Neighborhood Events Calendar

Quick, off the top of your head, when is the next residential leaf pickup date? When is the next happy hour? The neighborhood picnic? The next pantry collection date?

OK, that’s partly a trick question because we don’t have happy hours scheduled for December, and nobody knows when next year’s picnic will be. As for other dates, I’m constantly sifting through my emails to find invitations, or heading off to the City of Williamsburg website to find important dates.

And then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a neighborhood calendar on the website with all these dates in one place?”

“Why yes,” I answered myself, “it would be great.”

So I added one.

Where can I see the calendar?

The actual calendar belongs to the burnslaneresidentsassociation@gmailcom gmail account Molly G. uses to send out neighborhood notices. Up to this point we haven’t been using the calendar app, so I called, “dibs,” for the website.

What events will be on the calendar?

As of now I added the leaf and Christmas tree collection dates. As soon as I get the data, I plan to add events for

• W&M Food Pantry donation collection,
• BLRA board meetings,
• Soft plastic recycling collection, and
• Happy hours.

And now I’m asking for input from you. Should we add other community events?

• Movies, concerts and lectures at the library,
• Summer concerts, or
• Williamsburg Players shows?

Please let me know.

I already have a calendar on my phone/notepad/computer. Can I integrate this calendar with my own calendar application?

Probably. I’ve already imported the BLRA calendar into my gmail account, so now all events show up automatically. I don’t have to visit the site to see the events.

These instructions tell you how to do the same with your gmail account. Go to the section labeled “Use a link to add a public calendar” and simply subscribe to [email protected].

If you have an Outlook calendar, try these instructions. I can’t be sure if the instructions will work because I don’t have an outlook calendar to test. If someone successfully integrates with Outlook, please let me know.

UPDATE: Marcie integrated with her Outlook calendar using these instructions. Thanks for the help, Marcie.

Use this URL when you integrate the calendar with any application that isn’t Google:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/[email protected]/public/basic.ics

Unfortunately, I can’t put instructions for all possible integrations here, but most platforms have instructions for adding public calendars. Let me know in the comments what works for you.

How can I add an event to the neighborhood calendar?

Right now, although anyone can see the calendar, only Molly G. and I can add events. For security reasons we’ll need to keep it that way.

If you have an event you want added, either send an email to [email protected] at least a week in advance of the event, or submit a comment to this blog post, also at least a week in advance. We’ll take a look, and if the event looks like something of general interest, we’ll put it on the calendar.

We do ask that these events be applicable to the entire neighborhood. For example, a public meeting called by the City Council asking for input on changing the three-person occupancy rule is of interest to the entire neighborhood, whereas a notice of your dinner party to which only one or two neighbors are invited would not be appropriate.

Final Thoughts

Part of our BLRA dues pay for the website domain and hosting fees. It is still an open question whether the website is worth what we pay, so please provide feedback. Will the calendar be a useful neighborhood resource?