On the evening of November 17, George Davis and Katie Shepard hosted a workshop at the Belden Noble Memorial Library to teach members of the community how to post events to the Essex Calendar. We give great thanks to the library and to Colleen Van Hoven who allowed us to use the space and was there to open up for us.

We also want to say thank you to everyone who attended our recent workshop (or any of our past workshops). The Essex Blog and Calendar are improving your involvement! We hope even more people we become involved. Anyone who wants to submit events to the calendar should contact us and we’ll set up log in information for you. It’s easy!

Contributing to the Essex Calendar is simple. Post one-time or reoccurring events—just add a description of the event, the venue, date & time, and you can add a photo too. Your event will be on the calendar for anyone looking to see what’s happening around Essex, NY. Also, every Sunday we publish a post on the Essex Blog listing the events of the upcoming week—so for those who don’t check the calendar, the events appearing there will also have a presence on the blog, our Facebook and Twitter feed, and in the weekly and daily newsletter we send out. So your events are sure to be seen!

If you missed the workshop and would like to add events to the calendar contact us and we can send you log-in information.

Helpful Tips for Adding Events to the Essex Calendar

Adding events to the Essex Calendar is simple, but for those who missed our recent workshop or those who’d like a written refresher, here are some tips to help you get started posting events to the calendar:

1. Go to the Essex Calendar at essexny.us/events (you can also get there by clicking on the Essex Calendar link in the header of any page on the Essex Blog if you can’t remember the url).
2. Click the add an event link, which will take you to the log-in page. If you can’t remember your details click on the “lost your password” link. Once you’re logged in (or if you’re already logged in) it will take you directly to the submit page. [If you don’t have log-in details yet contact us.] 
3. First add the title of your event. You want it to be short, but you also want viewers to be able to understand what your event is.
4. Next add your event description. It’s helpful if you begin by saying what exactly your event is (concert? lecture? tour? meeting?) and giving the gist in the first two sentences (As your event appears in the calendar, when the title is hovered over a pop-up will appear that shows the first few lines of your text. And the first few lines also appear in the Upcoming Events feed on the Essex Blog homepage.) Add as much information as you see fit in the description to tell readers all the important information about your event and to entice them to attend.
5. Next choose the categories that best fit your event. You can choose all that apply.  (This helps sort the event for those looking specifically for certain types of events).
6. Add an event image. Choose an image from your computer and it will be submitted with your event. (Image must be in png, jpg, or gif format.)
7. Next you must input event details.The first thing you’ll need to decide is whether or not this will be an all day event. If it is, hit the checkbox; you’ll see the start/end time fields disappear upon doing so. If it isn’t an all-day event, leave this field unchanged.
8. If not an all day event, then select the start date/time; start date will default to today and start time/end time will default to 8 a.m. / 5 p.m. respectively. You can change these to whatever fits your event criteria using the dropdown menus.
9. You can also set up reoccurring events. You can use the dropdown menu to choose an occurrence of: daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. And then choose “end on” in the next drop-down and choose the date the last event will occur on in this cycle. You can also choose “custom” from the dropdown and that will allow you to select multiple days of the week for your event to occur on or just certain days per month or year for a certain length of time or other variations.
10. Event Location Details will determine the venue for your event. You can either use a saved venue from the dropdown or create a new one on the spot. If you do create a new one now, it’ll be saved in the dropdown for use on any future event you create.You can add as many or as few venue details as you see fit; whether it’s a specific address or just a country, although the more specific you are the easier it will be for others to find your venue. You can also leave these fields entirely blank if you don’t want any venue information to display. However, you will need a full address if you want to make use of the Google Maps options.
11. If you check the “Show Google Maps Link” box, it will include a nice button that links your viewers to the venue information at maps.google.com. If you check the “Show Google Maps” box, it will embed a map of the venue into the events page directly. You can include one, both or neither of these on an event-by-event basis.
12. Event Organizer Details are similar to the venue details you added above, only these focus on the person/organization putting the event together. Once again you have the option to pick from existing organizers via the dropdown or to add a new one using the fields available; and once again, you can add as many or as few organizer details as you wish or leave it blank.
13. The Event Website option allows you to enter a URL if the event itself has a separate website (or Facebook page etc.). Otherwise you can leave it blank.
14. The Event Cost options allow you to set a cost for the event and change the currency symbol you use. The default currency symbol is the $ and there should be no need to update it. The next field, Cost, is how much your users can expect to pay for the event. If you leave it blank, no cost field will appear. If you enter a “0”, it will say the cost is “Free.” You can enter any amount, or even multiple amounts if there are different prices. For example enter: $10/adult; $5/child and it will appear as such in the event listing.
15. Look over your information to be sure it is all correct. Then hit the Submit Event button. This will send the event to us for review and we will publish it to the calendar asap if there are no discrepancies.

Hopefully these tips will help those already contributing to the calendar and will help those just starting out. Remember, if you have any questions you can contact us and we’ll get back to you asap.

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