[MR] timing of the online calendar

[Brown, Tracey]

I applaud you for trying to plan that far in advance (I pretty much can only handle scheduling month to month) and I will admit that it is definitely a disadvantage to you and anyone else in the same situation.  However, at this point I do see publishing information online only after it appears in The Acorn as a benefit of membership and a way to (attempt) to encourage membership.  Ah, you say, but what about the Non-Member Surcharge?  Well, I haven't seen an increase in membership yet.  As a matter of fact, there were 10 fewer labels printed for March than for January so as of now our membership numbers seem to be going down.  If that trend changes and membership numbers do increase than I would say that is a policy I may have to look at changing.

Now that I've had a chance to look at the East Kingdom's online events, I must say I'm impressed.  However, I'm more impressed with their autocrats than their website.  Maybe it's because we don't currently have a set-up to publish event flyers that far in advance, however it's been my experience since taking over this office that a fair percentage of autocrats barely get their flyers in on time as it is now.  Every month, about a week before my deadline I send an email to at least half a dozen autocrats reminding them about the deadline and requesting a copy of their flyer (these are autocrats who have events scheduled the month of or the month after the issue that I am currently putting together).  If the complaint is that flyers can only be printed a month in advance (which I hope you understand is due to space constraints) then you would think autocrats would make sure their flyers are printed for both months to get as much exposure as possible.  I can tell you that there is at least one event every month that doesn't have a flyer submitted.

With the next rendition of SPIKE we may be able to reach some sort of compromise.  I definitely think it would be a good idea to list autocrat info, site info (as far as address, restrictions, open and close times) and maybe even a website URL for those groups who create their own pages with additional information.  I'm always open for thoughts, suggestions and ideas...

Cassandra
Chronicler



-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Houghton [mailto:herveus at radix.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 2:45 PM
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
Subject: [herveus at radix.net: Re: [MR] timing of the online calendar
(was: Does anyone know where Crown is going to be?)]


Howdy!

On Tue, Feb 11, 2003 at 12:42:51PM -0600, Brown, Tracey wrote:
> I'm not sure if this was intended to be directly addressed to me or not but I guess I'm a good person to tackle this question...  events are listed on the online calendar after they have filed their paperwork and appear in The Acorn.  It currently takes about a week or so after the hard copy goes out before the online calendar is updated.

Thank you for the explanation. My core issue is with the witholding of
information until it has been printed in the Acorn. I realize that the
Chronicler's policy says to do just that.

> Our hard working Kingdom Webminister is actually in the process of tying the online calendar to SPIKE so that when an autocrat registers their event it will automatically go to the calendar with a link to the autocrat contact info and site info (and whatever else we decide to pull from the form).

That is good. Since I don't autocrat events, I have not paid as much
attention to things like SPIKE.
>
> And since the East Kingdom's webpage is down...  would you mind enlightening me as to what theirs includes?

Boy, timing is everything! It's back up now. The primary thing I wanted to
compare was the amount of data available for events three months from now
and farther. There is meaningful information about events in July, September,
and October, and even March next year. Right now, the Atlantian calendar
lists nothing later than May of this year, and there is nothing I can use
for planning purposes for events after February except for KASF. When I am
trying to plan the next four to six months, that gives events in the East
a much better chance at getting our interest. I don't know how many times
we would have gone to an Atlantian event (versus the Eastern event we
actually went to) if we had had the event flyer information available to
us sooner.

Lest anyone take this the wrong way (and I've seen it happen), let me
note that I am not trying to impute ill motives to either the Chronicler
or the Webminister. I have no complaint with the manner in which they are
doing their jobs. I do have a complaint about the limitations placed on
the timely release of information, which I have already addressed directly
to the Chronicler.

What I'd really love to see is a system that allows groups to get real
information about their events out much farther in advance than they
can now. Publishing flyers to the Merry Rose is helpful, but ephemeral.
The kingdom web site is really the right place for this data, but the
extant policy cripples its usefulness into oblivion.

yours,
Herveus
--
Michael and MJ Houghton   | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
herveus at radix.net         | White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA            | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
                          | http://www.radix.net/~herveus/
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