Producing a printable calendar

[fred8033]

Fehler wrote:: "You have too much information, its starting to no longer be useful. District meetings and special trainings 6 months out? Why do non-PLC scouts need to know when PLC meetings are? Simplify a printed "Parent's Information" calendar, and then tell the SM/ASMs/MCs to look it up on-line and print their own if they need it."

 

We are just trying to show a similar amount of info to what we showed when we authored it in Microsoft Word.

 

- PLCs are included because roles change. Elections are every six months. We want the scouts to get used to the same calendar because they will be on that PLC more than once. Also, the "program patrol" needs to know when they need to plan activities and when the info is needed. It's also useful because scouts sometimes drop paperwork or equipment off during the committee half of the PLC meeting.

 

- Round tables are listed because that's when the youth OA rep needs attend his OA meetings. Also, it's when EBORs are done and other special training / activities occur.

 

We just want everyone working off one calendar that has the necessary info. We used to be able to do it very easily in the past. Not so much now.

 

I realize we could shrink founds, print four pages one one page, etc. But at some point it just looks sloppy and not something you want to represent the quality of your pack or troop.

 

Thus the reason I'm hoping to find a solution to creating an automated printable calendar. Our web vendor doesn't support it. Google's printed calendar is poor.

[Deaf Scouter]

Why not change your routine of how you do things?

 

I would keep the calendar format and tell parents to start using the Scout calendar as their main calendar. Print out the first one at the beginning of the year and put in some kind of thing report file type folder or a notebook.

 

Use a 3 months cycle of update. End of September, print out December's.

 

Instead of you printing all the copies, tell the parents to do their own.

 

Hope this helps as I can't change the computer program for the life of me but I NEED my SCOUT calendar.. *grins

[fred8033]

Thanks for the response. We've adopted some of what your saying.

 

- Our plan now is to hand out updated calendars three or four times a year.

 

- We've found a way using Google scripts and Google docs to auto-generate a "printable" calendar from our official calendar. Looks pretty good too.

 

- We're able to fit about 18 months of events on one double sided page. We've left space at the end for posting a KEY (what's a PLC, etc) and for listing events more than 18 months out (high adv, etc).

 

[qwazse]

If you can lay out the steps, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I learned that JavaScript doesn't mesh with our Google Site, and I tried to wrap it in a Google Gadget, but it's still not "humming" as smoothly as I would like. I know a little more hacking might come up with a resolution, but that would cut into my time replying to threads.

[fred8033]

Qwaze - Drop me a private message with your email address and I will forward you the script and the result. It's not a perfect solution. And google scripts can be a bit flaky. And it's not 100% automatic. But it works and it's quick and easy once you've done it once.

 

[fred8033]

Great news. Our scouting web vendor just released an updated that includes a printable calendar. Go to their site and try their demo. Pretty nice. FYI - The demo site doesn't yet have the printable calendar view yet. Still nice demo.

 

http://www.mytroop.us/features.html