Reservations worth it?

We have not seen good adoption of the calendar at the ward level. One of the excuses we've heard is "I know the building is already reserved for us so I'm not going to bother putting it on the calendar". This is despite our explanations about the difference between reservations and events and the associated risks, and despite the other benefits of putting it on the calendar.

So we are thinking about skipping reservations altogether next year, and telling them they will not have the building reserved at all unless they put it on their calendar.

Also, with 12 wards and 4 buildings reservations are a lot of work to set up and maintain, and as is evident by the many posts about them they can lead to some confusion and other issues. I would still use them as blocks though.

Any thoughts?

craiggsmith wrote:We have not seen good adoption of the calendar at the ward level. One of the excuses we've heard is "I know the building is already reserved for us so I'm not going to bother putting it on the calendar". This is despite our explanations about the difference between reservations and events and the associated risks, and despite the other benefits of putting it on the calendar.

Wards often neglect to set up events particularly for Mutual nights, giving the same excuse you mentioned: "I know the building is already reserved." But they are not depending on the actual Reservation in the online calendar, but on the longstanding assignment of which ward gets which rooms on which weeks. They would make the same risky assumption even if we didn't have a reservation.

craiggsmith wrote:So we are thinking about skipping reservations altogether next year, and telling them they will not have the building reserved at all unless they put it on their calendar.

I don't see the downside to having a Reservation in place -- I really can't imagine that removing reservations would increase the odds that people will schedule events. I could be wrong on that, so it would be interesting to see the results of your experiment.

craiggsmith wrote:Also, with 12 wards and 4 buildings reservations are a lot of work to set up and maintain,

Our rules are so consistent that it took maybe an hour or so (and it would take less, now that we are more experienced) to set up the rules for a building. I don't think we've touched them since, and that was a couple of years ago.

craiggsmith wrote:and as is evident by the many posts about them they can lead to some confusion and other issues.

In our stake I can't recall a single problem with reservations. We use reservations on a very limited basis -- basically just to reserve mutual night and Cub Scout pack meeting nights. We have three wards per building, and so this helps keep all that straight. Once in a while the wards agree to make an exception (Ward B needs the cultural hall on a particular date, even though Ward A owns the reservation, but Ward A graciously yields for this one event) and the building scheduler facilitates the override.

The confusion comes when building schedulers misuse the reservations, but with proper use (which I believe implies rather minimal use of this feature), reservations can perform their intended function of restricting other units from scheduling the building.

Craig I think you got something there. I feel the biggest problem is the new calendar takes a paradigm shift, from calling someone and having them put it on the calendar to just adding it to the calendar themselves. Its just not the way its been done in the past.

Along with doing what you are doing I would suggest doing away with Building Schedulers at each building and just placing that responsibility on someone in the stake clerks office or even giving it solely to the stake PFR. That way blocks could be placed for such things like having to finish the gym floor. There could also be reservations set up only for reserving times for things like YM/YW nights for specific units, and I'm not even sure that's necessary as it could placed on a units calendars as a recurring event by the unit.

I just set up the reservations for 2013 for our stake center which hosts 3 wards. Ward A gets Tuesday nights, Ward B gets Wednesday nights and Ward C gets Thursday nights. Needless to say, that was a quick setup.

As a stake guy, if there's a squabble in Ward B over which auxiliary gets the gym for their night, I'm not going to worry about it. That's Ward B's problem. I'm more concerned about the various units playing well with each other.

The real challenge is weekends. On that one, I'll have to say "if you don't schedule it, you don't have it". I'd rather see the event placed on the calendar then to try and make a reservation for it.

Gary_Miller wrote:Along with doing what you are doing I would suggest doing away with Building Schedulers at each building and just placing that responsibility on someone in the stake clerks office or even giving it solely to the stake PFR.

There's enough work that is centralized at the stake level that I don't like this idea. Especially for stakes that have several buildings, I see no benefit in taking a responsibility from the local building, where a local building scheduler is much more likely to know the layout of the building, the rooms, the local rules for allocating the building usage among the wards. My stake only has three buildings, and I certainly wouldn't want to add this responsibility to my task list.

Gary_Miller wrote:That way blocks could be placed for such things like having to finish the gym floor.

That seems like a perfect use for an Event, not a Reservation.

Gary_Miller wrote:There could also be reservations set up only for reserving times for things like YM/YW nights for specific units, and I'm not even sure that's necessary as it could placed on a units calendars as a recurring event by the unit.

