units.
Please RSVP to lgnctweb@gmail.com if you're coming so I know numbers, and I will send you the address.

Tea Dance for Little People
Friday 18 Nov 10am
A few weeks back I cast around for responses on what days dads would like go and play at Tea Dance, and the answers I got were split between Thursdays and Fridays. If you don't know it, Tea Dance is a play/arts café in Brockley aimed at under 5s. You pay to get in and then you can stay as long as you like, kids can do some cleverly themed play and acting and making. They serve great coffee, homemade cakes, and now a new menu of great child-friendly lunches which are about £3 for adults and £1.50 for kids. We will benefit from the reduced entry price of £3 (normally £5). You might think, why pay entry to a café? But let me tell you this is quite different from the free activities you might find at libraries or such. It's more like the music and theatre activities you maybe do with your kids, paying upwards of a fiver for an hour or less.
Access to Tea Dance will not be exclusive to us, other visitors can come, mums etc. But only we get the reduced entry fee. So if dads can't make it but if your partners can and you want your kids to get to play with their friends, there's no restriction on mums coming, just they won't get the SELD special offer. So I've settled on Friday 18 Nov as the first of these dates, and then I'm planning some Thursdays and Fridays over the winter.
Please get back to me if you are planning to come so I can let Sally know rough numbers.

Dads in the media
Just opening in cinemas in the US is a new movie called The Other F Word profiling a generation of US punk/skate/rock dads such as Flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers, skater Tony Hawk, and guys from bands like Rancid, Everclear, NOFX, Blink 182 etc. http://www.theotherfwordmovie.com
Comedian and father of 5 Rob Brydon was recently interviewed in the Big Issue, and said "fatherhood is far and away the most rewarding thing you can do, more than any job or award could ever be. It's the real thing. It's one of the hardest things too. Parenthood is a thing of extreme highs and lows, the stress and worries are horrible but the feelings of love and family and someone being 'of you' is overwhelming."
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All 8 places have now been taken but please get in touch if you're interested and we can see whether we can run more courses in future. 
January sucks, right? Luckily, your caring sharing dads group is on hand to help!

In January SELondonDads are putting on a four-week course in cooking for kids and the family, hosted by the lovely Blackheath Cooks (http://www.blackheathcooks.com/).

This course won't be about teaching the basics – we all know how to boil an egg – but is aimed at getting us all out of the 100-ways-with-pasta loop. The four sessions will cover bread baking, curries, seasonal family cooking and after-school snacks. And after each one you get to take home what you've made. Yum.

The sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings on 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st January, and will take place at Blackheath Cooks, Old Dover Road, Blackheath Standard. Sessions will run from 7:30PM to 10PM.

The cost of the course is £60 (£15 per session as opposed to the usual £50 cost - so it's fantastic value for Dads and includes an armful of delicious grub to take home and impress the Mrs with).

If you want to book a place then please email ASAP me on tim.johnson77@btopenworld.com Places will go to the first eight dads to reply, so be fast.
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See the pictures from our celebratory summer get-together on this page: http://selondondads.weebly.com/3rd-anniversary-picnic.html
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Summer picnic 21/08/2011
 
Today we had our third anniversary picnic in Greenwich park it was brilliant! The weather was hot and sunny, there were about 20+ kids, almost as many dads and several mums - most of them expecting babies! Theatrebugs (www.theatrebugs.co.uk) did an amazing interactive story play with the kids, going on expeditions through rivers and jungles, sleeping animals and a few songs and bubbles. There were goody bags and lots of cake for everyone. Nice to see lots of familiar faces, a few new ones; my, how he/she's grown! And great to have the old Headmaster Martin back with us again.

We'll post photos as soon as they're available. Thanks so much to everyone who came, and especially to Andy, Inde, Uwe, Nathan and all the dads involved in making this day happen.
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We've recently been contacted by a PHD student who is researching homedads and dads who do the majority of childcare. She is looking to have informal interviews with dads for about an hour. If you'd like to help with this please email us on info@selondondads.org.uk and we'll put you in touch with her.

We've also been contacted by the charity 4Children who are preparing to launch a campaign about postnatal depression and are looking for dads to contribute their stories of PND in their family - either supporting their partner or suffering themselves. If you would like to be involved in this campaign then co
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The Evening Standard on 28 July ran an article about how it's getting more acceptible (with parents) for there to be male carers at nurseries:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23973665-parents-welcome-men-into-childcare-98-percent-now-happy-to-let-them-work-in-nurseries.do

It's a shame that there have been such prejudices and they still play a part in some parents' decision-making; but at least there are signs that things are changing.
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The Tuesday stay and play in Brockley continues right through the summer. We had previously been warned that due to cutbacks they couldn't staff all the centres through the holidays; but thankfully they've managed to keep our group running right through until September, every Tuesday 09:30 - 11:30. We went out into the garden this week and we also did some water play for a change.

The Wednesday stay and play in Charlton is also still on but in a slightly different room to normal due to work taking place on the building. Arrive as normal and they will direct you to the temporary room.

Monday's stay and play will recommence in September.
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