Hellobee Boards

Our local mom's group is very informal and people drop in and out each week. The administrator posts on our Facebook page the weekly meet up spot and time. We do:

Breakfast outings
Park play date
Splash pad (local park)
Stroller walks
Berry picking
Bounce house time (Monkey Joe's )

And if someone feels up to it in the winter months we do a coffee and snack time at their home .

I run the neighborhood moms group, but we are not very active. One of the things that I've learned is not to plan any events that take a lot of planning or effort or purchasing tickets/supplies on my part, because people drop out or decide to come last minute a lot depending on nap schedules/sick kids/last minute plan changes. I tend to plan things like park outings or pool play dates because they are things that I would do with my kids on our own anyway.

Things we've done:
Park and/or splash pad
Pool
Meet in our community clubhouse and everyone bring a toy
One of the families has a bouncy house, so we will meet up in their driveway
Lunch @ a fast food place with a play area
Meet at an indoor play place for open play
Meet at the mall play area
Meet at the local zoo or children's museum

I'm the treasurer of our local airforce playgroup and I would be lost without our weekly catch ups! Our playgroup is reasonably formal because we are certified and receive government funding but we're also pretty relaxed and free range. We have the use of an airforce community centre so we have a secure place to store all our toys and resources and we also have a secure and safe outdoor play space for the kids, plus a kitchen and bathrooms.

Something you might want to think about is how you'll deal with food and resources, our families pay $5 a term and the playgroup then provides the morning tea and each family provides a piece of fruit. We also use the fees to buy craft supplies and other bits and pieces.

Another plan we're looking at implementing is having each parent run a session / activity once a term, it doesn't have to be anything fancy or complicated but it gives the kids a chance to experience different activities and learn new things.

If you're not looking to be that "organised", as such, you could look at having a roster and each family takes a turn hosting or choosing the meeting place on the same day each week or fortnight. My coffee group back home does this and it works out really well. They meet on a Tuesday afternoon each fortnight and whoever's hosting provides the food and runs the activity.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: somewhere around 12-15 families which gives us regular attendance of between 15-20 kids at each session! I should mention that we have to be organised to keep receiving our government funding and we have an advisor who visits our playgroup 2-3 times a year.

I used to run a playgroup that had 40+ members. We had a google group and then someone offered to start a facebook page. In the beginning, I would post 2 months worth of dates (one date per week) and ask people to volunteer to "host" and then the hostess of the week would send out info to everyone about the playdate. Whoever could make it would show up. Some of the things we did: local park, indoor playroom, splash pad, lunch dates, picnic dates, zoo, children's museum and some in-home play dates.