But recurring events don't have any specifics as to what is happening and which quorum or class is doing what. Remember, although booking the building is one reason to create events, it's also very important to communicate what is happening and who needs to show up where and when. A recurring Mutual night event would only accomplish the first purpose.

aebrown wrote:There's enough work that is centralized at the stake level that I don't like this idea. Especially for stakes that have several buildings, I see no benefit in taking a responsibility from the local building, where a local building scheduler is much more likely to know the layout of the building, the rooms, the local rules for allocating the building usage among the wards. My stake only has three buildings, and I certainly wouldn't want to add this responsibility to my task list.

However, if your not going to use the reservation system as Craig suggested, then there is no need for a Local Building Scheduler. Hence the reason I moved responsibility back to the stake level.

aebrown wrote:That seems like a perfect use for an Event, not a Reservation.

Hence, no need for a Local Building Scheduler.

aebrown wrote:But recurring events don't have any specifics as to what is happening and which quorum or class is doing what. Remember, although booking the building is one reason to create events, it's also very important to communicate what is happening and who needs to show up where and when. A recurring Mutual night event would only accomplish the first purpose.

Correct. However, you can book recurring events, such as Mutual Night, and then update each event as the decision on what is happening and who needs to show up where and when is made.

craiggsmith wrote:One of the excuses we've heard is "I know the building is already reserved for us so I'm not going to bother putting it on the calendar".

This was one attitude all four units in our building had and why our building scheduler had not set reservations for things like mutual night. The other was that two wards that meet in our building share the same mutual night and reservations cannot be made for two units at once. Divvying the rooms between reservations for that shared mutual night would not work because each ward did not know what rooms were going to be needed at some times in the future - but that is a discussion for another thread.

Not making reservations for Ward A that held mutual on Tuesday evenings eventually created a conflict to occur. Ward B's Primary president scheduled a Cub Scout meeting by accident during Ward A's mutual time. When Ward A attempted to schedule a Boy Scout court of honor in the cultural hall a conflict prevented it. It took three days of telephone calls to determine the Cub Scout meeting time was supposed to be two hours earlier and not during Ward A's mutual time. Ward B's Primary president was out of town and had no computer access. The building scheduler was able to contact her by phone, determine there was a mistake, and correct it. Now all Ward A's mutual nights are reserved through reservations to prevent accidents and panic like this from happening again - at least on Ward A's mutual night.

We are planning on using block reservations to prevent calendar editors from scheduling events for 2013 on certain in demand dates, such as holidays, until all four bishops can work out an equitable plan. Once the priorities and allocations for 2013 scheduling is set then the block will be lifted and regular reservations for those agreed upon priorities and allocations will be put in place.

Gary_Miller wrote:However, you can book recurring events, such as Mutual Night, and then update each event as the decision on what is happening and who needs to show up where and when is made.

Reservations are made for a unit. Events are made on a particular calendar. Since most, but not all, calendars are for an organization then what organization gets to create and therefore manage the one recurring event?

I can see problems arising when the young women have the mutual event with the entire building on their calendar and the young men want to schedule a Boy Scout event using certain rooms. They would have to go through asking a young women calendar editor to edit the recurring event just for that particular need. Asking someone to remember who has what room on mutual night is a setup for conflict and hard feelings. The simpler method is to have a reservation in which all the youth organizations can schedule their individual needs. Plus, those subscribing to the calendars for information about events know when important events are actually happening.

I have a question, but I don't know how to do that quote thing.

"We are planning on using block reservations to prevent calendar editors from scheduling events for 2013 on certain in demand dates, such as holidays, until all four bishops can work out an equitable plan. Once the priorities and allocations for 2013 scheduling is set then the block will be lifted and regular reservations for those agreed upon priorities and allocations will be put in place."

Can you make a reservation such that NO ward can schedule an event, or do you have to make a reservation so that only say "ward A" can book an event and no other ward can? Wouldn't that create the possibility that Ward A schedules things on those blocked out events while the other three cannot?

TinMan wrote:I have a question, but I don't know how to do that quote thing.

Click on "Reply With Quote" at the bottom right of the message in question.

TinMan wrote:Can you make a reservation such that NO ward can schedule an event,

Yes. While creating the reservation, in the drop-down list, select "Blocked - Location Unavailable". Once that is done, only a building scheduler can schedule an event until the reservation is removed or modified.

RussellHltn wrote:Yes. While creating the reservation, in the drop-down list, select "Blocked - Location Unavailable". Once that is done, only a building scheduler can schedule an event until the reservation is removed or modified.

