New BfAZ Calendar Feature Offers Better Visibility, Improved Social Media Sharing

Tirelessly– for years– the AZ BlueMeanie has collected and posted hundreds of calendar items on Blog for Arizona each Sunday morning. Scraps of info and miscellaneous fliers were organized to create this section once a week.

Multiple changes to Blog for Arizona– most notably the switch to Word Press and the addition of community events to BfAZ (thanks to Carolyn Classen)– necessitated a new method of calendaring.

Conversion to Word Press format opened the door to multiple plug-ins that compile calendars. Our new calendar (available by clicking on Calendar in the upper navigation bar) offers enhanced visibility of events, allows all BfAZ  bloggers to enter basic event information (when we hear about them, not just on Sunday), provides readers with multiple views (posterboard view shown here, one month calendar, one week, or daily), and allows readers to post events to their calendars or to social media.

Readers also can sort calendar items by category or by tag. Category shows you events by city, by community vs political vs family friendly event, by sponsor, or by keyword. This is a statewide calendar, with events in Prescott, Benson, Clifton, and many other locales– not just events in Phoenix and Tucson. By clicking the “tag” button, you can see events by topic (ie, environment, choice) or by person (ie, Fred DuVal, Raul Grijalva).

If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the calendar, you’ll also see a button to subscribe to the calendar feed.

Check the calendar out– here. You can send basic calendar information and a modestly sized jpg image to blogforarizona@gmail.com for consideration. Please include “calendar” in the subject line.