We have a little gripe with Floodlight……
Once upon a time floodlight provided impartial and comprehensive listings for all courses (and course providers) in London.
“Floodlight has been helping Londoners to find courses since 1936.”
You would be forgiven, from their google listings, and indeed from the ‘about’ page on their site, that this was still the case:
“lists of ALL/ Jewellery courses/ training classes & lessons in Regional London”
“It is London’s official guide to courses, having been set up by the Boroughs to promote learning options available to adult Londoners”
Furthermore you will find banners declaring that through their site you can
“Find the best Regional London Jewellery course training & lesson from the list”.
But this, dear readers is not true, as you will notice that the highly regarded Flux Studios jewellery classes and courses are nowhere to be found on this site!
“Why??” I hear you cry! Well here is the hard hitting truth…
A listing in Floodlight is not for free! And so the information it provides is not impartial!
In spite of the fact that this year we have again been selected by Southwark Adult Learning services to provide courses to local residents as part of their outreach programme, in spite of the fact that in the last academic year we provided 87 assisted places to local residents (adults and children) through this programme to bring quality experiences to the community, in spite of the fact that through our open access courses we have facilitated an additional 100 or so students to explore their hidden depths, In spite of our reputation for providing 100% very satisfied customers with many student choosing to return for more, we are not worthy of a listing in Floodlight, because we refuse to pay the crazy £££ rates to advertise with Floodlight and its sister organisation Hotcourses. Because we want to keep our course fees as low as possible, to pass on this benefit to you.
Fantastic, great value, affordable, fun, informative, productive – these are the qualities of experience you associate with us.
Unlike Floodlight, our core aim is for INCLUSION. Limited funds should not in itself limit one’s opportunities for development.
One has to wonder what precisely their purpose is (other than to unfairly ‘tax’ the educators and the students) when the information they ‘present’ is already provided for free online and readily available via your average search engine!
In particular, we think this is an active dis-service for everyone living in Southwark who is entitled to a discounted place on a course here at Flux Studios. Hot Courses is directing local residents to colleges out of borough, in all cases providing more expensive classes. Wasted time, wasted money, wasted fuel.
We worry that these bully-boy tactics will put the small independent and community based colleges out of business by squeezing us out of the bigger picture through ugly marketing ploys. We find it deeply disturbing that the original free spirit of the internet is so quickly disappearing because of activities like these.
When we pointed out that the advert Floodlight is giving false information the response was that it is a “commercial” enterprise and it was our decision as to whether it was worth ADVERTISING with them. Hmph!
Well said! We find their prices too high as well. We don’t want to have to raise our course prices in order to be able to afford big advertising campaigns and listings. We prefer to go on word of mouth, as is obviously working for you. I wish I was nearer London – I would love to do one of your courses!