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Capt Dave's Tips
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How many of you can remember to write "06" on your checks? I guess with each new year we all have to learn new "stuff". Last year we put together a New Year's Resolution list of items that pretty well sums it up for me. Print this out and put is on your bathroom mirror and see if you can improve the quality of your life, health and relationships by following these simple guidelines.
1) Health:
Diet: Eat less while
sailing.
Exercise: Do more while sailing.
Habits: Do more sailing.
2) Family:
Vacations: Travel while sailing.
Budget:
Avoid malls while sailing.
Schedule: Make more time
for sailing.
3) Interests:
Hobbies: Mess around sailing.
Education:
Learn more while sailing.
Books: Read stories
about sailing.
4) Friendships:
Old: Bring someone
sailing.
New: Meet someone
sailing.
5) Fellowship:
Belief: Think wind when
sailing.
Charity: Share sailing with others.
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So What's NEW! |
| We're Growing Again. | |
| Pam Long is our most recent
addition to our staff. Although everyone in the office is
responsible for customer service and committed to the excellence in
service and care that our customers have come to expect, Pam is our first
Education Training Coordinator. Your job is to dream and Pam's job
is to help turn your dreams into reality. Pam has a huge
responsibility. She is accountable for every aspect that leads to
your fulfillment. Her initial project is to review and update the
personal training plans of every student. You will be hearing
from Pam over the coming weeks as she analyses each student's training
goals as you have communicated them to us and evaluate student progress
based upon the assessment metrics that we keep on file for. Every
time you go sailing with us, the instructor records your progress in
several dimensions; each recorded in your database profile. As Pam
reviews student's progress, a training map will be developed to target
specific training skills and classroom programs necessary to meet
objectives or skills maintenance.
Sailing is meant to be fun, but behind the scenes our staff is accountable for producing measurable progress toward each student's goals or the standards as defined by the American Sailing Association and the U.S. Sailing Association. It would certainly take all the fun out of your training outings if everyone knew how closely we evaluated and tracked every drill and every skill obtained, forgotten, relearned or improved along the road to success. Your fun depends on how subtly we do our job while making you the sailor you can be. It is our personal guarantee to our customers that whatever your dream is, we have staff dedicated to planning your escape, and Pam is the primary person with that ultimate responsibility. Pam, a native Georgian, is not a world class sailing champion. You wouldn't want one as a personal coach anyway. It doesn't take an ocean seasoned sailor to know a good process when you see one. To gain a student's perspective though, Pam will be attending and evaluating the effectiveness of all of our ground school classes and riding on several outings by each instructor. Her challenge is to audit, understand and improve all training programs in use at the academy. We welcome her to our proud team and you should as well.
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| Web Class Registration Is Finally Here! | |
| After nearly 18 months of
development and testing we are rolling out parts of our interactive web
calendar of classes. There are several really cool features that
you'll want to try out!
NEAT FEATURES: The most valuable will be the ability to view a list of all your class reservations ("My Summary") as well as view a catalog ("View Catalog") of all the courses that we offer. From the calendar you can click on any class date and see the details of that class. What's cool is to be able to then click "Go To Next Instance" to see the next date that class is offered in the event the earlier date is a bad date for you. At a glimpse from the calendar you can also see what classes have available seats. The number immediately following each class description indicates the remaining seats available. The number immediately preceding the class description indicates the hour that the class begins. Until you actual click the class details you don't really know if the class begins on the hour or half hour, but we thought it was a nice feature to help you pick the chronological class you might be interested in, but don't be fooled into thinking the class begins on the hour. Only the class details will tell you that level of accuracy. TO LOG IN: You do not have to "Log In" to view class information, only if you wish to actually do bookings or view your student data or specific reservations. Once you do log in you will be able book your classes online but until the online charge card interface is completed, you'll still be required to remit prepayment for ground school classes via mail. Outings will still be payable during boarding for outings. Once logged in you can make changes to your student records to update any changes in email addresses or contact phone numbers. Your logon id will be the email that we have on file for you that is used in all our communications with you. During your first visit to the calendar site click "FORGOT PASSWORD" and your password will be emailed to you within minutes. TIME OUT: Security is important on the internet these days. For this reason if you pause more than 5 minutes without interacting with our web site we will "Time Out" your session preventing unauthorized access to your personal information by anyone who happens by your computer while you are away. For this reason you should plan to do all your class reservations without interruption or in increments of months doing a "Check Out" of the items in your shopping cart prior to returning to book additional classes. This part of the web application is still undergoing changes so I'd limit your bookings to small units of time just in case something goes wrong during your booking. Prudence dictates that you print your summary of classes anytime you go to the web to make changes to ensure that you booked what you intended to. To our knowledge we are the first sailing school offering the ability to register for classes over the Internet. Being a pioneer is exciting, but we understand and expect that there may be some latent defects that we may not have discovered despite extensive testing. Please report any errors or suggestions to us immediately so that we can continue to improve this feature for our customers. |
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| New Classes for 2006 |
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| I wished we could just add
everything all at once, but things take time and each year we add as many
new programs as our time and resources permit. This year we've added
Celestial_b and Celestial_c classes similar to those added
last season for Coastal Navigation. "_a" designations are the
fundamentals class, the "_b" designation is the extensive lab session and
the "_c" designation is the on-the-water practical where we physically go
out in the real world and "Do It!"
