Landing in a great spot - an intern's view of Upper Valley Aquatic Center

With a laptop and power cord in hand, I was directed to the office behind the large window of the competition pool.  What a cool place to work I thought – it’s always great to have a window in your office – something I had rarely experienced in the corporate world.  Returning to work after taking a hiatus in my career, I felt like I had landed in a great spot!  

My view!

Upper Valley Aquatic Center (UVAC) was not an unfamiliar place to me.  I had been there many times. I remember the first time I went to UVAC.  It was a snowy day when I drove my mini-van over.  It was like entering a new world – its warm water pool and lazy river pool were so welcoming!   My family was hooked and has been ever since.  From swim lessons, to friends’ birthday parties, UVAC has been a tropical refuge on a bitter winter day, a place where my kids took their first lessons and learned their first strokes, to now a place where I am learning lots.

Interning at UVAC has been a blast - Lisa who is teaching/guiding me and making sure that I am always learning, is a great mentor and has so much expertise in marketing, especially social media.  Lisa knows so much about Facebook, HootSuite and Yext to name a few.   I have been learning so many acronyms and terms from what an “organic” search result is to SEO and responsive versus mobile websites.

I have already done two email campaigns and worked on promoting their Red Cross Certification Program.   This is where the certified instructors can come right to your camp or facility and train your staff.  I was able to research camps in the area.  As a parent of two boys, I thought I knew about all the camps, but there are tons.  Another email campaign was to promote the World’s Largest Swim Lesson (WLSL).  

Fun at the World's Largest Swim Lesson

Catherine, who is in charge of the swimming lessons program, was instrumental is having the UVAC participate in the WLSL.  I created a press release – I think it was my first one in a decade.  It was great to write about such a good cause – the WLSL is a world-wide campaign to raise awareness that drowning is the 2nd leading cause of preventable death for kids ages 1-14.  At the same time it is a competition to break the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Swim Lesson.  Last year’s WLSL had 24,873 participants from 15 countries across 5 continents.

It felt great to promote something serious in a fun way.  On June 18th a few minutes before 11 am EST, Catherine rang the bell to get everyone’s attention.  Splash Camp kids got to participate too – can you imagine what they said at the dinner table that night– taking a swim lesson to break the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Swim Lesson –  not too shabby!!  We are still waiting to hear if the record was broken – we will keep you posted.

Who knows maybe in the future I will be working on promoting the free 14 day membership or figuing out how to get more families to know that there is free child care when taking classes – not to mention a Parent’s Night Out every month.  I am so lucky where I have landed!