Thank you....

Our stake currently reserves Thursday nights for stake events, so Tues. and Wed. are shared among the wards and quite crowded. (Occasionally the stake decides to usurp one of those nights as well.) The bishops in each building get together and decide how to do this, and then we input it as reservations. Some buildings are better than others. We have to get down to the room level, and create separate reservations for the various organizations (Youth, RS, Cub Scouts) even if they are in the same ward. It is of course up to the wards to decide how they split their available rooms among the classes. They are aware that we have created these reservations.

In general this has worked OK, but took a lot of effort. But occasionally we have had serious conflicts where someone had scheduled an event and another organization did not but set up in that location anyway -- they thought they had a standing reservation for that time. Events are more easily viewable and I think would make it clearer to everyone who has what. I'm not sure the risks will be that much greater.

Since the building schedulers don't have as much to do any more, we have one scheduler for the stake center and another for the other 3 buildings. It was one of them who suggested this plan. We think it will encourage the wards to use the calendar more. There might be some bumps at first of course, but we will try to train them well.

The schedulers' value does come in knowing the wards and how they share the buildings, and in contacting the bishops to get clearance for private events. Having reservations in the system makes it so anyone would know who to talk to, but we also have documentation from the bishops on that. I think a single scheduler could handle the whole stake now.

jdlessley wrote:I can see problems arising when the young women have the mutual event with the entire building on their calendar and the young men want to schedule a Boy Scout event using certain rooms. They would have to go through asking a young women calendar editor to edit the recurring event just for that particular need. Asking someone to remember who has what room on mutual night is a setup for conflict and hard feelings. The simpler method is to have a reservation in which all the youth organizations can schedule their individual needs. Plus, those subscribing to the calendars for information about events know when important events are actually happening.

I'm not sure I understand -- the problem you mention exists today even with a reservation -- are you suggesting a system where we can reserve for a particular organization, not just the unit?

craiggsmith wrote:Some buildings are better than others. We have to get down to the room level, and create separate reservations for the various organizations (Youth, RS, Cub Scouts) even if they are in the same ward.

Well, you can create a reservation down to the room level for the ward, but not the organization. Sure, you can say who you're setting it aside for, but that's not how the system enforces it.

Seems to me that if you already know what organization will be using what room at a given time, it's better to have someone put the event in the calendar.

craiggsmith wrote:I'm not sure I understand -- the problem you mention exists today even with a reservation -- are you suggesting a system where we can reserve for a particular organization, not just the unit?

No. This was a response to the suggestion that instead of making reservations for mutual night a single recurring event be used. And as I pointed out a reservation works better for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons a reservation works better is that specific rooms can then be booked, an email notice sent out by the system, and those with calendar subscriptions will see the event.

I can see where this would not work any better than a recurring event if nobody was using or referring to the calendar to see if there were any events booked. To avoid ignorance about an organization booking an event on mutual night we also communicate that we have done so to all the other youth leaders. As the Scoutmaster I notify the YW president, the YM president, the Primary president, the Cub Master, and as many Pack leaders as I can when we need the cultural hall for things like courts of honor. They are reminded to check the calendar for these events. When I create an event for something like the court of honor I put the event on the YM calendar and book the rooms with that event. I also create an event on the combined youth calendar and the ward activities calendar but use "other location" for the location, enter the ward meetinghouse name in the "fill in the location" field, and specify rooms to be used in the event description.

RussellHltn wrote:Well, you can create a reservation down to the room level for the ward, but not the organization. Sure, you can say who you're setting it aside for, but that's not how the system enforces it.

Yes, we just put the organizations in so we people know.

RussellHltn wrote:Seems to me that if you already know what organization will be using what room at a given time, it's better to have someone put the event in the calendar.

Agreed.

jdlessley wrote:Reservations are made for a unit. Events are made on a particular calendar. Since most, but not all, calendars are for an organization then what organization gets to create and therefore manage the one recurring event?

The organization who's calendar the event is for.

For example our RS has a recurring event on the 2nd Thursday of each month. They want the use of the kitchen, RS room and Cultural Hall from 1pm to 9pm. So they booked a recurring event placed on the RS Calendar through Dec 2013. They had decided on themes through May 2013 and there was a couple of months where they moved to a different day or there was not going to be an activity due to a scheduled stake conflict.

First the RS scheduled the recurring event titled 2nd Thursday RS Nights, placing within the event the times and resource they were to use..

