Children's Services

At Noreascon Four, we like kids. We think children (and fannish children in particular) are absolutely fascinating miniature people, and we want to make sure they enjoy the Worldcon at least as much as their parents do.

Noreascon Four is committed to having organized, professional babysitting/childcare services, a first-rate children’s program, and play-space for kids who want to do crafts and activities . We will contract with a professional childcare company for babysitting services.

Who Can Use Children’s Services?

Even if the program looks really, really neat, and even if you claim that the 1967 on your birth certificate is a typo and it should be 1997, you must accompany a child to get in! All children's admissions, however, must have an accompanying adult membership.

Noreascon Four children come in three classes for the purposes of Children's Services:

Children with Advance Attending Memberships or Advance Children's Admissions

Children who are full, attending members of the convention (because they really, really want to vote on the Hugo Awards) or who have purchased children’s admissions may:

• attend children’s program (depending on age),
• participate in children’s activities (depending on age), and
• use babysitting/childcare services. Both types of Noreascon kids may use up to 8 hours of babysitting/childcare at no charge. This hourly limitation applies only to babysitting/childcare services, and not to children's program or the children's activities area.

Children With At-the-door Attending Members or At-the-door Children's Admissions

Children who join at the door have all of the same rights as the children above, but they will have lower priority for services such as babysitting/childcare. We will try to accommodate them, but all childcare is on a space-available, first-come, first-served basis.

Kids-in-Tow

These children pay no membership fees and must be accompanied at all times by their parents. On a space available basis, they may purchase babysitting/childcare at a price to be determined.

Babysitting/Childcare

We are committed to providing babysitting/childcare, but Massachusetts state law puts stringent requirements on the sorts of services that Noreascon 4 can provide. These requirements mean we must use a commercial babysitting/childcare provider. The costs of these services are high, and Noreascon Four will partially subsidize them. Advance sign-up is strongly encouraged, since all babysitting/childcare will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

We are required to contract in advance for a specified number of hours of babysitting. While we will try to adjust the contracted hours to match historical patterns of usage, we must avoid paying for unused hours. This means that it is very important for us to get signup as far in advance as possible. This also means that people who sign up in advance will get the first chance at babysitting/childcare during peak usage times.

Kids-in-tow will be served on a space-available basis only. Signup will be only at the convention. (We reserve the right to charge a higher hourly rate for babysitting/daycare services provided to these children.)

All children who have full, attending memberships or who have a child's admission may use babysitting/childcare for 8 hours at no charge. (Additional hours will be charged at an hourly rate per child.)

Children's Program

Children's Program is the department in the Program Division which is responsible for creating and coordinating a program for kids. We expect it to include panels, talks, slide shows, readings, and demonstrations. Everything will be included in the children's admission or attending membership, and a children's admission or attending membership will be required to take part. (It is possible that there might be arranged local tours; if so, there may be an additional charge for them, but that will be the only added charge.)

Children's Activities Area

The Children's Activities Area will be a venue for children to attend Children's Program, to play, and to do crafts and other activities. The Children’s Activities Area will include adult supervision for activities and monitoring of children entering and exiting children’s program. This is not a babysitting/childcare area, and parental supervision is also strongly encouraged.

Details, Details

Children's admissions and full, attending memberships are available for purchase here or by sending us mail. Children's admissions are $105 until the end of pre-registration; full, attending memberships are currently $180.

Specific details about these services, including information about the process of signing your children up for babysitting/daycare hours, will be sent to parents in PR 6, due to reach members in April 2004. If you have already purchased a membership or admission for your child(ren), we'd like to hear from you. Please write us at children@noreascon.org and tell us how old your child(ren) is/are. This will help a lot in our planning to make Noreascon Four as "kid-friendly" as we can.