We have some exciting news! Many of you may already be familiar with some of the changes made over the last few weeks. We're always looking to bring more value to coaches, and look for ways to make life easier for all BFCN members. Here's some of what we've done:
Jobs by Location
In August, we began placing jobs in different forum categories based on location. Some coaches are searching domestically, and some want to work abroad. Several coaches reached out to ask for something like this, and it was on the cards for a while. All the old listings from prior to August are still there, if you ever want to search back and look through job criteria to plan for future roles.
If you'd still like to see all posts together, and not separated by category, you can click "All Posts" at the top of the page, switching to your viewing preferences.
Updates and Notifications
Not everyone can be arsed to check through the site every day. While we were doing some work, we turned off email notifications for new posts in the forum. They are now back on. You can turn these on yourself. You can subscribe to myself on my user profile page within the members area to be alerted to any new posts I make. You can click "follow" on the right of the page, as shown above, to follow a specific forum category. On our new app, you can turn on or off notifications of new articles or jobs. If it ever gets too much, everything can be turned off. Unsubscribe to updates, and it should leave you alone.
We will also increase the amount of posts like these we make on our social media channels. Remember that we're on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, in addition to our YouTube channel (but you won't see the jobs listed on there). These posts highlight some of the more sought after or popular jobs, but will only be a fraction of what is available at the time.
Upgrades to Membership and Payment Options
Payments before were made by PayPal exclusively. Now there is the option to pay by card or by PayPal, making it easier for coaches. The same payment options exist, such as the monthly, annual, and student options.
And the Sport Session Planner combined options are still there. If you're already a member of BFCN, and would like Sport Session Planner too, you can purchase Sport Session Planner through us, and you'll be included in the BFCN Club on Sport Session Planner, where you can view the session plans of other BFCN Coaches, as well as some of our exclusive content in the form of curricula and season plans.
This new platform makes it easier for all involved. Before, members had to request membership to BFCN, separately make a payment via PayPal, and then wait for the admin to login to verify the accounts. That process is gone. You can purchase a membership, with no need to wait for approval, and gain instant access to the jobs board. This is because all payments are now handled via Wix. In addition to that, if you were to cancel a monthly membership, your access to the jobs board would last until the end of the month, unlike on PayPal, where if the subscription is cancelled, access is revoked immediately.
There have also been other payment options added. The first one is a one week subscription for two quid. This allows coaches to come in and have a look for one week only. We have also brought back lifetime membership. Whoever owns or administers BFCN doesn't matter. Lifetime members will always have access. This is available for a one-off fee of £100, which is worth about two and a half years of annual subscription payments.
The other option is exclusively for female coaches. We're trying to do our part to increase women in coaching, so have made a limited time offer of £2 monthly membership for the first twenty female coaches to register. There have been almost four thousand different members of BFCN since 2017, and it would only take two or three hands to count the number of female coaches who have been members during that time. You can read more about the female coach initiative here.
BFCN App
The last app was fairly popular. We took it down because it was very expensive to run. We now have another app, and it is free! It's provided by Wix, who are the web host for BFCN.
The first thing to do is to download the Spaces by Wix app.
The app is pretty much no frills. It allows coaches to get straight to business. You can click on 'forum' to see the latest jobs. You can click on 'blog' to read the latest articles. And there is also the pricing page for those who wish to change or upgrade their membership. We want to do what we can to make life easier and simpler for coaches looking to improve themselves and gain employment. The app is simple and easy.
BFCN Shorts
No, this is not a free shorts giveaway. It's our new short-form interview series with coaches who enlighten us about a location around the world. For fifteen to twenty minutes, they answer questions about where they have worked, telling us all sorts of things from the football landscape, to what it's like to actually live there. It's short and sweet, making it different from a typical podcast interview, where we have the freedom to dive deeper into the nitty gritty. BFCN Shorts are simple and informative, and we're always looking for guests to come on and tell us about the world.
If you'd like to be on BFCN Shorts, just email us at admin@britishfootballcoaches.com or send us a DM on social media. You don't have to have been working there recently, or be there currently. Tell us about anywhere, helping us to build this database for coaches who want to know more about working abroad. We have so many excellent, insightful, generous, helpful members, who are more than happy to give up their time to work with other coaches.
So far we've talked about California with Lloyd Marshall, and Colombia with Gary Philpott. You can watch them on our YouTube channel, or listen to them on our podcast; Developing Your Football World.
We'd like to have the whole globe covered. Do you have twenty minutes spare to help other coaches?
Hiccups
Naturally, there have been a few technical issues this past week. As many of you know, I'm a coach, not a web developer. These upgrades have made the site much easier for you as users, and for me as the admin. One of the biggest, most time consuming problems was the changing of the payment platform. I had to move every single contact in the system manually from the old one to the new one. This took around twenty seconds per one user. It meant verifying membership, and membership type. At first, every current member was moved into a placeholder, and then some moved further into the different categories, such as student, annual, lifetime etc. Some of these moves triggered email notifications from the site, which worried members, stating their membership had been cancelled (it hadn't) or that they had just purchased a new payment plan (they hadn't). Worrying, I know, because we all want what we paid for.
Apologies for the few of you that I accidentally alarmed with these email notifications. And apologies again for some of the users who slipped through the cracks as I was moving everyone across. There might still be one or two out there, so if you have experienced unexpected denial of access to the jobs board, send me an email, and we'll figure it out. It doesn't take long. All lifetime memberships from Matt's time will be honoured, so if I've missed you, just send me a message. If you still have an active payment subscription, but don't have access to the jobs board, again, sorry, as I probably missed you. It's an easy problem to solve. Send me a message and I'll sort it.
If any of you have any further suggestions of upgrades or features, just let me know. If it's not too expensive, and if I'm bright enough to figure it out, I'll get it done. I can sometimes be a bit slow, because, like I said, I'm a coach, not a web developer. I have a pretty full coaching schedule, and travel the country for games. BFCN exists to benefit coaches, so I hope you like these little tweaks we've made recently.
Comments