Next the RS went in and edited each event in the description to show the theme for the month. Deleted the event for month where they had the stake scheduled conflict and changed the date for February from the 14th (valentines day) to the 7th. They did this all the way through May. For the months of June through December they just left the event the way it was originality booked. As time get close to the event then the RS will go in and edit each event to show more specific details.

jdlessley wrote:I can see problems arising when the young women have the mutual event with the entire building on their calendar and the young men want to schedule a Boy Scout event using certain rooms. They would have to go through asking a young women calendar editor to edit the recurring event just for that particular need. Asking someone to remember who has what room on mutual night is a setup for conflict and hard feelings. The simpler method is to have a reservation in which all the youth organizations can schedule their individual needs. Plus, those subscribing to the calendars for information about events know when important events are actually happening.

Not sure how it is in your building. However, in our building we have two wards meeting. Each Wednesday is youth meeting night. On that night we have all the YM/YW meeting, as well as Cub Scout Den meetings and Girl activity days for both wards. The wards alternate day of the month for the GYM and Kitchen. Each ward has assigned rooms which they are assigned, and each organization has assigned rooms which they are assigned.

So it would be quite easy for an organization to book a recurring event for the whole year. Such booked event would place on the individual organizations calendar for the location (building), times, and resources (the assigned room). The only time a conflict would accrue would be if the individual, who booked the event, booked the wrong resource (room).

There is no conflict or hard feelings because each ward and organization has assigned rooms.

While a recurring reservation could be set up for each organization. There is no need if the organizations just book a recurring event and the edit each event for details as the details become available.

Gary_Miller wrote:

jdlessley wrote:Since most, but not all, calendars are for an organization then what organization gets to create and therefore manage the one recurring event?

The organization who's calendar the event is for.

My question was not a general one. You stated that recurring events serve the same purpose as a reservation. My response raised the issue of what calendar do you put the mutual night recurring event on? There are five youth organizations in our ward using the building. One calendar does not fit for all five.

We don't make reservations for events such as used in your example for Relief Society. Just as you do not. But mutual night is not a single event. It is several events.

I don't know how the other three bishops using the meetinghouse do it for their ward but our bishop prefers to reserve the entire building for the mutual night time block and allow each using youth organization, of which there are five, to work out what rooms they will need amongst themselves. This is less rigid and allows flexibility for changing needs.

The cultural hall has the biggest demand. Assigning it to one organization was not acceptable to all the organizations using the building on mutual night. When an organization needs the cultural hall, or any other of the bigger rooms, they schedule an event and notify the others.

We also use events to highlight a special activity in which the scheduling organization wants others to be aware is not just another mutual night activity.

It's sure a lot easier when only one ward uses a building on a given night -- it's an ideal candidate for a reservation. If the youth groups have a set schedule among themselves as to who gets what rooms which weeks, then recurring events could work.

With multiple wards (and possibly even without) there aren't enough large reservable rooms for all the groups, so activities are often at homes or other locations.

Independent of reservations I'd really like to see the groups put all their activities in as events so I know what they're doing when and where!

jdlessley wrote:My question was not a general one. You stated that recurring events serve the same purpose as a reservation..

Recurring events if done properly work better than a reservation. If the recurring event booked properly, they lock out a date, time period, location, and resources for a specific organization, on the same day each week, or any other senerio, for a limited or unlimited length of time. No other organization can book an event at the same time using the same resources.

jdlessley wrote: My response raised the issue of what calendar do you put the mutual night recurring event on? There are five youth organizations in our ward using the building. One calendar does not fit for all five.

That would all depend on how your calendars are set up. In my ward, for YM/YW organizations, we have a calendar for, YM/YW combined activities, YM Activities, YW Activites, Deacon Quorm, Teacher Quorm, Prest Quorm, Beehives Class, Miamaids Class, and Laurels Class.

So if the Laurels were to book a recurring event such as mutual night they would book it using the Laurels Class Calendar and the resources (rooms) assigned to their class. Same for each other group, the date, time, location could all be the same. However the resources (rooms) would all be diffrent, thus avoiding any conflicts.

You could use only one calendar and the out come would be the same, no conflicts as long as the resources (rooms) are diffrent.

jdlessley wrote:But mutual night is not a single event. It is several events.

However since no two classes will be using the same resource (meeting in the same room) you can book as many events on the same date, at the same location, at the same time, with no conflicts.

jdlessley wrote:I don't know how the other three bishops using the meetinghouse do it for their ward but our bishop prefers to reserve the entire building for the mutual night time block and allow each using youth organization, of which there are five, to work out what rooms they will need amongst themselves. This is less rigid and allows flexibility for changing needs.

