The SUN has got his hat on! Hip, hip, hip, hooray!

Dear Swimmers

Gorgeous day down at the pool today and tomorrow looks to be even better! I will be taking the 1-2pm Saturday Open Water Skills Session at Claremont Pool, so come on down if you fancy a good solid hit out with a lot of fun to boot! Remember, anyone with valid PAYG credits can attend this session (the more the merrier as it always works best with a bigger crew for this specific session), just head on down for about 12.50pm and we'll get cracking!

Oh yeah, and by the way - watch out tomorrow for the launch of the new system! Wahoo! The finishing touches are being made to the system as we speak with the crew over in Los Angeles. What will happen over the weekend is this:

1. you'll receive an automated email direct to your email account welcoming you to the new system with your PAYG (BLUK!) account username and password - this will direct you to the brand new Swim Smooth Perth website which I've been building since early May (I hope you like - it's packed full of useful information, training articles and 100s of cool images taken over the last 8 years of all the fun and frivolity down at the pool!). 
2. don't do anything just yet with your account username and password, wait until you receive a second email like this one here (a blog basically) tomorrow afternoon letting you know when the website is LIVE (it's not currently) telling you what to do next
3. you'll be asked to watch a short (fun) 6 minute video clip explaining how the system works and then prompted to a specific page on the new website which will guide you through the set-up process which will take you no more than 10-15 minutes. This is a one-off very simple task and will give you the option to either a) carry on as you have been doing by buying credits online via your computer or laptop, but by logging into your account. Then, instead of having a paper card you'll just need to tap your name on the new iPad kiosk at the pool when you arrive each time (the Traditional Method), or b) download our new PAYG (BLUK!) app for your smartphone (details to follow) which will allow you to beat the queue for the kiosk and to register for new credits so much easier than before (the Cool Kid Method). These are not hard-fast options in that you are condemned to one method for the rest of eternity, as both link seamlessly to your unique account. If you don't have a smartphone then you'll have to go with the Traditional Method but this doesn't mean you'll lose the option to opt-out of sessions you can't attend ahead of time like the Cool Kid Method allows, you'll just need to login online to do so as opposed to tapping a simple button on your phone.
4. after you've read this information and decided which method you're going to start off using (largely dictated by what technology you have to hand) you'll then be asked to login to your account given the information in the direct email (Point # 1 above) and check everything is as it should be. The PAYG status information from last week at http://swimsmooth.com/pauls_images/PAYG_STATUS.pdf will have been incorporated into your account, with any sessions you've attended since Sunday 9th August being deducted from your balance and any credits you've bought since (up to 3pm on Thursday 13th August) being added. Anyone who has bought credits since 3pm on Thursday 13th August will need to wait for the whole site to be live and for me to manually go in and add this information from the old payment method into the new. There are only a couple of you from 280+ in this scenario.
5. you'll be asked to change your password immediately to one you'll be able to remember and will have the option to securely save your credit card information (using PCI Compliance Level 1 - the highest in the industry) for ease of re-loading your credits each time rather than having to hunt through the main Swim Smooth website and using the rather clunky PayPal e-commerce portal. For those of you whom are quite patriotic, you'll be pleased to know we'll now be using a home-grown payment provider (EziDebit) to handle payments automatically through your account so you'll always know where you're at.
6. that's it! Keep popping down as you always do. Let us know easily and automatically when you can't via your account or the app as opposed to an email / call / SMS. This automatically frees up your spot to someone on the wait list and alleviates you of any "guilt" for not showing up. This allows us to maintain this super-flexible PAYG option without the risk of the super-quiet attendance we've seen in the last 8-10 weeks*. You can top-up your credits seamlessly when you need it. See a live schedule of available 1-2-1 sessions with myself and Sally and book them immediately rather than awaiting correspondence from us. We can be "green" and free of wasting paper cards that get lost and soggy anyway! But most importantly of all…

WE CAN GET RID OF THE ADMIN AND GET ON WITH THE COACHING! WHOOP!

Cheers (from a rather excited and somewhat drained)

Paul

*as we've seen this week, attendance has started to pick up again which is great! Thank you, thank you! I predicted busier sessions 10 weeks ago when we released the Winter Class List, but then never got it. However, I am expecting now that we're crawling out of winter that this will be the case. Well done to those of you who attended during this unprecedented quiet period - I hope you really benefitted from the additional space / coaching. If all pans out well with the new system, our strategy for busier sessions will be to employ additional coaches to be on pool deck with me and to re-visit the option for a 730am Tuesday / Friday session. Of course the new system will give us all the information we need to be able to accurately assess this - right now, we're just flying blind. Thanks for all your support and patience over the last 3 months, it means a lot to me.