2014 FreshStart Summer Upgrades!

WHEW! Changes and improvements aplenty over the summer at the studio! 

Three weeks into the semester and I’ve finally got the time to finalize everything and put them in a blog post.

We made improvements & upgrades for students, parents, & some special music lovers ;)

1. Get points, get prizes!

Made by Ms. Clare!

Starting this semester all  kids--and adult students if requested ;)--get one of these to collect points by:

• Practicing
• Memorizing pieces
• Behaving in lessons
•  Finishing writing assignments
  

To go with the points, we bought a bunch of prizes (and lugged them back from Taiwan) to be redeemed with various number of points. 

(I'll spare you the details of how we came up with what each prize costs--if you really wanna know, ask me in the comments)

2. Music bags for all the students

We bought THIS for all the students. No more dropping books & missing covers! And it looks nice, if I do say so myself. 

And yes, we're giving them to all the kids for free :)

3. Little kids welcomed (and I mean little)

Not our students, but aren't they cute?

We've been turning away group lesson requests and holding off students too young for private lessons the last couple of years because we weren't sure about the group lesson curriculums available.

So over the summer, Clare hunkered down with all the different method books and put together a curriculum that blends the best of what's available and transitions well into our private lesson curriculum. 

We're about a month into the private piano group lessons now and the kids are loving it! 

4. Easier tuition payments

Knowing how much I love earning miles and cashback on my credit cards (it's like getting 2% off on everything!), I've been toying with the idea of accepting credit cards for tuition payments. 

And now I am! While it does mean I get less of the tuition, I think it's a small price to pay for the convenience and the benefits for the parents in my studio. 

(And thank you Amazon for undercutting all your competitors on fees!)

Replace pictures of clothing with PIANO LESSONS, now twice as awesome

5. Give, give, give!

This was probably the best and coolest thing we did over the summer. 

Summer lessons were given as a gift and tuition was completely voluntary. At the end, whatever we raised from the donated tuition amount we gave 50% of it to the Academy of Music for the Blind. 

I was extremely thrilled with the Summer Giving results we achieved and I hope to do something similar again next summer!

(Bonus): Extra goodie for the next blog post

There is one more thing we just implemented into the studio this past Monday, but I'm saving it for the next blog post because this one's getting long and 5's a good number to end with ;)

Also, I wanted to explain everything that went into creating it!

Brag about your studio!

Got something cool you do with your studio? Hop in the comments and share with us!