21 November 2008

About WhatsOn4Kids.com

WhatsOn4Kids is a free community service published by Urchin, aimed at parents looking for great things to do with their kids in London.

Back in early 2005, Urchin founder Murray Kenneth found himself home in sole charge of 3 kids during half term. Intent on proving his worth as a modern Dad (as ready to turn his effortless attentions to entertaining the kids as running a business or wielding a squash racket) he scoured the internet for a handful of great days out in London for his kids. Hours later, exasperated by the abundance of out-of-date information and with frustrated ambitions, the idea for WhatsOn4Kids.com was born.

Who maintains WhatsOn4Kids?

WhatsOn4Kids in London is edited by Vanessa Goss, mother of three and co-founder of Urchin! Vanessa has a passion for London's wonderful buildings and particularly enjoys finding out about the myriad free events which are available for families and children of all ages.

As a community-based website, we welcome contributions from anyone interested in events and activities for children in London. Reviews, comments, articles or lists - please send your contribution to our London editor.

Why is it free?

People are generally amazed when we tell them that not only is the WhatsOn4Kids web service free for parents and carers, but also that we're not charging any organisation (commercial or voluntary) any fees for listing their events on the site. There are several reasons for this. First, we wanted to remain objective in our listing, and not feel obliged to recommend those events listed by advertisers. Secondly, many of the activities listed here are promoted by voluntary organisations who could not otherwise afford to pay for the service. Our goal is to list all of the available activities we can find, which means we did no want to exclude any organisation based on its ability to pay.

Which parts of the web site are most used?

Most of our visitors find us using web searches like Google or by word of mouth. And they usually find us because they're looking for places to go with their kids in London. Many then become regular users of the site when they sign up for our email list to receive the Whats on for kids in London Update in their In Box every Friday morning. Then, they find out about our articles and reviews and lists of resources and they become regular users. Our web statistics show that parents usually access WhatsOn4Kids.com between 5 and 7 times per month.

Help us provide this community resource!

WhatsOn4Kids.com is a community resource that requires constant maintenance if we're to be absolutely current and comprehensive. You can help us by logging the events for the organizations you're part of, or by letting us know about them:

• Let us know about events and organizations that we haven't yet listed on the site! Click here to give us the information.


• Let us know if you know of any restaurants, playgrounds, places to go, activities, or home schooling resources, etc. that should be added to these pages.

Thank you very much, and we hope you enjoy using WhatsOn4Kids.com.