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A rough web-page primer for VPs

Please see the General overview that is for everyone. You might not normally be the one thought of as the techno-geek, but you've been on the Board at least one year, and your Directors (probably) have not, so you need to be the expert (for your Directors & Chairpeople) on what resources are available. Odds are that your Chairpeople may never attend a chairperson training session, and being a new Director can be a deluge of new information, as well as a big change in "duties" as people go from running projects to helping others run projects. As a VP you are in the best position to help your Directors and Chairpeople make the best use of our online resources.

As a general note, there will be bugs, there will be broken links, etc, during the year. Please NEVER hesitate to email if you find something that is broken, or if you need help getting something to work. _Generally speaking_, I can fix a bug within 5 minutes of you letting me know it exists. But I do need to know about it, in order to fix it.

How to use the calendar

Please keep the calendar as up to date as possible. The accuracy of the calendar makes a big difference in how people view us and how new members feel about the organization. Please also add as much detail as possible for each event (including web links, and addr, as detailed below)

• Click on the link to Calendar (top right corner)
• In the lower-right, click on "Login"
• Enter your username and password.
  Its hard enough to keep even the nicest, best-intentioned, 6 VPs (and State Director) from accidently stomping on each other's events.... So please please please do NOT give your login info out to your Directors...this is not a slam on Directors, but if 25 people have access to the calendar, chaos will follow. Trust me, 7 cooks in this "kitchen" are more than enough. FWIW, until 2001 the entire calendar was controlled by only one VP (Mgt).
• You can now Add an Event (bottom row of calendar)
• Out of courtesy to your other VPs and State Director, please check with them when scheduling events. Each year could have a different "system" agreed to by everyone, but it might be that you ask at your monthly VP meeting, or ask each other by email, etc. Please also look for (and try to schedule around) existing events when you are working with your chairperson to schedule your own. If there is a conflict, work with the other VP. Many event schedules are flexible, especially the further away the event is. Again, each year will have to develop its own standards for how to work with each other. (and if you are new and your group doesn't have a 'system' yet, please wait until your group does does agree on some common expectations before scheduling anything on the calendar).
• You will first create the event, and its details, and then "schedule" the event.
• If you enter a "street addr" and a "zip code", a Mapquest map link will automatically be generated in the details section for an event
• You can insert "carriage-returns/line-feeds" by typing <BR> in your descriptions (HTML-speak for line-BReak) for purposes of formatting.
• If there is a web addr that has more information about a project.. ie. http://raleighjaycees.org/projects/Ski_Trip/ please enter that in the web link slot.
• When you have entered the details, hit "Save and continue", now you will schedule the event.
• Recurring events are a powerful tool. Please use this for recurring workdays (Haunted House, etc) vs. scheduling 30 separate work-day events.
• Hit "save"
• Then use the pull-down menu and do "view calendar", to verify your event.
• You may also edit/delete events.

Calendar recurring events

"recurring" events are a mixed bag.. mostly positive. You can enter a repeating event (eg the GMMs) only once, and only have to enter one "schedule" (ie. repeating every 1st/3rd Tues of the month). A lot easier than entering 24 separate events.

But you cannot go back and change "just one" instance of those 24... ie. if you meeting is cancelled, you can't delete that one instance.. delete one and you delete them ALL. Better (IMO) to schedule another event for that one day saying 'OTHER EVENT CANCELLED'.

If you have a recurring event with different locations, you could put that information in the description section, but still get away with scheduling just the one event. You can even go back and re-edit that event each month as you get the new info (ie. if Book Club always met the same day of the month, you could leave Mar-Dec empty until the book title and meeting location was known, then fill those in as info becomes available).

CPGs

• VPs can upload CPGs directly to the CPG library from inside the roster. (only after the roster DB is updated with who is/not on the Board).
• PLEASE format the CPG file name as PROJECT_name_YEAR.doc Do not put 'final' or 'cpg' in the file name (we know they are final cpgs thats all we put in the library)
• Our CPG library is public (which is a big resource for other chapters). Please remove any sensitive information from the CPGs and put it in a file named for the project and place in the File Archives (ie. donor lists, bank acct #s, etc)

Email

We have "standard" email addrs for the VPs, Pres, State Director, Jaycall, BnB editor, and a few more. We set these up to "forward" to your real email. We ask that you use these @raleighjaycees.org addr for "business" and not your personal addr. This has 2 big advantages... A) while you will get some spam that comes thru, it is technically going to office@raleighjaycees.org and being forwarded to you... your REAL addr is not exposed to the outside world. B) it makes it easy to pass things on from year to year.

You should be asked at the beginning of the year to supply a REAL addr to be put in the forwarding table. And if you know of a project, etc, that needs an email addr, ask, it can probably be set up.

Project-based email addresses are available and ENCOURAGED. Several of our major projects have their own domain names (ie. HOBY, Goodfellows, Brookhill, etc) and can have their own addrs (ie. info@hobync.org, etc). These addresses have the advantage that they can be re-used from year to year, all we have to do is change (behind the scenes) where that mail is forwarded to. Project forms, project web pages, etc will stay up to date automatically by using these email addrs instead of my.personal@email.acct which will be different every year with each new chairperson.

For projects that do not have a domain, we can also setup email addrs as project@raleighjaycees.org (for things like PetTrek, BigAir, SkiTrip, etc.

Please help make your Chairpeople aware of this resource and encourage that they use these addrs as a way to help us for long-term continuity. Plus this way their real addrs don't have to be put on forms or web pages where they'll get picked up by spammers.

Press releases

• The publicity Director has access to a panel for uploading press releases that will appear under "in the press"

Bits and Bytes

• The Bits and Bytes editor has a panel to edit Bits and Bytes

Meeting Minutes

• The Secretary has a panel for uploading meeting minutes

Board/Chairperson resources

A few things to point out:

• CPG booklet forms can be auto-generated http://www.raleighjaycees.org/pdf_forms.php
• PIS forms can be auto-generated http://www.raleighjaycees.org/pis.php
• Please take 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with the items on these pages. Please also feel free to suggest things we need to add. Make sure your Directors know what resources are there (PIS forms, Storage inventory, stationary template, sample project letters, etc).