Meeting and Events Planner

This is a tool to help event organisers to collate event information in a standard format for supplying to the website editor or whoever needs to see it.

Click/Tap a link or scroll on down.

Overview

In order to speed up the process of updating the BCRA web site and the BCRA Google Calendar, it is helpful when event information is supplied in a standard format. This page allows event organisers to enter their data under specified headings and to submit it to the website editor. Please remember a few general points about BCRA meetings ...

Any notice that asks for money must, by law, include our charity number
We cannot offer an entry discount to BCRA members because that contravenes HMRC rules on Gift Aid donations
Also see Notes and guidelines for organisers of BCRA Field Meetings

All meetings need publicity. See Communicating with our Members

Please note that the form is quite basic in operation, although I will enhance it from time to time. The fields are all "narrative" in the sense that the data is going to be reviewed by a real person before being published; hence it does not matter precisely what you write. Thus the date (for example) can be in any format. However, writing "I cannot remember this guy's surname" is not helpful.
David Gibson 04-Jan-2024

ABC : additions, bugs, corrections

04-Jan-2024.Addition. Word counter added to the box for Abstract of Talk / Description of Event
04-Jan-2024. Bug correction. Box shading should clear down more consistently now, when omissions are corrected.
21-Aug-2024. Addition. speaker_email added, and minor rephrasing throughout form.
10-Sep-2024. Addition. Added radio buttons for use of speaker's email address.
10-Sep-2024. Experimented with date parsing, but further work needed before enabling this. See function checkDate()
10-Sep-2024. Bug correction. Prevented CR from triggering form submission (removed onSubmit event listener and used a plain button with onclick event listener).
10-Sep-2024. Bug correction. Correction to word counter; needed nextElementSibling; added word count to POST data.
10-Sep-2024. Bug correction. Modified countWords() to use oninput instead of onkeydown, so it responds better. My editor doesnt recognise oninput, so added it via addEventListener, which required moving placeholders() out of the html into planner.js q.v..

Data Entry

Type of Event

Title of Event

Please note that if your title is too long it will be cut ('too long' takes into account the formatting of our website)Examples...

Karst hydrology of the Hertfordshire Chalk
Cave and Karst Science Symposium and AGM
Caves, Dinosaurs and the Carnian Pluvial Episode
The New Science of Strong Materials: Or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor That's too long!

Date of Event

Please type something like 23 Sept 2024, 1 December 2024, 05-May-2024 or 2024/apr/1, spelling out at least part of the month, and using four digits for the year.

This has been parsed as: type something above

Day of Week

Start and Finish Times

You can give this as a narrative text, and we will extract the information that needs to be published. You might just say as usual for the seminars.

Billboard Name

This is the name of the person who is headlined for the event. That is, it is the meeting organiser, field-trip leader or seminar speaker. Please give only one person's name. Please ensure that this field is as you would like it published (but if it is too long, it will be cut).

Speaker's Affiliation

For seminars and lectures we might publish the affiliation of the speaker. Please ensure that this field is as you would like it published (but if it is too long, it will be cut). Examples...

Professor of Dust, Fluff, and Miscellaneous Particles, Unseen University
Curator of Slaver Artifacts, Institute of Knowledge, Jinx

Speaker's Email (for seminars only)

Please provide an email address so that the speaker can be contacted if neccessary, e.g. to discuss Zoom (or other platform) account details.

Can this address be published on our website?

No Yes

Organiser's Name (for queries)

This could be different to the above. For example, for online seminars it should be the name of the organiser of the seminar, rather than the name of the speaker. This will be published in the scope of: If you have any queries, please contact ...

Organiser's Email

Please give a publishable contact email for the Organiser given above

Event Location

Examples

University of Leeds
Grassington National Trust Car Park
Online

Event Requirements

Examples

BCRA/BCA members only (for insurance purposes)
Caving equipment required, including SRT gear
Wet weather gear advised

Abstract of Talk / Description of Event

Abstracts should, ideally, be around 150–250 words. See the highlighted word counter immediately below this box.

0 words

Photo

We like to print a publicity photo on the web site. This might also go to Facebook who (believe it or not) do specify a preferred size, so that it works on all platforms. Email your photo separately to d.gibson@bcra.org.uk. The specification is ...

Size — At least 1200 pixels wide and 630 high. Sending an oversized photo is good as it allows some leeway with the cropping. Sending an undersized photo is bad. If you are sending a graphic design (i.e. with writing and lines on it) it should be as large as possible (say 2400 pixels) but, in general graphics should be avoided. Dont forget that , whatever size photo you send, it will be cropped to a thin panoramic-style format of 1200 x 630.
Data Format — Low-compression JPG is preferred; or PNG. Please do not send TIF files because they can sometimes have non-standard encoding that can be difficult to read.
Captions — Please do not add text captions to your photo. Generally there should be no writing on the image unless it is part of a graphic design.
Processing — Please do not process your photo by adding sharpening or other effects.
File name — Please use a short but explicit file name, which identifies the event. Please do not name your photo "BCRA_talk" or "Slide-23" as that is completely useless! Also, please add a version number and never send a file with the same name twice.
Copyright — We need permission from the owner of the copyright of any photo or graphics that we use.

Examples of file names...

gunn-peakcavern-v1.jpg
nidderdale-v1.jpg

Please give the file name of the photo or graphic that you are sending.

If the photo needs a caption, please enter it below

Who should be credited with ownership of this photo or graphic?

Has the owner of the copyright given permission for BCRA to use their work on the BCRA website and in social media?

Signature

Please "sign" this form with your email address and, if it is not obvious who you are, your name as well.

Submit Form

You can now review the information and, if it is correct, submit it for processing.

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This page, http://mail.bcra.org.uk/meetings/planner.html was last modified on Tue, 10 Sep 2024 20:21:30 +0100