LATEST NEWS

Links Modular Solutions sponsors Aquatics & Recreation Victoria Awards Dinner

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Links Modular Solutions was proud to be the major  sponsor of the  Aquatics & Recreation Victoria Awards Dinner. It is important for us here at links to ensure that we give back to the industry that supports us. The ARV Awards recognise outstanding excellence in the industry to both individuals and facilities. On the night every attendee had the opportunity to open a locker with a unique RFID card. It was a great opportunity for many people to see the amazing technology. It was a fantastic evening organised by ARV and the links team certainly looks forward to sponsoring again next year. For further information please visit http://www.aquarecvic.org.au/

Links and the Latest  RFID Technology

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In the past 6 months the fitness industry has started to adopt new technology for both convenience for their members and increasing the clubs bottom line. Industry leaders including “Recreation Health Clubs” “Fitness First”, “Victorian YMCA” and “Bayfit Leisure Centre” are organisations who have adopted the new RFID (proximity card) technology for their clubs.

The use of RFID has been around in various industries but not in the fitness industry as up until now it has been cost prohibitive. RFID cards have a memory chip in the card where industry software programs such as Links Modular Solutions can read write to and store information on them. 

If you do not want cards now you can also have rubber wrist bands, watches, key flops or a number of other alternatives. This gives greater opportunity for members to choose what they want to use and also greater promotional opportunity.

Some current key Benefits of the technology are as follows;

• The ability for easier full access control throughout the club or centre including males only allowed access into male change rooms
• Access control for membership lockers (no more keys or numbers to remember). Locker doors are alarmed if broken into and now you can assign them to a particular member if you wish.
• Money can be stored on the cards for internal purchases so that members do not have to bring in wallets etc. One thousand members placing one hundred dollars each on their membership card has proven to increase secondary spending while giving owners a nice slush fund waiting for the money to be spent.
• RFID can be used for purchases at vending machines freeing up staff at reception. Gloves, ear phones, health bars etc can all be placed in a vending machine.
• If you have swimming pools or do not want to use cards then you can use waterproof wrist bands that have all the same benefits. If you want to reward a member you can even give them a sports watch.  

“Ascot Vale Leisure centre has nearly 6000 members and has had the new RFID system for nearly 9 months now. In short, members and staff love the system it as it gives members easier and quicker access within the facility while giving us simpler and more control of them.” Cain Liddle (Group manager YMCA)

“We will have over One Million visitations this year and we wanted our members to have the easiest and quickest service without having to queue for any service. For this reason we have gone for RFID cards and the Links Modular Solutions Software.” Tim Hancock (Manager Bayfit Leisure Centre )

“At Recreation our philosophy does not deviate from “exceeding our member’s expectation for service”. With the RFID and the Links system we believe this helps us immensely in accomplishing this.  We love the idea of members being able to have cash on their membership card to make internal purchases simpler and easier and do have the worry about bringing in credit cards or wallets/purses. Now the member’s card can be used on vending machines and is fantastic for access control”. Joanne Russell (Director Recreation group)

Product Launch @ Australian Fitness Expo 2008 

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Links Modular Solutions was proud to launch our complete RFID solution at the Australian Fitness Expo in April. The product launch was a huge sucess with many people lining up to see what all the fuss was about. Visitors were able to see the unique benefits of RFID access control, vending machine sales through cash on card fatures as well as locker control and group fitness check in. RFID is now fast becoming the way of the industry leaders and is proving to be both a time saver and income generator. We have a number of installations already booked for the remainder of the year. If you have any questions regarding RFID technology please do not heistate to contact us.

Photos from Australian Fitness Expo 2008

Links Modular Solutions support ASCTA again in 2008 

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Each year our association with the Australian Swim Coaches and Teacher Association continues to grow. This year links was proud to sponsor the event T-Shirts along with some of the Key Note speakers including;

• The Forbes Carlile MBE Lecture
• The David Urry Lecture presented by Julie Stevens

It is important to us here at Links to ensure that our support is offered to events such as ASCTA. It is as important to us that staff within the industry have the opportunity to high quality presenters and training. Most of the staff at links come from the industry and still enjoy the opportunity to continue their industry training.

This years conference was another huge sucess with attendess from all around Australasia. It was great to catch up with clients from remote places such as far north Queensland as well as our Singapore clients. The training sessions held were great to be able to discuss one on one with many different clients. The annual awards dinners were a great chance to share and catch up with many different collegues from the industry and a great chance to meet new friends. Another fantastic event from ASCTA.

ASCTA Trade Display	Demonstration Area	Christine Showing how good it looks!
Swim Australia Conference Display	Michaela & Libby Tricket ( Lenton)	Michaela & Christine @ ASCTA Annual Awards
Michaela & Brenda Douglas from                  Aquatic Achievers	Michaela with Laurie Lawrence & Hayley Lewis	Michaela with Neil & Brenda Douglas

University Recreation and Aquatic Centre Wollongong switches over to links!

When URAC started looking for a software program to take them into the next 10 years, they not only looked for a product that was suffice to their needs but also a company that could provide them with the support and future developments that they would require. They looked at a range of programs including the largest competitors to links in Australia and the result was that links could offer a far better future solution than any other product on the market.

In December 2007 URAC switched over to links and after a smooth data conversion and a week of staff training with 3 trainers, they were ready to go. Since then they have been impressed with the capabilities of the program and the improvements it has made to their day to day business operations.

Dear Don, Nick, Michaela, Tania and Kylie, On behalf of URAC I’d like to thank you for the great gift basket you sent us over the Christmas period. It was a great surprise and has been received very well by the staff. Please pass my thanks on to Nick and the rest of the LMS team! I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Don for his initial demonstration and assistance in helping us choose a new system as well as thank Michaela, Tania and Kylie for their assistance in getting us set up. Don your installation team was energetic, patient and willing to come up with a solution for every issue we encountered. In short, Michaela, Tania and Kylie were fantastic and have endeared themselves to all of our staff! We couldn’t have had a better experience and the support since then has been great! Please pass my thanks on to Kylie as I don’t seem to have her email address, as well as to Nick and the other members of LMS who worked behind the scenes to get us up and running so quickly. We’re looking forward to working with LMS! Grant Jacobs Assistant Executive Director URAC Ltd University of Wollongong

YMCA Confirms Links Modular Solutions as preferred supplier Australia Wide

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The YMCA in Australia is truly the largest provider of recreation services providing services at 378 centres across the country to over 500,000 Australians every week. 

At the start of 2008 after trialling various other programs including Centaman and Gladstone MRM, the YMCA of Sydney has agreed to join the other states to have Links Modular Solutions as their preferred facility management software. In May 2008 they will combine the state into a centralised database to assist in their state-wide reporting, marketing and facility management.

This follows on from the success of YMCA of Perth, YMCA of Brisbane and the YMCA of Adelaide centralized solution. Each of these states is continually rolling out to new sites over the course of 2008 thanks to a carefully planned project plan designed by LMS in consultation with the YMCA. The project manager Michaela Kmetko formally a YMCA of Victoria employee has utilised her knowledge of the YMCA operations to ensure a smooth roll out across the states. These states are hosted by a state of the art data warehouse managed by the YMCA of Brisbane across Terminal Services.

This centralised solution will provide the YMCA the opportunity if they wish to pursue it of reciprocal rights across Australia, truly providing the opportunity to;
Build strong PEOPLE, strong FAMILES, strong COMMUNITIES