COC Coordinator Manual

New Events

Create A Draft Event

• Copying an Existing Event
  The easiest way to create a new event is to copy an existing event (same event or similar event) and using it as a starting point.
  1. Find the event you want to copy under "Manage Events (Future, Past, Cancelled)" in the "Volunteers' Area".
     TIP: To easily find an event you want to copy, use the search function on your browser. When you're on the events list page, go to "Edit" and select "Find (on this page)". Enter a word you're looking for (ie. "Grotto" if you're looking for Grotto Canyon). Hit [Enter] and Voila! It takes you to the first instance of "Grotto" in the list. Use the "Find Next" button if you want to find more instances of it (ie. if the first one you found wasn't what you were looking for).
  2. Click "Copy" to copy the existing event's details to a new event.
  3. When the event details page appears, you may update the details. You will automatically be selected as the organizer. Don't worry - you are not changing the OLD event at this point.
  4. Click "Save Event to Database".
  5. See Setting up from Scratch for how to finish setting up your event.
  6. Using your "Signup Member" link, add the event coordinator(s) to the event (assuming they will be attending the event themselves, which should be the case 99% of the time).
• Setting up From Scratch
  • Under "Volunteers' Area", "Manage Events", "Future", click Add New Event.
  • Enter all the event details:
    1. "Registration Opens" date - put a future date in here if you wish to post your event to the calendar without letting people register until a certain date. It lets you get stuff out there, and generate some excitement about the event, but without accumulating a lot of registrations and waiting list additions. Don't want to use that feature? Simply ignore the field and/or make sure that the date in the field is always today or a past date.
    2. Your cut-off date controls a couple of things: after the cut-off, people will not be able to add themselves to the list, only to the waiting list. People also can't remove themselves from the list via the web site - they have to phone/e-mail you to notify you that they're dropping out. Set your cut-off date according to your own preferences... some of us who are constantly on the computer set it for the day before. Others may set it for three days before or the last business day before the weekend. Do whatever works best for you. For paid events, you need to set your cut-off date as the last day for people to pay before you need to buy tickets, pay for reservations or whatever.
    3. Your name will automatically be selected as the organizer when you create a new event. If you have a co-coordinator, you can [CTRL]-[CLICK] to select more than one event coordinator.
    4. Fill out directions to the event. Include transit suggestions for those without access to a vehicle.
    5. Difficulty Rating: Please rate your event in context of other COC events (not according to guide books or your personal ability to complete an event). See our Difficulty Ratings page for a complete description of our difficulty rating.
    6. Dogs: If you wish to allow dogs, make sure that they are allowed in the event location. Check this box to indicate that dogs may attend. Dogs should not attend COC events in Kananaskis Country or other mountain areas during bear season. Make sure you are familiar with our policies about dogs on events, including carpool costs when a dog takes up a carpool vehicle spot (on our Rules page).
    7. Itinerary: Fill out the itinerary with a description of the event. Include details from your research of the event if appropriate.
    8. Required and Recommended items to bring: the checklist link is added under "Recommended" automatically so there is no need to add a link yourself.
    9. If there is a cost associated with the event, fill out the cost details as necessary. Include details of what the price of the event covers. See Paid Events for more information, and for how to calculate the total cost.
  • Choosing a carpool location: Generally speaking, we try to select a carpool location that is:
    - Within Calgary
    - Easily accessible via transit
    - Near the direction that the group will leave the city to get to the event. For example, on the west end of town if you're going to Banff, in the NE if you're going to Drumheller.
    What carpool location to use is, ultimately, up to the coordinator, and all we ask is that you try to make it as accessible as possible, provide very clear directions on how to get there, and provide transit directions when applicable. If you are using a carpool location which does not meet the specifications above (ie. the Petro Can at the Cochrane/Bragg Creek overpass), please indicate this in the TITLE of your event. For example: Burstall Pass (Carpool from Petro Can on Hwy 1 West).
  • Items with Grey Labels are not required (you don't have to enter that information); those with Black Labels are required (you will have to enter this information before you can save the event).
  • In the "Directions", "Itinerary", and other text block fields, use HTML tags to format your text. Most commonly used is the BR tag to go to a new line.
  • When you're done entering all event details, click "Save Event to Database"
  • Your event will NOT show up on the COC calendar yet.
  • View the details of the event as they will appear to members by clicking on "Vw Dtl" for your newly created event. If any corrections are required, modify the event details by clicking on the event name. Did your event disappear from the list? Perhaps you forgot to update the date to a future date. Check under the Cancelled (Past) area.
  • Using your "Signup Member" link, add the event coordinator(s) to the event (assuming they will be attending the event themselves, which should be the case 99% of the time).
• Splitting Off a Second Group (Same Event)
  Although there was a time in our past where we actively encouraged coordinators to set up second groups in order to accomodate waiting lists, our policy as CHANGED and we no longer encourage this, in fact we actively DISCOURAGE it in order to minimize our footprint on any one area at a time. If you still want to set up a second group, be sure to set it up AT LEAST ONE HOUR apart from the original group.
  
