How to use FREE web-based calendars available at
www.localendar.com
to post your organization's events on the Newton Unified Arts Calendar

 

The Newton Unified Arts Calendar, a feature of the Discover Newton Arts website at www.DiscoverNewtonArts.org, makes use of web-based calendar technology provided free of charge at www.localendar.com. Arts organizations in the NPS community can open individual "localendar" accounts by simply clicking on the Sign Me Up! button at that site and later request that their calendars be merged with the Unified Arts Calendar.  The only stipulation for being merged with the Unified Calendar is that all your listings be arts-related events of a public nature, open to anyone in the community.  Please note that the Newton Unified Arts Calendar webmaster can easily disable merging of any member calendar that doesn't conform to this requirement.

After creating your calendar account at www.localendar.com with a convenient sign-on name and password, and then signing on, you can immediately begin entering event info by clicking on "Add" at the left side of the calendar display.  Here are helpful  comments regarding each line of the event input form to save you time and to achieve some standardization for the Unified Calendar, with which your calendar will eventually be merged.  You can easily verify that what you've entered does in fact appear correctly on your calendar by going to www.localendar.com/public/sign-on-name (substitute your member name for sign-on-name),  so don't worry about experimenting and making mistakes.  Any event can be easily deleted or modified even if it's been published.  You can also use "Preview" right from the edit screen to see what the event description will look like to the public.

After you've entered some events and have confidence in the process, notify the Unified Calendar webmaster (Andy Vizulis avizulis@rcn.com) of your Sign-On ID and your calendar will be made to automatically merge with the Unified Calendar.  From then on, as soon as you enter an event on your own calendar, it will show up on the the main calendar!

Your can freely distribute your individual calendar address, which is www.localendar.com/public/sign-on-name, to anyone you choose.  You  might want to link to this calendar on your organization's own webpage.

localendar Event Editor Fields

** Title **

Event title. As a standard for the Unified Arts Calendar, you MUST put your organization's name somewhere in the title so that it will be immediately obvious to the public.  Don't use initials, because viewers will probably have no idea what they stand for, and it will eliminate an extra click in many cases (which web surfers like).

Don't be too wordy or too long. You can put all the other info you want in the Description field (next). Clicking on any event title in the published calendar will open a window that contains the Description info (next). No need to put time of the event here - that's done separately.

** Description **

Start this text with the location of your event. Then add any info you want displayed. Hint:  If you want to start new lines in this text, use SHIFT+ENTER (both keys together) instead of just the ENTER key.  Otherwise, the lines will all run together into a single paragraph when the event is published.

** Background Color **

Here, select one of the colors as the background color for your listing. You might want to settle on a standard color for your organization's listings.

** Time **

Choose the start time for your event (also choose am/pm!) and estimate the duration of the event. If you select "all day," it will say "All Day Event" on your listing (this will probably be an infrequent choice).

** Sharing **

Here, you have the option of designating Private or Public for your event. For events destined for the master calendar, MAKE SURE YOU SELECT PUBLIC. If you select Private, the event will only be seen by people who have access to your user name and password (could be your board members - use for board meetings?). Public means that everyone on the internet will be able to see the event. If you check "Publish as local event," you'll be entering your event into a national database that will display your event whenever someone tells localendar to display all events within x miles (or minutes) of a particular zipcode. You can enter your zipcode into the zipcode box. This is a cool feature that can give you more exposure.

** Category **

Select one of these categories for your event. It shows up at the top of the event window, along with the time of your event.

** Add an Image **

It's easy to associate a standard image with your event. If you click on "Add an Image," you can then choose an image category and an image in that category. You should explore these because they'll call more attention to your event (and make your event take up more space!).  For example, musical events could use the "Notes" image (found under General). There's also an Entertainment category which has images for ballet, painting, theater, etc. You'll probably find something that fits. These can give viewers visual cues that again eliminate extra clicks in many cases.

** Repeating event **

If you have an event that repeats at regular intervals, like 4th Thursdays etc., explore this one to save lots of input time.