Happy birthday Essex Mums!

Essex Mums is one today!

I've been meaning to post this since this morning but just got round to it. As it's so late in the day I'm just going to copy some of the info I sent out to the local papers etc.

The Essex Mums forum (www.essexmums.org) will be celebrating its first birthday on March 12th. We have come a long way since it started and have hopes of achieving more in the next year.

I started the site after moving to Westcliff last February and having trouble finding out what was going on and where. A bit of research made me realise that there were many other Mums out there experiencing the same problem, all looking to make friends and find things to do with their kids, but often a bit too shy to try new things on their own, and uncertain as to what was happening near them. I wanted it to be a place where Mums (and Dads) could come and chat about their days, exchange experiences of being a parent and help one another, as well as sharing information about what was worth doing (and what to avoid!)

When the site started, it took off rather rapidly as friends told friends and word spread. In the first fortnight we had over fifty people join, which at the time seemed amazing to me. In the first month I was interviewed by the Evening Echo, Southend Radio and BBC Essex which helped get the news out further. Suddenly I went from refreshing the page every five minutes, hoping someone else would post something to seeing new names appear all the time, and not being able to keep up with all the activity. Now, nearly a year later we have over 850 members (an average 2.5 new recruits a day!) from all over Essex. Some post every day and enjoy just chatting to one another, some post now and then when they get a chance, others just pop in to find out about things that are going on.

We have had lots of meet-ups, from very popular ones last summer at Wat Tyler Park, through numerous visits to soft play centres to a couple of people meeting up here and there when they fancy something to do. We have just started organising regular coffee mornings every week and are hoping to have a good turn out for our first birthday party at Partyman World on Monday March 16th. We have had new babies, numerous pregnancies (even leading to talk of there being Essex Mums baby dust!) and many good friends have been made - this has been the most wonderful thing about it all to me, seeing people get to know each other and go from mere acquaintances to real, solid friends. Of course the kids love meeting up with each other too, and it's been lovely to see them all grow - hopefully we will continue to see this for years to come.

So thanks everyone who is a member - you're all great and have made the site what it is!

Link to the article in the Yellow Advertiser