This works fine as long as its just one ward meeting in the building. But remember reservations do not show up the monthly calendar layout. So there would be nothing showing that it was mutual night on the calendar, unless you also booked a event also. And if you added a single event such as Mutual Night, 7pm, JDs Building, the entire building on YM/YW Calendar. Then no one group could add the details on thier group calendar, due to the entire resource is booked.

jdlessley wrote:The cultural hall has the biggest demand. Assigning it to one organization was not acceptable to all the organizations using the building on mutual night. When an organization needs the cultural hall, or any other of the bigger rooms, they schedule an event and notify the others.

Our ward works this out in PEC at which time the winning group would then modifys the recurring event for that date to show they are meeting in the cultural hall. no need to notify others if its on the calendar, if some other group tried to book an event at the same time using the cultural hall they would get a resource conflict.

craiggsmith wrote:Independent of reservations I'd really like to see the groups put all their activities in as events so I know what they're doing when and where!

Amen. The real power of the new system I like is the ability to sync the church calendar to one's personal calendar - like a smart phone. Not as something to look at like in LDS Tools, but right in your own calendar.

But that only works if 1) The event is entered and 2) the calenders are broken out so that you can subscribe to what you need to know and ignore the other events.

craiggsmith wrote:Independent of reservations I'd really like to see the groups put all their activities in as events so I know what they're doing when and where!

Craig not just you, but the entire ward or at least those in the ward who have subscribed to those calendars, such as parents.

RussellHltn wrote:Amen. The real power of the new system I like is the ability to sync the church calendar to one's personal calendar - like a smart phone. Not as something to look at like in LDS Tools, but right in your own calendar.

But that only works if 1) The event is entered and 2) the calenders are broken out so that you can subscribe to what you need to know and ignore the other events.

A big Amen with a halalua.

Gary_Miller wrote: That would all depend on how your calendars are set up. In my ward, for YM/YW organizations, we have a calendar for, YM/YW combined activities, YM Activities, YW Activites, Deacon Quorum, Teacher Quorum, Priest Quorum, Beehives Class, Miamaids Class, and Laurels Class.

Question: Is there a danger of having too many calendars? As a parent, I find it confusing.

TinMan wrote:Question: Is there a danger of having too many calendars? As a parent, I find it confusing.

I'd think it depends on the naming. In my mind, if there are only two events a year or less, then there's no need for a separate calendar. But much above that, then there is probably a call for a calendar for that category.

Perhaps the parents confusion is the idea that they only need to subscribe to one calendar that best fits their category when in fact they need to subscribe to all that apply.

RussellHltn wrote:I'd think it depends on the naming. In my mind, if there are only two events a year or less, then there's no need for a separate calendar. But much above that, then there is probably a call for a calendar for that category.

There's clearly a need to strike a balance, but I would draw the line in quite a different place than two events per year. I'd say you need well over a dozen events in a category to justify a separate calendar. If we used a threshold of 2 events, our stake would end up with 30 or more calendars, whereas we now only have 7 public calendars.

I understand that different people will take different approaches, but here is some of the thinking behind our stake's approach. First, why you should keep the number of calendars low:

• Every calendar you create has a cost. It takes up room on the list of calendars, increasing how much scrolling you have to do.
• Every calendar needs a unique name, and since not all names are completely obvious, a long list is harder for people to sift through. A good naming scheme certainly helps, but can't be perfect.
• Since an event can only be on one calendar, having many calendars increases the number of calendars a person has to subscribe to (a parent of a deacon might have to subscribe to "Deacons" "Deacon/Beehive Combined" "YM Combined" "YM/YW Combined", and that's just for the deacon -- if they also are parents of a Laurel and a Mia Maid and a Cub Scout, the number of calendars explodes rapidly)
• For every calendar you have to decide who should be the editors, so a long list of calendars adds some administrative burden.
• Having many calendars weakens the benefit of color coding, since you can only clearly distinguish at a glance 10-15 colors.

On the flip side, the benefits of more calendars are:

• By selectively subscribing to more targeted calendars, members will have fewer events they're not interested in (e.g., if there is a single Youth Activities calendar, a deacon will be seeing all the Laurel activities, when the only Laurel activities he cares about are those that are for combined YM/YW).
• Administration is simplified in some ways, since the Teachers Quorum adviser and president might be the only editors needed for a Teachers Quorum calendar, but if you have a single Youth Activities calendar, there are many leaders who might have needs to edit that calendar.

