Childrens activities
Nigel Roder has organised a Children's Renegade for many years. In 2010 and 2011 they where organised by Juggling Jake.
At BJC 2011 and BJC 2012 there were a lot of children's activities provided by The Ladybird Project.
At BJC 2009 and BJC 2010 Circus Kevin organised some children's activities; he also brought lots of child-appropriate circus equipment for them to use.
Bungay Balls Up Convention 2010 trialled a separate "family camping area", which helped keep the late night revellers away from the kids, and the kids away from the hung over folks early in the morning. Also helps families to arrange co-ordinated babysitting efforts. A lot of European Juggling Conventions have had family camping areas.
Perhaps having children's activities in the mornings (away from campsite) might encourage (potentially) noisy children away from the campsite where other convention-goers are trying to sleep.
BJC 2011 implemented a child friendly policy, including such things as suggesting that the first coach back from the show be available for parents with small children.
Some BJCs have offered (paid?) crèches but there has been little interest shown in them.
Co-ordinating children's activities is a task best outsourced to a dedicated volunteer who has experience with kids and who will have time during the event. It shouldn't be hard for such a co-ordinator to find parents who would be happy to help out. If you do plan this in advance you could use it for promo purposes - but in that case you might consider changing the "under 11s go free" policy, since having the BJC seen a free babysitter could cause all kinds of problems. In fact, having the BJC seen as a paid-for babysitter could cause problems too. Though on the other hand charging for smaller children might discourage people with families from coming to BJC, so these factors need to be weighed up.
There could be a concern legally if the Independent Safeguard Authority legislation comes into force, this should be researched more closely when that time comes.
