Have you ever wondered mid-week, “What date/time was that event they mentioned last Sunday?” or “Is there a student event *this* week for my child?” or “Was that women’s/men’s event this weekend or next?”
There is now an easy way for Westheights-related events to be automatically included in your own personal calendar and all you have to do is enable it once. (You can also remove it at any time if you change your mind.)
But what if I don’t want all events added to My Calendar?
No problem. The church activities have been split into categories and you can select to only add one or a few categories to your calendar. The events from the selected categories will show up in your calendar using a different colour, and you will also be able to add reminders to them if you wish (e.g. send me an email the day before a given event, or a pop-up 1 hour before).
Which Calendars can these events be automatically added to?
Any calendar that supports the iCalendar (often called “iCal”) standard internet calendar format. This includes Google Calendar, Mozilla Sunbird, Outlook 2010, Apple’s iCal app, and others.
How Do I Add These Events to My Calendar?
Here is an example of how to add any of these event categories to your own Google Calendar.
(1) Login to your Google Calendar (using http://calendar.google.com or your normal login address)
(2) Near the bottom of the left margin, locate the “Other calendars” heading.
(3) Under “Other calendars” click the “Add” link followed by the “Add by URL” option.
(4) Copy-and-paste one of the following long addresses (called URLs) into the pop-up window:
Westheights Events (main public events for everyone) – URL:
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/office%40westheights.org/public/basic.ics
Junior High Youth Events – URL:
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/f11pp9i2narah0hh8vq3p68tp0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Senior High Youth Events – URL:
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/web.westheightsyouth%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics
Canadian Public Holidays:
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/kotjclorfvku1hrji2no0gm6vg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
(5) Leave the public checkbox empty/off, and click the [Add Calendar] button in the pop-up window.
(6) Repeat steps (3), (4) and (5) for each additional category that you wish to have displayed within your own Google Calendar.
Your calendar will now be “subscribed” to the category(ies) that you added above. When events are added by Westheights staff and volunteers to these calendar categories, those new events will automatically be displayed within your calendar. You may customize those automatically added events within your calendar, such as add reminders or add extra information about the event, etc., but any such customizations are only done locally within your calendar (i.e. your customizations don’t affect the original calendar entries that everyone else sees).
Suggested Categories
- Everyone should consider adding the Westheights Events (general public activities) category. These are the events that everyone in our church will want to stay informed about.
- If you have kids in, or are a kid in, Jr. and/or Sr. High, then consider adding the appropriate category.
- If you do a lot of booking of rooms or practices, etc., then you will probably want to add the Scheduling category so that you know when the buildings are being used versus available.
- The Canadian Public Holidays category isn’t about church activities but is still helpful to have them shown on your calendar.
Other
Instructions for removing any of these calendar categories from your calendar will be the subject of a follow-up posting.
Also, if you do not use an iCal based calendar you can always check the online church calendar at http://calendar.westheights.org. This online version includes all of the categories mentioned above.
Try it out. Let us know what you think in the comments (or if you encountered problems)!
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