Clearly we are concerned about those latter arguments (otherwise we'd have only one calendar), but we give a lot more weight to the former arguments.

I just talked to our bishop about reservations vs events. He pointed out that he prefers just putting the reservation into the system to prevent another unit from scheduling any part of the building and not burdening the youth organization leaders, YM, YW, 11-yr-old Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Primary for activities day with scheduling events to ensure room availability. He also does not want to restrict which rooms an organization has access to. He believes the organization leaders within the ward can work out rooms needed without the need to tie them to set ones each mutual night. So for him, he prefers a reservation to the burdensome creation and management of events.

Why is creating a single "Mutual Night Event" for the whole location more burdensome than creating "Mutual Night Reservation" for the whole location?

TinMan wrote:Why is creating a single "Mutual Night Event" for the whole location more burdensome than creating "Mutual Night Reservation" for the whole location?

When an event needs to be created it will conflict with the single "Mutual Night Event" and the single event can only be on one calendar. We do not have a single calendar for all five of the organizations that use the building on mutual night. The only calendar we have that might work is the Ward Activities calendar. The bishop does not want events that do not apply to the entire ward to be put on that one calendar. He also only wants members of the ward council to have edit rights to that calendar.

jdlessley wrote:I just talked to our bishop about reservations vs events. He pointed out that he prefers just putting the reservation into the system to prevent another unit from scheduling any part of the building and not burdening the youth organization leaders, YM, YW, 11-yr-old Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Primary for activities day with scheduling events to ensure room availability. He also does not want to restrict which rooms an organization has access to. He believes the organization leaders within the ward can work out rooms needed without the need to tie them to set ones each mutual night. So for him, he prefers a reservation to the burdensome creation and management of events.

Without an event attached to the reservation it will not show up on any Calendar.

Gary_Miller wrote:Without an event attached to the reservation it will not show up on any Calendar.

Indeed. How many of the youth have smart devices? Wouldn't the youth leaders like to have their events show up on them?

For several months I had to take care of some family things and it kept me away from my normal ward on the weekends. I ended up scrounging the trashcans later to find out what was coming up. If any of the youth end up with Sunday jobs, they're likely to get cut off information-wise which makes it that much easier to go inactive. Having a calendar that syncs to their device will help them stay informed and allow them to come to the events they can still fit into their schedule.

While I respect some of the bishop's concerns, I think he's moved way over to the oversimplified side of a good balance.

RussellHltn wrote:

Gary_Miller wrote:Without an event attached to the reservation it will not show up on any Calendar.

Indeed. How many of the youth have smart devices? Wouldn't the youth leaders like to have their events show up on them?

The bishop is not concerned that the youth will not attend mutual simply because it is not an event on the calendar. Mutual is a standing activity that every parent and youth knows about. He feels they don't need an electronic reminder or an event on a calendar to know it is happening.

He only expects youth mutual activities that need special announcement posted on the calendar.

RussellHltn wrote:While I respect some of the bishop's concerns, I think he's moved way over to the oversimplified side of a good balance.

Our ward has never used the online calendar for regular mutual activities. In fact the only youth activities that are put on the online calendar are those that are not at the meetinghouse, require room reservations on mutual night, or room reservations on non-mutual days.

Since it a standing activity then all other units know it your wards night as well so there's no need to make a reservation on line calendar as well. Heck while were at it why don't we just go back to the old paper calendar it sure would make things more simple.

We'll just call it Mutual Night, activity to be announced.

Gary_Miller wrote:Since it a standing activity then all other units know it your wards night as well so there's no need to make a reservation on line calendar as well.

Actually that is how it had been done until recently when someone from another ward inadvertently scheduled the wrong time for an event that booked rooms during the mutual period. A reservation was put into place to prevent such a thing.

Gary_Miller wrote:Heck while were at it why don't we just go back to the old paper calendar it sure would make things more simple.

No need for disdainful sarcasm!

The new calendar paradigm transition has been a very difficult one for us, and we are not there yet. One of our challenges is the very one being discussed here, when is it sufficient to just post events, and when should reservations be used. We are still trying to find a good balance in this area.

We are also stymied by having three (yes, three) wards trying to use the same building on the same evening for activity night (and it seems every other activity not held on Sunday). Needless to say, it is supremely difficult to keep up with the calendar.

And our poor building scheduler, who does not really schedule the building as we have discussed in other threads, doesn't even use a computer.

