MindMyHouse News 13 April 2020
In this issue, a call to stay safe; we extend your house sitter membership; and new features for the site.
Dear MindMyHousies,
well well well… Who saw a global pandemic crisis coming? Ummmm… We didn’t either!
Hello from our little island here in the Hauraki Gulf in beautiful Aotearoa (New Zealand). We are feeling very well looked after by our prime minister, the honorable Ms Jacinda Adhern. So, while we are currently shut in to our rental here on the island, our little family of mum and dad, editor and web developer, two (now teenage!) daughters and Ellabella the springer spaniel, seems to be keeping on, keeping on, regardless of all this stuff…
Hoping you are all well and able to find the sunny side of your personal global pandemic situation too. I guess the key to getting through this, is cherishing the fact that we are all in this situation together and that a somewhat normal yet changed-for-the-better world lies ahead of us all. Hopefully later in 2020 all those alert levels and restrictions will calm right down, freeing our wonderful online community of home owners and house sitters up to spend more time in each other’s company again. More specifically, while saying hello and goodbye at the beginning and end of many wonderful house sitting assignments the world over!
To keep our MindMyHouse community whole, intact, future-proofed and functioning as well as possible, we have taken two big steps. The first is to extend your memberships by six months completely free of charge. The second is to roll out a long-awaited upgrade to the now-two-year-old version 3 of MindMyHouse.
Your house sitter memberships have been extended by six months free of charge
Even though your first annual house sitter membership with MindMyHouse only costs a little over 38 cents (!) a week we kinda new that some of our members could feel that even these few pennies weren’t a good investment in the current climate of global lockdowns and travel restrictions and would be letting their memberships lapse at this point. Wah! We didn’t want to let you go during this short-term crisis and thus we beat all of our competitors to quickly put up a free six-month safety-net to hold you all close in this time. This was our gift to you, to shore you all up in preparation for the resumption of the good times when we can roam the Earth (or the city, or the country, depending on your personal wishes) in good faith, meeting new folks and helping them to care for their homes and animals in their absences. Even though we have taken a big income sacrifice in order to do this, we are hoping that in 24 weeks time (at the start of October 2020) when your memberships will start coming up for renewal again, you won’t think twice about making that 38 cents-a-week investment in our online community again.
Until then, let’s keep on keeping on in the sure knowledge that Life will be heading back to normal at some point. We can see that while site traffic is currently down to around 75% of pre-pandemic levels, you’re still logging into your account areas and writing to each other. In the spirit of good faith, and as per our usual ‘best practice’ way of doing things, we are also still approving your sitter wanted listings and answering your requests for customer support in the same attentive way that you are accustomed to. Huzzah!
Version 3 upgrade
Our web developer, Alan, has had some metaphorical steam coming out of both ears as he has single-handedly coded a whole new level of functionality into version 3 of MindMyHouse. Just for you, dear members! We mentioned our promise to deliver this particular upgrade to you a whole two years ago now. And now that it’s arrived, we think that the wait has been worth it. The next time you login to your account areas on MindMyHouse, look for the new feature in your Dashboard simply called ‘My Sitters’ and/or ‘My Assignments’. We hope you agree that this development is fab!
Home owners: check out your new ‘My Sitters’ feature
House sitters, check out your new ‘My Assignments’ feature
Coronovirus Update – 16 March 2020
With travel bans popping up everywhere, we have prepared two special guides about local house sitting: one for home owners and one for house sitters.
We hope you enjoy!
Posted in: MindMyHouse News