Windsong now offers the most comprehensive collection of navigation programs from A to Z. As we enter our 19th year of operation, we now offer as many non certification "Elective" programs as those offered for "Certification". With the addition of more sailing "Skills and Drills" clinics specializing in Docking/Departing, Anchoring, Bareboat Checkout and Spinnakers, you have a comprehensive collection of opportunities to learn, maintain and practice nearly any skills you may require to "Plan Your Escape!" For your convenience we've added a Printable PDF file that provides a list of all our programs on one page. |
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Windsong Events |
| It's Boat Show Time Again! |
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| January 11th through
the 15th is the annual 2006 Georgia Congress Center Atlanta Boat Show and
this year should be bigger and better than ever! The economy is now
in full recovery and I've seen a sneak peak at what's coming but can't let
the cat out of the bag too early. Mark your calendars now to attend
this show which will be THE largest collection of sailboats ever. I've
been told that 20 sailboats will be on display at this year's show.
A new concept we've discussed with show management is the addition of a fun "Board Walk" area along the hallways and meeting rooms to the right side of the exhibition hall near where we conduct our annual seminar presentations. There will be two entrance access points to the show this year. To avoid the lines, the new one to the right end of the exhibition hall near the "Board Walk" area will likely be the least crowded. Might as well drop by to see what we've got cooking while you're in the neighborhood! We have to keep our plans secret until the last minute but you're going to want to visit this area for some unusual opportunities. Twelve years ago Windsong pioneered the concept of Sailing Seminars at the Atlanta Boat Show. Last year was our most extravagant event ever, flying in speakers to present in a variety of topics as experts in the areas of "Family Cruising", "Circumnavigation", and "Sailing With Preschool Children Aboard". It's a challenge to continue to offer new and exciting programs each season but I think you'll find our programs continue to set new precedents for the Georgia Congress Center Boat Show. Come by our booth and find out what's new this season. We have three operational venues this year. Our primary exhibition area is booth #253 just to the right of the main food concession area in the center of the exhibition hall. We're the second row from the back wall near the left end. Just look for our brightly colored water splashed booth overhead truss system. Our second venue is C110 in the Outdoor Adventures Board Walk Fun area last room on the right at the end of the hallway. Our third venue is inside the Seminar area itself. Again this season we will be conducting seminars all day Saturday and a few more on Sunday. Windsong is the premier provider of sailing programs in Georgia and our presence at the show is exceptional again. WINDSONG SEMINAR
SCHEDULE
Sunday January 15, 2006
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So What's Been Going On? |
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Once Again Windsong Earns Gold Standard For Safety. |
| Safety is important to everyone, but the American Sailing Association recognizes those schools that obtain the highest degree of vessel preparedness, operational condition and safety. Those of you who have sailed on any of our boats can attest to the fact that we take considerable pride in the condition and operational aspects of all our fleet. Each vessel is inspected annually by a U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Inspector. This is not a requirement, but a volunteer inspection at the request of schools that wish to ensure their fleet meets the highest standards of safety. We are proud to report that our fleet is in top notch shape and exceeds the specifications in a multitude of areas to ensure your enjoyment and safety. |
Boat U.S. Renews Windsong's Sponsorship |
| Boat U.S. has renewed it's sponsorship of our programs by offering discounted memberships to our students. With prices continuing to rise this discount represents a real value to our customers as well. On January 1st Boat U.S. was forced to increase membership rates to support their many volunteer efforts and excellence service to the boating community. If you're not a member, join! It will save you hard earned cash on purchases. We can send you special membership forms or you can signup at the cash register by mentioning our Participating Group member number of GA-83236S. They will call us to verify that you're an active student, so if you haven't seen "US" in a while, you'll need to keep your participation current with us too! |
FOR
SALE! GOT SOMETHING TO SELL? Try Our For Sale New Site
Free.
Although we intend to limit items for sale to our student members,
we will consider items submitted from the general public as well. We'll
play it by ear to see how it goes. Just remember to let us know when the
item is sold so that we can keep our web site current. So here's the
link Items For Sale.
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HATE THAT SPAM? |
| Ever noticed that all official Windsong emails have the word "WINDSONG:" in the subject? That's so that you can use a filter or rule to intercept and redirect Windsong emails into a dedicated folder based upon this trait. That way we won't ever wind up in your SPAM folders and accidentally deleted. This is actually a two-way street. Any replies from you will automatically contain the same identifier in the subject and we can prevent it's accidental deletion as well. So any emails from you to us should contain the words "WINDSONG" in the subject or you risk censure by our anti spam software. Daily we receive just over 400 SPAM emails and find the use of filtering software imperative. Don't risk loosing our emails, filter TODAY! | |
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Friends don't let
their friends go through life Invite someone to join you today! |
| PLEASE,
REACH OUT AND TOUCH US,
We're listening!! |
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Many times students' suggestions are implemented on the spot! We pride ourselves in our customer service and attention to the needs of our students. If you have thoughts or ideas, drop us a line or give us a call. All things are possible; you simply need to ask.
Thanks!
I'd like to take this
opportunity to thank all our students for their loyal support through the
season(s) and encourage everyone to bring one new friend along each year as you
sail. As we grow and expand our operation, we want to make our products
and services available to all who may be interested, but someone has to make the
introduction. Share the love of your sport with those who may be
interested in our unique collection of programs. You'll be glad you did and so
will they!