But, we are taking the position that the bishops still are in the best position to oversee these things and make decisions as to how the Calendar tool will be used within their stewardship. Some take the more simple approach (everyone knows it is activity night and nothing further is needed), and some take the more specific approach (room 101 is yours for 17 minutes, room 104 is yours for 22 minutes) right down to the gnat's eyebrow.

Each method is extreme in its own way, and as the bishops and their leaders become more experienced, we see them moving (albeit slowly) in a direction more toward the middle. There are bumps and glitches along they way.

Gary_Miller wrote:Heck while were at it why don't we just go back to the old paper calendar it sure would make things more simple.

Sometimes I think we forget how many problems the old paper system actually had. Having stepped into the electronic world, we do not have anyone who wants to go back, as tempting as it sometimes seems.

However, we still do print out calendars from time to time to use as security blankets. [grin]

Our youth leadership said that one of the reasons they didn't want to put the events on the calendar was because they were afraid youth wouldn't come if they knew what the activity was. Of course, they don't have to put anything in the description if they don't want to. We had an inactive girl decide to come one night recently, and that night it was somewhere else and she missed it. It might have helped to have it on the calendar.

craiggsmith wrote:Our youth leadership said that one of the reasons they didn't want to put the events on the calendar was because they were afraid youth wouldn't come if they knew what the activity was. Of course, they don't have to put anything in the description if they don't want to. We had an inactive girl decide to come one night recently, and that night it was somewhere else and she missed it. It might have helped to have it on the calendar.

And here is another problem I see with this whole discussion. Are we relying on "electronic media" too much? Aren't we constantly preaching against it? If I have a single recurring event every Tuesday that says "Mutual, 7:00 PM" then it becomes the responsibility of each leader to see that each youth in his stewardship knows what is going on, rather than relying on each inactive youth to subscribe to the correct calendar(s) for their situation. Personal contact and invitations are important. Especially if the class moves their activity to another location.

Isn't that why texting was invented?

TinMan wrote:Especially if the class moves their activity to another location.

Update the calendar and the ones who subscribe will know.

If you rely on personal contact and don't update the calendar, someone will get left out.

Maybe it doesn't apply as much to the youth, but a know a number of adults that have disabled texting on their phones.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's wrong to use personal contact, only that it's a fallacy to believe that personal contact will reach 100% of the youth 100% of the time, or that it makes it unnecessary to not keep the calendar current. (And how many youth having been contacted will later ask "where was that again?" "Is that this week or next?")

Gosh. Makes me wonder what we did 3 years ago before the new calendaring system came out...

TinMan wrote:Gosh. Makes me wonder what we did 3 years ago before the new calendaring system came out...

In my experience, we need to use multiple communication methods if we really want to reach everyone. It has always been so, even before the calendaring system came out. So we put events in the ward bulletin and on the calendar on LDS.org, and also in the monthly newsletter. We remind people in various meetings, and we sometimes send out text messages and emails, and we also use the phone and face-to-face reminders.

I'm not saying we use all these techniques for all events (that would be a bit much!), but if we relied on only one method, we would miss some people. Each person has different preferences as to what method connects with them. And even if you reach a person one way, they may still forget. An electronic calendar is simply one more method of communication. It has the virtue of being accessible at just about any time by a high percentage of the people, and it is well positioned to be the official record of what, when, and where, but it's not the only option.

I was one of those who never used the on calendar at all. Reason being was it was never accurate. It was only being used as a Building Scheduling tool not an activity information tool. No one ever talked about looking for something on the calendar. Because nothing was there and the tools in the "Classic Websites" were not being utilized or kept up to date.

Then almost a year ago my calling changed to Assistant Ward Clerk - Finances and at the same time our current Ward Clerk was called. We were sustained and set apart on the same day. In our quest for information on how to magnify our callings and get the most out of the MLS we discovered the WIKI site alone with the Tech Forms. I could not believe the wealth of information out there, along with learning about the different projects the Church is currently working on in the technology arena.

Then for Fathers day my wife and kids bought me a tablet. I had been looking at them for a couple of months trying to figure out which one would be the best for my business (I operate a Farrier business), as well as the other neat things I could do with it at church. However, I had decided that for the cost it was not piratical for me I was running a paper calendar for my business and that worked just fine. At this same time I also went from dial-up to broadband so I was forced to change my e-mail address.

That's when I really noticed Goggle for more than a search engine. The tablet I have (Samsung Galaxy 2) is mostly goggle based. I started using the feature that goggle offered. I started scheduling my business appointments on my goggle calendar. I started using LDS tools and other features the church was offering.

