After doing her sums, Clair Melville-Brown was dreading returning to work after the birth of her second child.

“Going back to my job and paying for childcare at the same time left very little money,” said the former Aylesford Rugby Club inside centre, who now plays at Beckenham, where her husband Max is a coach.

She had calculated she would be left with £200 a month after working 35 hours a week while paying for her children Rex, three, and Eden, one, to be looked after when she was at the office.

“It was a lovely job, but I wasn’t going to be earning a lot of money and I wouldn’t be spending time with my children,” she said.

Her salvation came when she went to an Evo Girls networking group during maternity leave.

“I met a group of people who had been in my situation and started their own business,” said Mrs Melville-Brown, 33.

“From their knowledge and experience I started my own design business this year. I handed in my notice and went for it.”

Mrs Melville-Brown launched her company CMB Designs from her home in Maidstone in July last year.

She picked up her first job designing a book cover in October and has about 10 clients.

She said: “If I do 10 hours a week I get the same money as
I would have gained from working 35 hours without seeing my children. It’s crazy.

“Now I spend all the days with my children and do work when I want to.

“I didn’t realise when I was in work that there is a whole other world out there of entrepreneurs with children. You don’t think it is possible until you meet someone who has done it.

“I don’t think I’d have done it had I not been to that group. Hearing other people’s success stories was great.”

Evo Girls was launched by Rebecca Robertson, a fellow mum-turned-entrepreneur
who runs a financial advice business Evolution for Women at the Medway Innovation Centre in Chatham.

“The events are very focused and very professional, but I want to give women the opportunity to get to know each other,” she said.

“We talk about our lives and business and everything that goes with that. It is all about relationship building. We are very much a community of women.”

She began running Evo Girls networking sessions in Bexleyheath in September 2012.

The groups have always been not-for-profit, but with their popularity growing – groups are run in Maidstone and Gravesend and launching in Ashford and Tunbridge Wells – it has been formalised into a social enterprise.

“Last year, it got to the point where it was overwhelming and it was taking over my life,” said Mrs Robertson, who is expecting her second child and planning her first break from her own business.

“I had to make a decision about what to do and something said to me ‘Don’t stop the group’.

"There was too much positivity and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the support of women in the group, so I started talking to people about turning it into a company.

“When we put that label on it, I had people coming up to me who had never been to one of our events saying ‘Oh, I get it!’”

"I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the support of women in the group, so I started talking to people about turning it into a company..." - Rebecca Robertson, Evo Girls

The groups have more than 40 members registered, with about 50 to 60 women attending networking events.

Membership costs £20 a month for the social enterprise, with profits set to be used to pay a “small wage” to its volunteers who run its bookkeeping, marketing and the like.

The aim is to create a £2,000 to £3,000 profit margin to sponsor new start-ups, where they would get access to the talent of various people in the group at a subsidised rate.

“With a team, we can achieve so much more than when it was all on my shoulders,” said Mrs Robertson.

“When you are starting out, there is so much to learn and if all you get is people trying to sell stuff to you, then I find from a female perspective, you trust people and possibly make the wrong decisions and buy into things that are not right for your business.

“I have done that and I want to give women support where they don’t feel like they are being sold to. That is why we always run as non-profit.”