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Charles Waud, Profile
My role as General Manager at Net72 covers a multitude of tasks – and these vary daily. Putting together bids, meeting clients, making changes to client websites liaising with the technical team, or developing ideas for new modules for our intelligent websites.
During my university holidays, I worked in the events sector: I was able to see behind the scenes at a number of large sporting events. My favourites - Wimbledon Championships and The 2007 Open at Carnoustie. I had two claims to fame from that fortnight at Carnoustie. Firstly, almost reversing into Thomas Bjorn on the first morning of the championship, secondly, almost flattening Seve Ballesteros with a meeting board when turning around in the clubhouse at Carnoustie – much to Hazel Irvine’s disgust!
Interests
I am a keen sportsman, and enjoy golf, rugby and shooting. Whilst at school, I was fortunate enough to go on rugby tour to New Zealand and Fiji. This was a fantastic experience, as we toured both North and South Islands. Sadly the opposition were rather on the large side and were keen for some English blood. Not too bad, just the odd broken wrist, broken nose, cracked knuckle, strained ankle ligaments and the broken back! Fortunately the tour manager saw sense, and cancelled the 7s in Fiji, as some of their boys were even bigger than the Maoris!
In the last year, I have taken a sabbatical from rugby, and am currently concentrating on my golf and wine-tasting. I have just joined the South Eastern Juniors Golfing Society, which satisfies both those interests. It is a fantastic society, and has regular jaunts away to play at some classic courses. Recently we have played at Hoylake, Deal, Royal Ashdown Forest and we have a weekend lined up down on the links at Littlestone in November – which should be a quiet one!
Newsletter - Summer 2009
It was early in 2008 when the combination of skills, ideas and opportunities that could be brought together between me, David ‘Doc’ Watson and my eldest son Charles crystallised into an interesting and subsequently documented business plan.
By the summer of last year we had the concept of the business developed, the Net72 brand identified, markets researched and our domain registered – Net72 was up and running!
We considered the target markets for us given the technology that ‘Doc’ had developed with our technical development team headed by Neil with Vince and Oli - this in turn led us to focus on the following areas;
- Golf and sports clubs
- Alumni associations (old boys and girls clubs)
- Demanding commercial clients
Whilst recognising that our clients will have budgets ranging from just a few thousand to over ten thousand pounds for design build and implementation of their web site, we felt we should be able to respond to each budget and technical demand swiftly and in a businesslike but fun and creative way. Our product range was developed with these simple and important principles at its core.
This year has seen sites go live in each of our chosen business sectors: club sites as diverse as the prestigious Lloyd’s Golf Club with its membership steeped in the traditions of the city insurance market, to the small village cricket club of Aldbourne in Wiltshire illustrate the flexibility and scalable affordability of our well tried and tested technology.
In the commercial sector we have completed a site for the specialist contract cleaning and facilities company, Quality Assured Services, that was recently acquired by another of our clients, Incentive FM Group and with our help they rebranded as Incentive QAS. Elsewhere we are developing a site for a boutique insurance provider, Atkins Special Risks.
Moving forward, we are introducing a new Match Management suite designed specifically for sports organisations such as rugby clubs, this will be incorporated in our newly commissioned site for the Old Reigatians RFC . This month also sees the launch or our Lite product that offers Content Management on a budget.
Please let us know if we can help you develop your own web site or on line marketing proposition – yes of course there are special rates for friends, family and clients from other related business interests!
Jeremy Waud, Director
Case Study - The Hurst Johnian Club
The alumni association of Hurstpierpoint College know as the Hurst Johnian Club or the OJ Club had a web site that had been developed by some of its members. The site contained vast quantities of information but it was badly organised, difficult to navigate and didn't present a modern image. The association has several sporting clubs and societies, the most active of which is the golf society. One of the key difficulties faced was managing communications with its members, encouraging members to participate in events and keeping the members database secure and up to date.
Net72 created a new site for the golf society last year that offered the OJ Club an insight into what could be achieved online – fixtures and events were publicised online, write ups and photos could be published straight after the events and a members’ contact list helped everyone keep in touch. The main OJ Club was impressed with the golf society site and commissioned Net72 to develop a new site for the Club.
Key requirements included a modern, fresh image including the design of a new club logo. Content had to be organised into a logical, easy to navigate layout. The site had to be easy to update by a number of people each involved in different parts of Club life. Photo galleries and video were seen as a way of bringing the site to life. A member management system had to offer members the opportunity to self-update their contact details and create a profile to be shared with other members through a directory. The Club also wanted to publish events online, promote them by email and take payment. Finally, an online Club shop would let members buy branded items from the Club and its societies.
The Net72 project was in four phases, first the design phase. The site layout was agreed and graphics were commissioned including the design of a new club logo. When the design was approved the project entered the build phase. The design was integrated into the Content Management System and the modules were customised to include bespoke fields and functionality. The third phase, population involved uploading the existing 2,000 member database as well as the entire content of the old site including archives, obituaries and photographs. Finally, during roll-out, relevant key members were trained in using the event management module and in adding, editing and publishing content.
The site went live at Easter – members were sent their login details with the Spring newsletter and encouraged to sign up and pay online for the Clubs annual St Etheldreda's Day festival, dinner and AGM.
The Club President, Graham Croll commented, “We are delighted with the new OJ Club website built by Net72. We have had so much positive feedback from members about the site, the way it looks, how much easier it is to find things and the Club’s member directory: they can now search for, then get in touch with old school friends! From an administration point of view, the online shop and online payment facility, the member email tools as well as the self-updatable member list have made a real difference.”
Visit the website: www.theojclub.com
Technology Update
As part of our project for Old Reigatians RFC we are developing our Match Management suite that will be made available as a module to our core CMS product. The suite will allow players to be made available to a squad - the players can indicate their availability and injury status. The team manger can then select the team, email the selected players and publish the team sheet. After the match the result and match report including photographs can be posted and the player profile updated with their stats.
Net72 lite has been launched to help create affordable Content Managed Sites for those on a budget.
Net72 Golf Day
This year’s Net72 golf day was held at Walton Heath Golf Club on Wednesday 27 May. A group made up of clients, staff and friends enjoyed a fabulous lunch followed by eighteen holes over the Old Course – lunch had taken its toll to judge by some of the tee shots on the long par 3 first.
The course was playing magnificently, as Walton Heath had hosted the US Open Qualifier two days earlier. The competition for the ‘Watson at Walton’ trophy, created by one of Net72’s founders, was hotly contested with Charles Waud of Net72 narrowly squeezing out David Fletcher by a single Stableford point. While the leaders had enjoyed the golf, many of those lower down the field had clearly had a most excellent lunch.