  At times, our events may get a large waiting list. We sometimes split off a second group with a different coordinator and different start time in order to accomodate as many people as possible who want to go out on our events.
  If you want to split off a new group:
  1. Copy the existing event, changing the relevant details. Post your event at least an hour off from the original.
  2. Before posting the event to the calendar, transfer the waiting list from the original event to the new event: Click "Xfer Wait List" in the Volunteers’ Area. Select the event to move the wait list from, and the event to move the wait list to.
  3. If there is still a large waiting list left over, use a href="http://www.calgaryoutdoorclub.com/member/portal/officer_split_waitinglist.asp">"Split Wait List" to split the waiting list between the two events, keeping everyone in priority sequence.
  4. Add the new coordinator to the new event, and then add the Waiting List folks to the new event
  5. Post the event on the calendar.
  6. Please do NOT transfer or split waiting lists for a different event - many people do not want to be signed up for something else automatically. Please use it only if you're setting up the same event for the same day.
• Promo Photo
  • Find this functionality under "Manage Events (Future, Past, Cancelled)" in the Volunteer Area of your left nav.
  • Upload a "Promo" photo for an upcoming event (appears in the top-right corner).
  • A 'generic' photo is generally used for events that haven't occurred yet. When an event is completed, use a photo from the event itself as the Promo.
  • Make sure your promo photo is no wider than about 225 pixels (otherwise it messes up the whole page).
  • Use "Browse" to find your promo photo on your hard drive and "Submit" to upload it.
  • View the event details and/or archive to make sure the promo photo looks ok
• Multi-Day Events
  When your event occurs on more than one day (ie. it runs from Friday 'til Sunday, or every Wednesday for four weeks), you can set up a multi-day event. To do this:
  1. Create your event normally
  2. Click the "Dates" link on the Manage Events page
  3. Enter all of the additional dates on the screen provided (do NOT enter your start date again)
  Note that for multi-day events we generally do carpool slightly differently from day trips. We usually assign travel companions ahead of time, inform people of who they're traveling with and let them decide where/when they're meeting rather than have everyone meet at one location. Note that people often sign up for these kinds of events with someone(someones) they know, so take that into consideration when determining carpool arrangements.

Post Event to Calendar

1. Click on the event name in the list to modify it
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page
3. Select "Active - Show On Calendar" and whether you want to send notifications to members who have subscribed to receive notifications about that event type.
4. NOTE that we recommend not posting a weekend event more than a week in advance. We have had a lot of issues in posting events far into the future. Often, you will get a rush of people sign up for the event and then gather an enormous waiting list. As the date of your event draws near, people on the list will pull out at the last minute (ie. when they get the five-day automated reminder, or your two-day reminder e-mail). You must then take people from the waiting list in order, but most of the people who were first on the waiting list have long since forgotten and/or made other plans - the only people who are still genuinely interested are the last ones on the waiting list. This causes a lot of unnecessary admin and grief for you, and results in events going out with considerably less than their posted maximum, which is unfortunate for those at the bottom of the waiting list who would have gone. If you wish to set events up in advance for your own planning purposes, you can do that and keep the event in draft format without posting it until closer to the actual event date.
5. Return to the COC home page and confirm that the event appears on the calendar
6. Note that it can take a few hours for all the notifications to go out... this is run behind- the-scenes by a "batch job" that sends only 100 notifications at a time for web site performance reasons.

Basic HTML

1. <P>: The paragraph tag. Used to create a blank line between paragraphs. Use <P> between the paragraphs to create the space.
2. <BR>: Line Break tag. Use at the end of the line to start a new line.
3. Text alignments: <CENTER>, </CENTER> - Center text. Place the first tag before the text you want centered, the second tag after.
4. Text formatting (bold, italics, warning):
   1. <B>, </B> - Bold text. Place the first tag before the text you want bolded, the second tag after.
   2. <I>, </I> - Italic text. Place the first tag before the text you want italicized, the second tag after.
   3. <U>, </U> - Underline text. Place the first tag before the text you want underlined, the second tag after.
   4. <FONT CLASS=WARNING>, </FONT> - Create red, bold text for warnings or important instructions. Place the first tag before the text you want highlighted, the second tag after.
5. For event postings where you want to link your page to another site (opening on a blank/separate page), you can make it active by inserting a hyper text reference. It would look like: <A HREF="http://www.____________" target="_blank">message to show up in blue</A>. For more information, see Chapter 6 of Intro to HTML.
6. For more information about HTML, see Introduction to HTML. The sections that will be most relevant to you are "Basic Text Structures", "Lists" and "Special Effect Tags".
7. Here is a great online HTML Editor. Use it to create your itinerary, then use the directions provided to get your HTML code which you can copy and paste directly into your itinerary!