Hello ABC Students and Parents!
It has been a while since we’ve had an update, and this is a big one.
Saving Your Money & Help ABC – Now is the Best Time
As you know we have a great referral program. If you refer a friend to ABC, we’ll give you 20% off one set of lessons, and 20% all of their lessons until the end of the school year. For Music Together, this is always off the first child, for both families.
Did you know that this is an unlimited program? Last year someone built their own class and not only got them free, but also has a 40% credit roll-over into this school year. You can refer as much as you like (and we hope you do!).
This, however, is the best time of year to tell people about ABC because the most billing is still ahead of us, and saving hundreds of dollars a year is a good deal for everyone. We appreciate any referrals you can make!
How to send us your referrals: You can always ask us for a referral card (or Golden Ticket if you are in Music Together), but if you think your friend will just forget about it, and you’d like to be a little more active, you can use our Lead Submission Page, and just fill out your friend’s information on either the Babies & Toddlers side, or the Music Lessons side. Be sure to include your name, so we can properly acknowledge you and adjust your rate for the rest of the school year.
Your Kids Can Refer (and Get a Treat). Last year miss Rachel (in the photo) referred us a friend of hers. It was the first time we had a student do a referral, but we obviously couldn’t ignore the fact that a young student was so pleased with us that she got her friend to sign up. So, we applied the 20% off for the rest of the school year, but we held back just a little bit, so we could get Rachel a pass to the movies for 2 people including Popcorn and Drinks. We’ll do this for any kid that refers their friends, so feel free to let them know – it’s an easy way to get to the movies!
Schedule Optimization
Each year, after Thanksgiving we take a look at our teachers’ schedules and see what we can do to make the best use of their time. Right now there are very few schedules that are in need of this attention, but we may ask you to consider a minor modification to your time to facilitate the best use of your teacher’s time.
In-Home Music Lessons – Pilot Program
We are pleased to announce that we have developed and are testing a new In-Home Lesson Program. We invite you to visit the page on our website and post it up on your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages.
Because we have a great reputation and rating online, we often get calls from far away, so now we’ll be testing extending our service area to help get people in touch with that high degree of excellence in music education.
What makes this better than similar services?
There are 3 big reasons:
- This brings ABC’s specially selected and trained teachers to a broader geography, and includes all of our regular teaching features, including Student of the Week cards, Homework Posts, Reporting twice a year, and access to our student Recitals.
- It does not force teachers to go beyond reasonable distances – there are zones that the teacher can offer from a ‘home base’ intersection.
- It guarantees your teacher a fixed travel stipend for greater zones travelled.
An additional bonus of this system is that the rates are not much more than lessons at ABC’s campus. In fact, Zone 1 lessons (1km of walking from the ‘home base’ intersection) is exactly the same price as coming to ABC’s campus.
The catch – there isn’t really a catch, but we do have an exclusion zone within which people must come to ABC’s campus location. This is simply to avoid cannibalizing our existing teachers’ schedules. The exclusion map is on the In-Home Lessons page.
What do you think? We’d love to hear from you about this.
Buy Your Books from Home
We are rolling out a new feature on this year, the ability to order your teacher’s most recommended books right from their page on our website.
It is our hope that this will save you and our teachers trips, time, and possible frustration by enabling you to order exactly the book you need without having to go to the music store. You will be able to select from multiple merchants, such as Amazon and Indigo when an online option is available. We are looking at other retailers, but for the moment these two are most likely to be the primary suppliers.
Unfortunately, some excellent texts are either unavailable in this way, or prohibitively expensive (when they shouldn’t be). In these cases, you may be able to get some advice from your teacher or the front desk about where to get your books at the best price and speed.
We hope that this makes your lives easier and ask that you take advantage of this feature to keep your student moving forward at the right pace.
Are You Getting Homework Posts?
PARENTS: We always sign you up for your teachers’ homework posts unless you ask not to be included. After the summer, and with some changes in teachers, it is possible that you are not getting them (although we did try to get everyone switched!). If this is the case, just visit your teacher’s page on our website and sign up for their posts. Don’t forget that if your child loses their work, you can find on your teacher’s page!
TEENAGE STUDENTS: Should also take it upon themselves to sign up for the posts. At this age, the greater degree of responsibility for what needs to be done is very important.
Payment Methods
We had a very successful campaign last winter to keep tuition costs low by converting as many students as possible to Void Cheque and PAP payments, instead of Credit Cards. For those of you that switched, thank you!
In all likelihood, we’ll engage in a similar campaign again this year. We’ll only be speaking to those of you that are paying by credit card. If you like, you can always switch on your own. We have a dedicated email address for this: [email protected], and you can send your Void Cheque or bank-issued Pre-Authorized Payment form to this address. Please do not sign these documents, it is not necessary, just assure that cheques are marked ‘void’.
Important Upcoming Dates
October 8, 9, 10 – Thanksgiving Weekend
YES – Lessons on Saturday and Sunday
NO – Music Together on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday
NO – Lessons on Monday
December 4 – Recital
December 15 – Last day of regular lessons
December 17-23 – Make-up Week
January 3 – Regular Lesson Schedule resumes. NOTE: This is a week earlier than schools this year. It is not an error.