That's when I rediscovered the "Church Calendar" and learned how powerful it could be if we only used it. I saw that it could be used as a activity calendar while at the same time a building scheduling tool that was way cool. Then when I discovered that anyone with editor rights could add events to the calendar and there was no longer a need to go through a Building Scheduler to book events, I was sold. Since then I have been talking up the calendar to the ward leadership and just a couple of weeks ago got the Bishop on line. Now our ward is starting to use the calendar, and although there are some things that need fixed at the stake level to use it as designed activities are starting to be placed on the calendar. We still have a ways to go but we will get there.

The reason I brought all this up is, because I was not sold on using the calendar until I really started using it. It is such a powerful tool if used properly. Its my belief that once you get the organizations using the calendar for their activities. I mean all their activities right down to whats happening in the Beehive class on a specific mutual night. That it will become the place where everyone will go for information on whats happening in the ward.

However, if your ward never uses it for the powerful tool it can be, one for getting information on events happening in the ward. Then the calendar just becomes a place for keeping track of building reservations.

Excellent comments all. People have different preferences, and multiple communication methods are necessary. In the "old" days information did not get to many, and the new calendar is a powerful new tool, especially if used to the full potential it was designed.

Got another call today from an RS president who had an event scheduled Thursday night. A young single adult group came in to play basketball before they were done, claiming they had the building, and basically kicked them out. Turns out the scheduler had created overlapping reservations, the YSA group every Thursday and the Relief Society on the 2nd Thursday of each month. Only the RS had scheduled an actual event though, the YSA group just assumed they had it because of the standing reservation.

Two back-to-back posts that are kind of interesting there, craiggsmith...

craiggsmith wrote:Our youth leadership said that one of the reasons they didn't want to put the events on the calendar was because they were afraid youth wouldn't come if they knew what the activity was.

How disappointing that is to hear as a parent of 4 teenagers! Perhaps those leaders are forgetting that sometimes my youth attend because I watch their online calendars and encourage them to go...

TinMan wrote:If I have a single recurring event every Tuesday that says "Mutual, 7:00 PM" then it becomes the responsibility of each leader to see that each youth in his stewardship knows what is going on...

I've thanked each of the YM & YW leaders that have kept me involved by updating calendar events -using the calendar to deliver information to my family -who, what, how, and most importantly why my children should come. Because I see it....

To the original question, "are reservations worth it?" this thread is valuable to debate, and I see some valid points-pro and con. If you really are just debating using a reservation with no event, as opposed to using a "generic" recurring event with no reservation (and no real information,) I see them as virtually the same- an ineffective use of a powerful tool.

I think the expectation behind a recurring event is that exceptions to the date and time would at least be updated even if the description were not. If they weren't updated then the event wouldn't be useful and it could actually do more harm than good.

So the best advice for new Building Schedulers is to use reservations as little as possible:
Funerals, weddings, weekdays, Saturdays.
Is that it?

As a heads up, when calendar 2.5 is released (maybe 2 weeks?), it changes the term "reservations" to "restrictions." I know this is just a language fix to the problem, but hopefully it will alleviate some confusion.

1dave wrote:So the best advice for new Building Schedulers is to use reservations as little as possible:
Funerals, weddings, weekdays, Saturdays.
Is that it?

Funerals and weddings are events and should be scheduled as events. A "reservation" as used on the reservation calendar is a restriction limiting what specific unit can schedule an event during the reservation time period and using the resources identified in the reservation. If you create a reservation on the reservation calendar for a funeral or a wedding thinking you are going to prevent anyone from scheduling an event, you may get surprised when an organization in the unit for which you created the reservation actually schedules another event at the same time as the funeral or the wedding using the same rooms. Double booking? No, because a reservation does not book resources. It only sets those resources aside for a specific unit.

I don't know what is meant by "weekdays, Saturdays" in the above statement.

1dave wrote:So the best advice for new Building Schedulers is to use reservations as little as possible:

Yes

1dave wrote:Funerals, weddings, weekdays, Saturdays. Is that it?

No, I wouldn't use "reservations" for that. In our stake we use reservations ONLY for "ward night". That's it. Everything else is an event. Even then we expect the wards to schedule events on their night if they want to see anything in their calendar.

johnsonth wrote:As a heads up, when calendar 2.5 is released (maybe 2 weeks?), it changes the term "reservations" to "restrictions." I know this is just a language fix to the problem, but hopefully it will alleviate some confusion.

Excellent news! Thanks!