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Want a Tarantula Jungle Gym but don’t have the funds? There are many ways to skin that cat! Here are a few that our internet research presented. If there’s nothing here that sparks an idea, do another search – there are hundreds of ideas out there and there is sure to be one that ignites the fire! Apply to the Sport & Recreation Sector of the National Lottery (https://www.nlcsa.org.za/sport-and-recreation/)/ They issue a list of priority funding areas each year which inform where funds will be directed to for that year. The sector is committed to “Provide sports and recreation facilities that are accessible to communities”. A Tarantula is a piece of sports equipment and fits neatly into this funding category. Applications are accepted throughout the year. Apply to a bank or other asset finance institution – The Tarantula can be marked with an asset number and can therefore be used as collateral against a loan supplied by your bank or other fund supplier. Criteria will depend on the institution, so give them a call and see if they are able to help Crowd Funding - Crowd fundin g is an internet-based financing method that involves getting many people to contribute a small amount each to fund a project. The key to success is finding a service provider who can help you formulate and enact an enticing campaign. An internet search will easily reveal local crowd funding service providers – look out for those with a charity section and international reach. US Dollars go a long way in South Africa! Hold events and activities to raise funds Host a team-based obstacle course or ‘Amazing Race’ type treasure hunt to get your community involved in your fund raising. This offers local businesses a great promotion opportunity. They will pay you to bring potential clients to their door and those that don’t offer a lo cation on the treasure hunt will pay for their employees to take part as a teambuilding exercise. Host a 5km fun run in your area. Join up with a local running club – they will know what is required by the local authority to make this happen legally and safely. Offer a branded item (T-shirt/bandana/water bottle) to all entrants to encourage them to enter and get the costs covered through sponsorship by local companies Hold a Raffle - Get local businesses to donate vouchers and combine them to make an awesome raffle prize – this is especially good in tourist areas where you can put together a weekend-away package including food, accommodation and entertainment vouchers for the winners. Sell something at local markets – for example get items from your local farmers at discounted rates, bundle them together and sell them for a profit. A bag of mixed vegetables for R100. Obviously, what you sell, depends on what your local area produces Garage Sale - Host a community-wide garage sale. Ask churches, students, parents, and service providers to donate their well-preserved, second-hand items for the sale. The key to any successful fundraising initiative is promotion! Give yourself enough time to plan and above all promote like there’s no tomorrow!

Rustics has been designing and building outdoor play systems since 2005. Naturally, over this time, we have built up an arsenal of standard designs that has been perfected and tested over the years. But that’s not all - we can also apply our expertise to design play systems to suit your specific requirements. Have a weird shaped space? Have a theme you want to create? Want to unleash the potential of previously unused spaces? If the answer is YES to any of these, we can help! Here are a few of our more interesting designs

The game has no rules, there is no starting point or end point and there’s a jungle gym in the middle of it all. This is an ideal environment for children to develop their social skills. Creating a game in this environment requires sharing ideas, expressing feelings while negotiating and reaching compromises, setting rules, managing conflicts, listening to others’ points of view and seeing things form another’s perspective. All of these develop assertiveness, communication skills, and a healthy leadership style. These social skills that will help children thrive in all aspects of their lives, can all be learnt with a Jungle Gym and a few friends To read more on the "Three Skills Children Learn when Exposed to Outdoor Play" see Mariana Plata’s article on the Psychcentral website. (Last updated: 24 Sep 2017) To access the social benefits of a Jungle Gym, please give us a call on 043 748 5880, send us an email

Play is not a luxury. Unstructured outdoor play presents children with risks and enables them to learn how to handle them appropriately. According to clinical psychologists Drs. Susan Davis and Nancy Eppler-Wolff (Children Who Soar: A Parent’s Guide to Helping Children Take Good Risks (2009)):“Risk is inevitable, and without learning the skills of good risk-taking, our children will be more apt to take impulsive and poor risks. Through the development of thoughtful risk-taking, children will be better equipped to leap at life’s opportunities, and to rebound from life’s disappointments. Learning to take smart risks early on prepares them to recognise and think through issues of safety and danger. They will have had experience identifying the challenge and the risk, and have worked with parents and teachers on how to proceed to the next step, using their intellect and emotional skills. They are also better able to struggle more tenaciously through failures because they have experienced small setbacks.” Unstructured outdoor play presents them with these learning opportunities – throw in a Jungle Gym with monkey bars, swings and slides, to hang off, climb up and swing from and the opportunities for developing risk assessment and management skills are immeasurable. To access the physical, creative, cognitive, social and emotional development benefits of a Jungle Gym, please give us a call on 043 748 5880, send us an email

When faced with the challenge of keeping their ‘fur kids’ entertained during the day while the humans were at work, they came up with quite a creative solution – a Doggy Jungle Gym. According to Louise, “One weekend, at our niece's birthday party, we saw all the kids playing and running around on the jungle gyms and thought our ‘kids’ would love this! We just hoped we could find a jungle gym designer and manufacturer who would not think we were crazy for wanting one for our dogs. “Rustics Jungle Gyms were amazing – they were very excited about the prospect of designing a new jungle gym for dogs. Toni threw herself into the research and sent us a design. We loved it and two weeks later it was built. "Our oldest child was the first one up there. The dogs love sitting at the top because they can see all around them. Our dogs are now the nosey neighbours!”

On his birthday, Rory came home from school to find the Rustics Jungle Gyms' team busy in his garden. They were building him a jungle Gym! You can just see the excitement on his face! He just couldn't wait to invite his brother and friends to join him when it was all finished later that afternoon.