2011 randonneuring schedules on our websites

[C. Duque]

Hi all,

This is a note directed mostly to randonneuring clubs webmasters but I
think we all can benefit form this.

The 2011 schedules will start showing up on our websites soon and we
all have different ways of displaying that information. I proppose we
use Google Calendar or any other form of iCal to post events to our
websites. To name event on the calendar we can use the club
abbreviation, the name of the route and the distance, for example for
the upcoming San Francisco Randonneurs Old Cazadero 300k "SFR Old
Cazadero 300k"

The advantage of this is users can "subscribe" to the calendars using
their cell phones or desktops. User can also consolidate several
calendars into one, say for example all Northern California
randonneuring calendars or just the calendars from the clubs they are
interested in. Users can customize the view (week, month, list) they
prefer, they can also receive updates on their phone, if they chose
to, in case information changes at the last minute, they can also
embed the calendar into their own blogs/websites and have always show
the most current information.

The advantage for you the webmaster is that the calendar creation is
all handled via a web browser and maintenance is so very simple. Next
year you can just reuse the previous year and just update the date of
the event and any details that changed, you can use google maps to
show the start location, you can duplicate events etc, lots of stuff
that will save you time. Embedding the calendar in any webpage of your
website is very simple also, instructions are online but if needed I
can help you with this,just send me a note.

If you publish your calendar using Google Calendar please post to
address where others can subscribe. We all can benefit.

San Francisco Randonneurs iCal (not updated with 2011 events yet):
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/lcn3uuekqdnd4gnur45dqnhkj0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

You can see how the calendar is embedded into one of our pages here.
There are two calendars consolidated into one, our own SFR and the
Northern California (that i created from information found on other
clubs websites):
http://sfrandonneurs.org/events-calendar.htm

BTW, yes I am aware some people have created their own calendars
consolidating many clubs into a single calendar but these are not the
"official" calendars and most of the time you can't subscribe to them
making them static and not very user friendly.

Again if you need any help setting up a Google calendar for your club
please don't hesitate contacting me for help.

Thanks,
Carlos Duque
San Francisco Randonneurs webmaster

[Bill Bryant]

Along with the points raised by Carlos, let's remember that all 2011 local brevet schedules must be considered "tentative" until approved in early October by RUSA HQ. The official national brevet calendar will go on-line at www.rusa.org after that, and it will be published on paper in the November issue of American Randonneur.

 

Bill Bryant

Santa Cruz Randonneurs

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