Yoga Course feedback & website progress

September 25th 2007

Longworth

After last weekend's yoga course, I had promised Elena, our course director, that I would write her a detailed review of what I have thought of everything so far. There is always a risk with such actions as you never know whether the person really wants feedback to the sort of level that I might go and so I could be really annoying her - which may not be the best idea on such a course.

And as I worked through my points I became more and more convinced that what was needed was a re-edit of the basic syllabus document just to bring out the key features of the course a little more clearly. So I have spent some time on that in the last couple of days and sent off my thoughts a day or so ago. No response back yet. Hope I haven't made a big mistake!

My daily yoga practice is going ok but I do really need to get out to a few classes. I missed Bikram on Sunday and Iyengar of Monday this week and tomorrow's ashtanga class is already in doubt. I am hopeful that I will focus more on this next week after our daughter Emma has been dropped off at college.

Most WBB work is focused on the website and other marketing. The website must be up and running perfectly in less than four weeks. We have finished working through the "internal logic" of the booking process and are now trying to fix page formatting issues. Once these are set, pages should come streaming out - I hope. The three pages we have done so far look great though. Only another 50 or 60 to go!

We are also drafting our first press ads - slated for the December issue of Psychologies magazine, out in early November. There is the listing for January's Yoga Journal Directory to sort out - compressing everything about us into 50 words. And finally we are hoping to list on the Retreat Company's website in a few weeks time and need to work out what we want to say there.

Finally we are in discussions with a person linked to one of the properties we've booked who would like to set up what he calls an "a la carte" list of other activities people could sign up for when they stay with us. These might include vineyard visits, or trips to see olive oil manufacturing, days out on art themes (e.g. a Cezanne tour in Aix-en-Provence of his local haunts), maybe a day long cooking course. We wouldn't gain financially from this but it would boost the look of our product and we are willing to try this at one of our locations with him.

I feel we are entering a crucial period for our project now. A good few months and everything could fall into place very nicely - or not, as the case may be.