Hi I'm James - founder of Smoothbook

Ok I’ll go first!

My name is James and I’m the founder of Smoothbook. I’m a senior web developer out of London, you can see my Linkedin profile at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yellowmelon and I’m on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yellowmelondev . (Yes I really need to find another profile picture) Feel free to connect!

I like web development and I’ve been very lucky in my career. But I’m passionate about quality of life and the opportunities for quality of life that the modern world and tech presents. As part of that, for the last three years I’ve been working on smoothbook off and on from abroad, joining thousands of people who work as ‘digital nomads’ - mainly out of South-East Asia - which has been life changing for me in terms of quality of life, lack of stress and productivity compared to living in London.

So Smoothbook is a big part of my life goals. But, if you’re one of the many entrepreneurs or independent fitness / yoga / pilates instructors using Smoothbook then I’m guessing we share many of the same goals and dreams (and, during the current era of Coronavirus, many of the same fears). It would be great to connect (and for you to connect with each other) and to hear your story. I really hope Smoothbook helps towards your business and personal goals and this site can be about more than just a booking system!

Thanks very much for being here!

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Hi I’m Andrea and along with my partner the Mind & Body Centre in Bury. We use Smoothbook for all our classes and events and especially the zoom that is so useful right now. We’ve been with Smoothbook for a good few years and it is getting better all the time.

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Welcome Andrea, great to see you!

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Hi James and all, first, I like this!

What a great idea, thank you :grinning:
So I’m Virginie, I’m French but I live in Scotland near Loch Lomond. My business is Clan Yogis- teaching yoga to the whole clan :wink: I cater for adults, especially beginners and kids. I teach Hatha, Yin and restorative and kids and family yoga.
I’m using Zoom at the moment to teach my regular classes and I have just launched an on-demand subscription service www.clanyogis.com/on-demand-classes

On that James- what plugin is this? I’m also looking at setting up an online community on my Wordpress site for my members, and I’m not sure what to choose!
Thanks for all your work as always!

Virginie

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Hi James and all!

I thought you might be living in SE Asia, the late hour of your emails give it away! hahaha. Where are you now? I’ve just been back (before COVID) from Thailand and Laos where I was teaching yoga. Thailand is such a great place for digital nomads, especially Chiang Mai! love it there.

You are doing an amazing job with Smoothbook and I recommend as often as I can. Thanks so much for your commitment!

Montse

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Great to hear from you Virginie! A while ago I lived in Manchester and we’d go to Loch Lomond and the highlands for camping and hiking on long weekends: I so love it up there, one of the most beautiful places in the world I think.

This forum is called Discourse, it’s very popular in the techy world at the moment and in use by some large companies. If you go to their website they charge $100 / month or something but it’s open source so - serious - if you (or anyone else) would like your own discourse server it takes literally ten minutes for me to set up and would cost you just $10 / month in server costs. Let me know!

Their website is at https://www.discourse.org/

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Hi Montse, good to see you!

I didn’t know you’d been in SE Asia, it’s just such a beautiful part of the world. I’m not going to lie: I really miss my life out there (currently I’m in Vancouver which also is a stunning part of the world). Love Chiang Mai!

I’m quite passionate about the digital nomad lifestyle, it’s just been so great for me from so many points of view: quality of life, health, lack of stress. It’s been really great in terms of productivity and working on Smoothbook too.

Thanks so much for your positivity and comments Montse: it really makes a difference!

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Hi I am Kath, teaching yoga in Reading, UK

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Welcome Kath, nice to see you!

Hi Kath, I’m teaching yoga in London… well, online… haha

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Hello! I’m Nadia. I’m from Malaysia but for the last 4 years, Denmark is my home away from home. I run a Pilates studio in a small town called Billund where LEGO started.

Welcome Nadia, I did not know Lego was from Denmark!

Hello Everyone,
Michele here from Shropshire in the UK.
Thank you James for producing an easy to use booking site for me and my users, so much better for class bookings than the previous booking site I used.
In my pre Covid-19 life I teach classes for all ages from babies & kids to adults and Special needs and also run one to one Teacher Training courses for Baby and Children’s Yoga.
During the lockdown I teach online classes for Adult Yoga, Pregnancy Yoga and Pilates. https://www.allgenerationsyoga.co.uk/
I also provide Videos on my YouTube Channel. All Generations Yoga & Pilates. (it’s a little confusing as I have an old channel with mainly baby yoga and a new channel for adults, but they can’t be integrated) if anyone knows a way rou d this let me know.
Have a great week all :blush:

Welcome Michele and thanks for the kind words: always appreciated!

I hate to say it but I have no experience with Youtube at all: does anyone know how to combine videos from two channels into one?

Hi James

Nice to put a face to the name :slightly_smiling_face: I am Elizabeth from Glasgow. I have emailed you many times with requests and questions! I am a yoga teacher in Glasgow, teaching online at moment. Love smoothbook and my students find it easy which is brilliant. Thank you for all your hard work on the platform. I rave about it so much my husband has set up his air rifle club bookings through it now. Not normally required, but due to social distancing they are limiting numbers to club to using smoothbook to manage. Hope everyone is well xx

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Hi Elizabeth,

Great to see you, thanks so much for the kind words and support! From the number of bookings made, people are clearly starting to get their businesses and clubs back up and running - albeit according to the new ‘normal’. It’s great to see, good luck to both of you!

Hi James,

Great service - thanks for setting Smoothbook up!

I run Wanderers FC, the first FA Cup winners and the oldest name in London football, and we want to use Smoothbook to manage bookings at our new home pitch.

Hoping we’ve set it all up properly for our teams and other clubs to use…!

Hi Mark, welcome!

I did not know that Wanderers FC were the first FA cup winners - apparently for the first two years running and five time winners out of the first ten finals!

Please let me know if you need any help with anything.

Hi Kath
How are you doing with the restrictions
Andrea