Erin, Deborah and I visited St. Johns to scope out the rooms and talk to the staff. If you click each photo above, they should open full size for a better view. Things we learned:
- We do not have a limit to the number of people we can have in the building
- We need to be sure everything is well supervised
- We need to request each room we would like to use, but we can always change our request and fill out a new form if we need different arrangements
- We may be able to set up rooms and leave them set up with tables/chairs etc. Deborah is going to talk to the children’s ministry coordinator and verify that with her and not just the pastor and admin we’ve been talking with
- There is a room that might be more appropriate for Form 2 which may or may not be available to us, and Deborah is also going to find out about that
- There are only single stall bathrooms on the second floor, but there are larger bathrooms down the stairs between the Youth room and Great room. We would prefer students be accompanied as a group to use the larger bathrooms when needed
- The office staff leave the building at noon on Fridays, so we will be the only people in the building and the front doors will be locked, (entrance will be from the backside which most of us are familiar with using)
- They hosted a Classical Conversations group previously which outgrew the space, so I may reference which spaces they used
On to the Room Choices
Gathering space – We were initially leaning toward the community room, but if we want to be more active it might be better to meet in the Youth room instead. If we use the Youth room, we need to ensure that the sound board and other equipment in this room are not touched at all. The Community Room is on the same floor as the classrooms, while the Youth Room is downstairs. I believe the CC used the Youth Room as their gathering space.
Nursery/Form 1 – Room 216/216A has a divider in between, which we would use to separate this space. On one side are couches which would make more comfortable seating for moms in the nursery. There are already small tables and chairs for young children.
Form 2 – There are a few options for this group. There is a room (214) with soft furniture in it, but not enough for the size of group we expect. We have permission to move them out of the room and put up more table space and chairs. Alternatively, they could use the Community Room, but it seems a little stark to me. There is also a room we did not photograph that is already set up with tables and chairs, but this room is also being used regularly and may be easier not to have to reset it each time.
Form 3+ – Room 211/213 is a very fun space for this age group. One side of the room has two couches which will hold at least 4 students each, and there are upholstered chairs and cushioned chairs for additional seating. On the other side of the room is a large table, with seating for 10 currently, could probably seat a few more. But, if we have more high schoolers than this space will hold, we have the option of using the Youth room.
Folk Dancing – The Youth Room technically has enough space, but we would have to rearrange the furniture and put it back, and there is an unfortunate pole right in the center. (May pole dance??) If we are rather small, the half nearest the door would do, but if we would like to open this up more, we’ll need the Great Room. The only drawback to the Great Room is that periodically it needs to be set up for the Church service for that weekend, so instead of being a consistent schedule, we’ll have to bounce dates between dance and field trips (which is not a big deal but to be aware of.)
Feel free to discuss on the Forum thread, I’m going to keep comments closed here so we don’t end up with multiple convo streams.