A coaching thread

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Autumnleaves Aug 2020 8:00pm, 25 Aug 2020 15,173 posts	0 Autumnleaves I find the emails from the RunTogether app really annoying... we have a custom thing on the website that only lets people book for that week's sessions. You can also unbook
stuart little Aug 2020 8:29pm, 25 Aug 2020 1,796 posts	0 stuart little We're using ms forms to do pre run surveys at the minute, but it'll be interesting to see what the worthwhile options are out there.
Big_G Aug 2020 9:45pm, 25 Aug 2020 159 posts	0 Big_G We’re using Acuity Scheduling. We looked at Team Up but that’s very expensive in comparison. I did a bit of research and one of my friends runs her business using it, so we did a week’s trial and it seems to work really well. There is a ‘feature’ where it allows one person to book onto more than one session on the same day (not sure why they allow this, but I emailed them and it is indeed a feature) but we just keep an eye on that. We haven’t had to yet as no one as done it, but as admins we can delete the duplicate booking if needed. It doesn’t allow one person to book onto the same session twice, which is the main thing. We’ve got it so that the following Wednesday’s session comes online at 7pm on Thursday (to allow people running on Wednesday to have a chance to be able to book onto the next week if they want), the system closes at 5pm on the Wednesday (to allow the coordinator to print out the lists prior to the start), and we’ve made it so that only one week is bookable/viewable at a time (to stop people booking a few weeks in advance). It’s all configurable in terms of email templates, session names, numbers allowed in the sessions, etc. For example if at some point we’re allowed 20 in a group, that’s easy to change. Also users don’t have to create an account. They can if they want but they don’t have to and we’ve found that most haven’t so far. To book onto a session we’ve created a mandatory Covid question which members have to ‘sign’ to say they won’t turn up if they develop symptoms. This has no legal standing whatsoever but we wanted to add something to make sure people have acknowledged they’ve read it. There are more features via the website, but there’s also an Admin app and a booking app although I’ve not played with those. I’ve got nothing at all to do with the company in any way, but it’s working well for us.
Phill_Young Aug 2020 10:06am, 26 Aug 2020 108 posts	0 Phill_Young Thanks for answering my question and good to see what other clubs are doing to follow the current guidelines.
Wriggling Snake Aug 2020 12:51pm, 27 Aug 2020 28,161 posts	0 Wriggling Snake Sorry for the delay, out coaching (of all things last night). I didn't set it up, but the person who did said it wasn't, shall we say, a good experience, this may or may not be because they aren't the most tech savvy, never the less it took a few emails to support to get it right. The app has a couple of layers/permissions, so we have it set up so that the coaches can see all the sessions and the title of what they include, currently runs of different lengths, and intervals aimed at beginners and intermediates (the runs have approximate distances and route names plus a meeting point). The runleader then keeps the group of 5 together after explaining the route. As for intervals, the app has the ability to email everyone on your session, so you can send out details, i.e efforts, distances. I don't use that, I find people cry off. The attendees can book on and book off, I have run 7 sessions s far and they have always been full, apparently the intervals are very popular, but we (Marple) only have 2 or 3 coaches who can/will take one. Last night was the first time I had less than 5, a very late non-starter, usually the place gets picked up. Marple does a google poll of coaches availability plus run leaders availability, a month in advance, and sets sessions accordingly. Basically after the teething troubles of setting it up, it took a lot of time over 3 r 4 evenings, providing you have regular sessions/people, works well enough. Now winter training is upon us, we can't use the parks so it is back to pavements etc looking at expanding the groups to 12..... As I said earlier, the big problem is some sort of continuity between sessions, i.e. decent warm ups, some sort of progression, same messages about training. There is a coach meeting next week but I am on hliday, as I could get that srt of thing looked at. After all, 3 years ago, when Marple started they had 30 members, no coach, no structured sessions, I popped along a few times and suggested se more structured stuff for the keen..... currently 200+, 4 sets of intervals/hills a week, not bad really. I'd give teh app a go, see how you do setting it up.
SODIron © 2012 Aug 2020 3:38pm, 27 Aug 2020 333 posts	0 SODIron © 2012 @WS - sounds great, what is the app called?
Wriggling Snake Aug 2020 3:41pm, 27 Aug 2020 28,165 posts	0 Wriggling Snake oops! runtogether
SODIron © 2012 Aug 2020 3:53pm, 27 Aug 2020 334 posts	0 SODIron © 2012 ah, thanks
Wriggling Snake Sep 2020 9:24am, 29 Sep 2020 28,378 posts	0 Wriggling Snake There's this one too.... playwaze.com
C-Cat Oct 2020 8:35pm, 25 Oct 2020 478 posts	0 C-Cat So we may be later than some other clubs but we are finally taking small steps back to official group sessions using Run Together to manage the bookings. General feedback from leaders so far is that they struggle with the unintuitive nature of the platform. Any top tips from those already using it?