Speaker Calendar

In my last post I introduced myself as the program director for the Whittier Area Genealogical Society or WAGS and ended with the importance of creating a permanent email address such as Yahoo.com or Gmail.com that does not change everytime you change your Internet Service Provider or I.S.P.



In this post I will talk about how I created my speaker calendar in my email program. I have set up several folders for my monthly speakers. I used 0108-GM for my speaker for January 2008 General Meeting. I also used 0108-CC for the January 2008 Computer Class teacher and 0208-RC for the February 2008 Refresher Class. Because WAGS alternates classes every month one month would show 0108-CC and next month would show 0208-RC. Every month we have a paid General Meeting speaker so -GM will show up every month. All my speaker communication is moved into the appropriate folders so I can keep track of agreements sent, topics discussed and agreed upon, and other communication.



During the searching phase for a speaker I have my outgoing email in the Sent box and incoming email in the Inbox. As soon as I have an agreement for a specific speaker and month I move all the outgoing and incoming emails to that person's appropriate dated folder. Thus I have all the communication with each speaker in one folder. I then make sure that one of the speaker's emails is marked as unread thus showing a 1 next to the folder name. Folder 0108-GM would look like 0108-GM (1). By doing this I know at a glance what months have approved speakers. I then concentrate on the months that do not have speakers. I also maintain printed Speaker Agreements for each month. This approach allows me to easily communicate at Board meetings what speakers and topics I have lined up for the months ahead.



After my speaker presents his talk to WAGS I mark all messages as read thus removing the (1) in front of the folder. As I move through the calendar year and my speakers have completed their talks to WAGS I then begin my next calendar year by renaming the folders that have completed talks. For example, I might have several folders for 0108, 0208, 0308, 0408, 0508 that I can now rename 0109, 0209, 0309, 0409, 0509. With this preceedure I capture all of my speakers for 2 or more years in each month's folder. This allows me to make sure I do not repeat my speakers too often and let's me know what prior speakers and topics I had for that month. Since I have been doing this for several years I have quite a log of speaker history in each folder.



I realize this post has been more about organization than improving programs. Future posts will discuss more substantive ideas about finding speakers and topics. That's all for now.

Thanks,

Program Man