Building women's business networks

Amanda Frolich is not short on ambition. Not only does she want to get parents and children on their feet and having fun together, but she plans to get working mums networking to improve their business opportunities.

A fitness trainer by profession, she set up Amanda's Action Kids in the UK after doing a music and movement course and being asked whether she did birthday parties. She combined her fitness classes with the party activities until it became too much for her and she saved up to allow her to devote all her time to hosting hi-energy parties and fitness classes for children. Her empire has since grown to embrace training for childcare providers, fun days at soccer clubs for parents and children and work with the Government. Now she is building on that by setting up a working mums network. A working mum herself to a very active four year old, she says: "I have been teaching classes for 18 years and realised that I had built up a network of amazingly talented women."

Amanda says she got the idea for the network while talking to a women about marketing. The woman said she could have done the work herself. "I thought: why go to the bigwigs when we can help each other?" she said, adding that she prefers working with women after having bad experiences with men.

Networking events

She says most business networks are badly timed for working mums. They are either early in the morning or at lunchtime when working mums can't go. Her launch event was held in a restaurant in London and in the evening with the emphasis on informality and pampering. She adds: "Men tend to network through sports like golf, but women don't have time for these things so we are making the time for them."

She says the global recession means many women may be looking at starting their own businesses and the event will allow them to link up with like-minded people who could also help them out with advice and support.

She is eventually hoping that her work will go UK-wide. She plans to launch the party and classes side of the business as a franchise in the next few months and thinks mums would make ideal franchisees.

Rap music

Currently she employs a lawyer, marketing person, a PR expert, an adminstrator and an accountant as well as other party hosts so she can focus on her teaching. She trains them thoroughly in using her music and props and says they must have a great personality, be reasonably fit, have a lot of drive, love children, have a strong voice, lots of passion and a will to succeed. Her music is specially devised for the sessions and is "quite funky". "I work with a Black American rap artist so the music is contemporary. It's really important to me that the music sounds great," she says. It includes reworked versions of nursery rhymes and pop songs and little dance routines.

These are used not just for children, but she also trains nursery workers, teachers and lunchtime supervisors. She is particularly keen to encourage dads to "reconnect" with their under 5s and has set up events at Chelsea and Arsenal soccer grounds.

Amanda has big plans for the future: alongside the franchise, she is planning to market her skills to every parent in the UK with an Amanda in a bag kit so parents can do her classes with their children at home. The bags will include her props, including a spider ball [to develop children's grip], white glasses, a bunny and maracas. She says her aim is to get children getting into fitness from an early age and seeing it as fun. She adds that the best way to do this is to get them dancing with their parents. "Eventually I want to go up and down the country in an Amanda bus and Amandafy everyone," she says.