Coming to the end of 2009 gives Amanda ample cause  to reflect on what a fantastic year it’s been.  As well as running the hundreds of classes and parties that’s basically par for the course for her, she’s also found time to go to China with her classes, signed-up some brand-new Amanda’s Action Club franchisees, produced a new music CD and video and most proudly … opened her very own Amanda’s Play Centre in Bicester, Oxon. Wow – that was a year that was!

Anyways after all that – it’s time for Amanda to take a well-earned rest  (well sort of)! All her classes have now closed for 2009 and if you check out the Classes page of this website you’ll see the January 2010 dates when they start back up again in their various locations. 

For those of you who live a bit outside Amanda’s hitherto traditional London catchment area, in the New Year, Amanda’s Action Club is being exported south, to the Southampton area – starting in January 2010 with Jolene leading the way initially on Mondays and Fridays.

Also a little way out from London is the fantastic new Amanda’s Play Centre  just off the M40 in Bicester, Oxfordshire. Over the course of the Holiday season, if the weather allows, you might want to pile the kids into the car and have a terrific day out – parking is free and it’s plentiful. If you check out the website you’ll see easy to follow directions to get you to Bicester and if you follow the link that’s called Amanda’s Video  you’ll see a 4 mins 45secs video that was shot during the Launch Day on 30th November - it gives a real feel for all that’s going on indoors at the Play Centre.

The Play Centre is usually open from 10:00am to 6:00pm every day but if you check out the Amanda’s Play Centre  website you’ll see the Holiday opening times, repeated below for your convenience:

Xmas/ New Year Opening/Closing Times
Thursday     24th December 2009 – Closed
Friday            25th December 2009 – Closed
Saturday       26th December 2009 – Closed
Sunday          27th December 2009 – Open as normal (10:00am-6:00pm)
Monday        28th December 2009 – Open as normal (10:00am-6:00pm)
Tuesday       29th December 2009 -  Open as normal (10:00am-6:00pm)
Wednesday 30th December 2009 – Open as normal (10:00am-6:00pm)
Thursday     31st December 2009 -  Open – closing early (10:00am-3:00pm)
Friday              1st January  2010 -    Closed
Saturday        2nd January  2010 – Open as normal (10:00am-6:00pm)

Phew! that’ll be about it for this year and we’ll sign-off with Amanda’s best holiday wishes to all her little ones (and big ones too) and she looks foward to seeing you all again in 2010. Have a great Holiday!

Flying half way round the world from her home in Wuhan, China to London, England - Anna Kong was excited at the prospect of meeting Amanda Frolich for the first time. It was the culmination of a search for the sort of pre-school education that is missing in China. Anna Kong was full of hope when she came across Amanda’s website whilst searching the web and could see that here in the UK, Amanda’s Action Club classes for early years education – meant laying the foundations towards a healthy start for young children.

Anna is like so many of her contemporaries in China, a mother with one child seeking the very best she can afford for her child’s education. She is concerned about the health and well-being of her child. With a proliferation of Western food brands now establishing a presence in China, and a society that is fast getting used to the convenience of modern food and technology, parents in China just like Anna are faced with the growing issue of childhood obesity.

Seeing Amanda teach her Baby and Toddler class in Chiswick Anna could see the joy and wonderment on the children’s faces. Parents were relaxed, happy to see their children enjoy themselves, content in the knowledge that whilst children were having fun, they were in fact learning key skills in readiness for starting school. For the classes were not just good for the physical development of children, helping them to become aware of their bodies and getting fit, Anna could see Amanda’s unique style of teaching could have a dramatic effect on parents and children’s attitude to learning in China.

For Amanda, the visit from Anna Kong, was filled with a sense of destiny, for Amanda had long held the belief that children from all cultures and physical abilities should be encouraged to enjoy physical activities that would enable them to grow in confidence and find joy and happiness in learning new skills.

Soon after Anna’s visit to the UK, Amanda boarded a plane bound for Beijing and then on to Wuhan, a city in China respected for its educational excellence as well as its manufacturing output.

The visit proved a life changing experience for Amanda, for she had witnessed the longing of working mothers to spend more time with their children. In fact, they faced the same dilemma as parents in the UK, for they too were in search of a balanced lifestyle that would enable them to fit in the commitments of work and family life.

Amanda was now filled with a sense of determination to help parents not just here in the UK but now China as well, by providing them with the means to run a fulfilling business that would allow mothers to work flexibly and find the time to be with their children.

The journey to China was fateful for Amanda in many ways, by chance her business and marketing consultant was able to converse in Chinese, which helped smooth out some cultural differences during the visit and helped the negotiations run smoothly; added to this, Amanda had already begun the long process of developing a Franchise to offer mothers in the UK and having completed a successful pilot Franchise scheme was confident that it could deliver a profitable business for many more mothers and was certain of its successful roll-out in the UK.

As Amanda explains, “I’ve always had the feeling that helping children attain early learning goals through physical exercise wouldn’t just be good for children, but it would be good for the parents too. It seems that fate has lent a helping hand: I am overjoyed to have met Anna, she is someone who shares the same vision that I have – she just happens to live in China!”