Prior: Part 14: Rules to Calendar and Live By: Some
Over the years, I have developed the following rules to ensure the digital tools’ success. All you have to do is follow them when you enter an event on one of the calendars or manage the calendars. Using them will solve and prevent a lot of problems. These basic rules can be used as a quick reference guide/checklist. This is the second post of these rules.
Here’s today’s checklist:
- Confine meetings, especially leadership meetings, to Private calendars.
- Put events relevant to the general membership on Public calendars.
- Private events like weddings, family parties, funerals, etc. should only be put on the location/building calendar by the Building Scheduler.
- Make information easy to find and access by making it predictable and located in established areas.
“You may want to make some leadership calendars private to reduce the number of calendars presented to the general membership—for example, calendars for ward council meetings and the like.” link
“You may want to make some leadership calendars private to reduce the number of calendars presented to the general membership—for example, calendars for stake council meetings and the like.” link
Private calendars can be seen by those they are relevant to. Public calendars should only contain events that are relevant to everyone. Meetings, especially small ones, should all be on Private calendars.
Put events relevant to the general membership on Public calendars.
“Most of your calendars will be public. Public ward calendars can be seen by everyone in the ward but can be edited only by ward calendar editors or administrators.” link
“Most of your calendars will be public. Public stake calendars can be seen by everyone in the stake but can be edited only by stake calendar editors or administrators.” link
Consider that this is what the Church must be doing. The “Churchwide Calendars” only list a handful of events for the general membership. I’m betting there are a multitude of other private calendars with a multitude of other meetings that most of us simply can’t, and don’t want, to see. Let’s follow the Church’s example with this, as well as their instructions.
Private events like weddings, family parties, funerals, etc. should only be put on the location/building calendar by the Building Scheduler. link
These are all building and location events and they need to be on the calendar but they don’t need to be on the stake or ward calendars because they are not stake or ward events.
Much like leadership meetings, these events are relevant only to a few, certainly not the general membership. They do not need to clutter up the stake and ward calendars.
If you haven’t read the posting on the Building Scheduler yet, do it!
Make information easy to find and access by making it predictable and located in established areas. Avoid unnecessary clicking.
This is common sense but sometimes a little difficult to apply. For example, baptisms occur for Primary children as well as adult converts. Which calendar should you put them on? My recommendation is to put them all on the general events calendar for the ward.
These are ward events, not Primary events, and they all need to be in the same place and probably scheduled by the ward clerk. People need to know where to find baptisms and find them consistently in the same place. Put them there and leave them there.
Naturally, Relief Society events should be on the Relief Society calendar, etc. However, if an organization like the Relief Society is sponsoring a ward event, it should go on the general ward events calendar.
There will be other problematic categories of events that may bridge calendars somehow. Just think through the difficulties and try and be consistent with what you do.
Assignment for Leaders:
- Review your calendars, separate the meetings from public events and separate the calendars.
- Review your calendars for obvious problems and seek to fix them.
Assignment for Members: Review your calendars for obvious problems. Contact leaders and suggest they fix them. Give them a link to this blog series if you can.
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