Clubs Rollout Strategy

Thanks for the openness and honesty @Mark_Cote , this is what us old timers loved before but is obviously hard for you to continue as you grow.

Regards the events feature, that sounds great. As I had understood it the current clubs beta had the ability to create meet-ups (not full events) within the club (hence my stated use case above), but sounds like that functionality is not quite there yet.

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Thank you for the updates, it’s appreciated.

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So, if the clubs feature doesn’t allow for club only events, does Zwift HQ make private events for some clubs?
I’m aware of a few private non meet up events that happen each week - event is not listed in the companion app but you can access via a link to the ride?

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For the crew in this Clubs forum, we can support. We’ve not opened this to the whole Zwift community as simply we wouldn’t be able to keep up with that amount of private event requests and frankly most things can be done with meetups.

For more complex/larger group events, we can support private events via events@zwift.com requests.

Mark

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@Mark_Cote i think one if the biggest things people want is club training sessions which is cumbersome to do currently, have you guys thought of running some of the training plans as daily / weekly sessions for people to follow?

So take the 4 week ftp builder, run a morning/evening group training session and follow the plan as a group and make it available for sign ups so clubs can arrange to join it?

If not, the offer above will be a great work around.

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Hey Lee,

Lots coming on the workout front. Workout of the Week, planned for Wednesdays is planned to come after the next release. You’ll have a folder housing the go-to workout for that week if you want to hit it on demand solo or a ton of time slots on Wednesday to join a crew. These are meant to be short (30-45 min) workouts that can fit into a day at almost anytime.

We’re working on training plan flexibility but that’s taking more time as we’ve got to rewrite some of the code.

Mark

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Club Chat Channels would be nice , if its not already available .
We all I am sure use other voice channels but sometimes for annoucements and when voice goes AWOL.

There is a chat feature in clubs but it’s pretty useless, Facebook or probably discord is far better.
It could do with an announcement page that notifies club members.

As for the clubs itself it’s really only use for event organisers which is the big clubs. Small clubs find it very hard to get any events added to the calendar as the big clubs take priority and seem to be easily able to get more slots added even at busy times - This is probably the biggest frustration that smaller clubs are seen as 2nd class users on the platform.

Where clubs is crying out to be used is for the small clubs to setup private events and get away from the many problems with meetups. e.g races not starting in pens, lack of course choice, having to spend hours each week sending invites rather than having a link this just all leads to riders favouring doing the big events which is shame.

I think this partially why some clubs have started to do more things on other platforms like RGT as they can easily get setup with new private events.

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Let me have a look to see if I agree

Oh … It appears I cant , as any club features are locked away only available to members of a status . A special invite only club who can then use this special privilege to send marketing messages to members of other clubs telling them that they are a special club with access to this and people should join them instead. There is a word for this but I wont spell it out here as I have done elsewhere .

I would go further than you on this one . We are not just 2nd class users but actually and actively being undermined by Zwift. And despite being offered the information opportunity at least to control those who have been invited into this … ahem… beta program to stop abusing this privilege for purposes it was not intended , choose instead to ignore and do nothing so it can only be assumed they clearly are happy for this to continue . :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

And given no sign of any club rollout strategy of substance e.g. feature release dates, happy to continue with this two tier approach to what a club is .

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Graham,

I don’t understand your middle paragraph. Please DM me and we can discuss. Am sharing as much info as I have or am able to based on our current roadmap.

Mark

Thanks Mark . DM sent.

Basically you’ve created a 2 tier system of clubs that have or have not access to the club features - the have’s are using this as a recruiting tool over the have nots…

It’s hypocritical of zwift to say they have prioritised the on boarding process to provide a good service to new customers when they can’t provide the same features to all paying users. If it works enough for those who have it now, it’s good enough for everyone else’s clubs to have access.

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Hi,

Club owner here. Over 100 members.

Currently running weekly group workouts via the faff of setting up a meet up, sending invites, emailing out the workout file, all of the clients uploading it to their Zwift, then opening in file within the meet up.

Have been patiently waiting for the club feature that will hopefully make this easier.

Its concerning to hear that other clubs have had access to the clubs features for almost a year…?!

I understand you need to test it, but right now it is a very unfair system when different clubs have access to different tools.

What if our club members decide to go train with someone else because the process is easier…?

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What club features are being rolled out in this month release.
What improvements to availability of existing functionality are planned for this release.

It is also the case that they are getting the same people feeding back every month. How long does it take to assess a feature and give Zwift feedback Perhaps the reason it is taking so long is infact because it has been given to the wrong people to test and you are gettign the wrong feedback !

@Mark_Cote Since the issue seems to be around scaling out the existing features to a higher volumne what about cycling which clubs have access to this feature and giving other clubs access for a period.

As a beta feature ( if it truly is of course and not just a feature being given to a select few and locking everyone else out ) then that makes total sense to get the widest level of feedback . Differnt sets of clubs get access to it on a rolling shedule .

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There’s a few of us in discussion talking about releasing to current public event owners who are doing weekly updates to their events. This would expand access to another 20-40 clubs.

The current toolkit is really an event editor tool, not a “club management” tool. For example, due to moderation tools not being in place, we cannot support “create an event” with the toolkit. We’ve not expanded access to an editor without any creation mechanism.

It’s looking positive that I’ll get the support to expand this beta shortly.

What is the mechanism and process to get into public event owners status ?

I tried this route and it doesn’t seem that open or easy to get into . I was told to get into this status that you have to run public events :thinking:

Drops mic.

So is there a clear path on becoming a public event organiser? If not, the update doesn’t deal with the issues being raised.

I think you know this isn’t a suitable solution of what it is being asked by the community who want access to the club features but your putting out platitudes so you can say/show you are making progress. In reality, without a pathway for all club owners to gain access to the feature it’s very much an update for show rather than one of use to end users.

Moderation Tools Does this mean to prevent

    • creating events that are inappropriately titled or described
    • creating events that would cause issues with the platform because of scale or scope
    • creating events that would clash with other events where either of the above was the case

How is this currently handled , if it “works” for current clubs , why would it not “work” in the same way for us all , other than existing privileged owners would no longer have this exclusive special feature all to themselves .

I can only speak for myself but I would be happy to just be able to have any entry access to the event process also on an equal footing as currently we have a very closed set of event organizers and whilst they all do a fantastic job to make the product what it is , it is also the case that in this very forum they have used this status to shout down anyone wanting to introduce change because they wouldn’t like it.

Establishing exclusivity stifles innovation and disruption which ultimately is not good for zwift., and only good for those who enjoy this exclusive status.

I am assuming that the risk assumed is that if access to the current event process would mean more people would want to create events . I get that , but there are more ways to throttle and deal with this than just showing us the hand . By making only club owners allowed to access is hardly opening up to everyone and club owners have something to loose and be sanctioned for if they abuse the privilege , club being banned/yellow carded for example .

The only impact would be existing club owners who have got this access would have to “share” that access with everyone . I think that is the point we are making to you . If there are 1000 event slots a week for example it is unfair that some clubs can have 100s of events and everyone else 0 … spread this out better , however it works . And then you will see the real problem much more clearly , automate event creation and scaling .

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