Introducing Love Walton Kids Club

Love Walton Kids Club is a new initiative to help bring visitors to Walton town centre during school holidays with fun activities aimed at children of primary school age.

We all know that parents and guardians are often at a loss with how to keep their children occupied during half term, we want Love Walton Kids Club to be the answer. The intention is to offer a range of free activities that will keep kids entertained, drive people into your venue and increase dwell time in the town. Similar initiatives are proven to be very popular in many other towns and cities. By bringing multiple businesses together in collaboration, we hope this will give families a reason to come to Walton, helping to drive footfall for the benefit of the whole town.

How does it work?
Businesses within Walton BID area are invited to host their own free in-store event for children to take part in. We’ve listed some ideas as to what these could be. Walton BID will then promote all these activities to help encourage people to your venue and take part, thus leading footfall into your business to help drive awareness and engagement. Allowing you the opportunity to make a connection with the customers to encourage return visits and future purchases.

What activity can we do?
Activities need to be aimed at young children of primary school ages, things that will entice, excite and occupy them. Things that prove very popular include:

• A scavenger hunt around your store. Placing items in places for children to discover, fill in a form and perhaps get a treat at the end of it or go into a draw to win a small prize.
• Craft sessions – simple paper crafts or something a little more technical, many children enjoy making something they can take home
• Cookery workshops such as decorating cookies or cupcakes for the kids to then take away
• Storytelling sessions – gather the kids on the floor and some comfy cushions and read them an engaging story
• Or in hospitality venues; kids eat for free or special meal deals when an adult purchases a meal

The intention for this initiative is aimed at being a helping hand for parents and guardians. Offering fun and exciting ways of entertaining their children during school holidays. Whilst you can offer a discount for any purchases made on the day, the main reason for visiting needs to be an activity or entertainment opportunity.

Can we charge?
In order to entice parents along, we would recommend that activities are free for children to take part and offer an educational angle if appropriate. If you want to offer craft sessions and need to cover the cost of materials, then a very small fee of £1-£2 per child is permitted. Activities are not to be sold for a direct profit. These events are to be considered a marketing opportunity for your business to get people through the door and make a connection, encouraging a repeat visit in the future.

What are the logistics?
The event needs to take place during half-term weeks or school holidays in Elmbridge borough (dates are listed below). This makes it easier to have one central message for us to promote to parents. Events can be drop-in sessions that people can pop in and out for throughout the day, or you can run them at set times.

Ie, for storytelling, you could have a session at 10am, 11.30am and 2pm. Or if you’re doing crafts, you could just leave it open from 12-2pm for people to turn up when it suits.

If you’re limited on space, you can encourage people to book a place by calling or emailing in advance. Or even using a free booking software like Eventbrite. But where possible, to make it easier for parents, being able to just turn up is recommended.

How will it be promoted?
Walton BID will collate all the information for each business offering a Love Walton Kids Club activity and present everything in a handy leaflet. These leaflets will be printed and distributed through local channels such as schools and libraries, plus we would ask each of the participating businesses to have a stock of leaflets and help distribute them to customers in the lead-up to the event.

Walton BID will also create a dedicated page on its website, lovewalton.co.uk listing all the activities.
We will invest in digital advertising to share the messages across social media, plus some adverts in local magazines and parent leaflets. To help amplify the message even further, we would encourage all participating businesses to share across their own channels too – the more people we reach, the better!

What will it cost?
This initiative is exclusively for Levy-Paying members of Walton BID and there is no additional cost for businesses to take part. The only cost to you is the running of the event on the day such as craft materials.

When are the activity dates in 2022?
Half Term: 14 – 18 February
Easter Holidays: 4 – 18 April
Half Term: 30 May – 3 June
Summer Holidays: 25 July – 31 August
Half Term: 24 – 28 October

How do I take part?
To offer an activity, you just need to submit the details to Kelly Bliss at Walton BID. Please include the following and email kelly@waltonbid.co.uk

• Your contact name and a contact email address
• Business Name
• A title for your Activity (such as Cookie Decorating, Make your own xxxx)
• A brief description of the activity. This is the space to tell parents what the session involves, what kids will do etc)
• Time(s) of the activity
• Do people need to book, if so, how?

If you’re interested in taking part but just want a little more information, please get in touch with Kelly Bliss at Walton BID, who will be happy to come and chat through everything with you.