This page takes you from project conception to conducting the initial workshop. It looks at:
- Setting up your tools
- Choosing your contacts
- Setting up your calendar
1. Setting up your tools
You’ll need a system of simple tools to manage the project. Here are the steps you need to go through to get set up:
- Spend time before you begin thinking about how you will record meetings, engagements, followups, etc. – detailed notes are important.
- Start your project in either a spreadsheet or use a copy of our Airtable reporting tool (we’ll provide you with this), depending on which technology you’d prefer.
- You can choose between software such as Google Calendar, Office365 or your own website software as a means of recording events. PlaceCal works with your existing tools.
2. Choosing your contacts
Now we’ll cover choosing your contacts and deciding what to say to them.
- Ask yourself who are the people you need to talk to? What are the main places you need to visit?
- Make a list of all the key people and organisations you want to get on board.
- Think about each person or organisation and what they might need from you when you get in contact.
- Start out with the easier targets and bigger organisations since having “social proof” will make it easier to later convince other people to join.
- Add any events you discover along the way to your Google Calendar. This calendar can later be printed or shared with other people and will become a useful resource.
3. Setting up your calendar
Creating an initial calendar is crucial to get the project started.
- Using Google Calendar or similar, create a Google Calendar for the area.
- If you don’t have a Google account then register one now – you’ll need it sooner or later and we find Google Calendar to be the best all-around software for the task.
- Start with one master calendar where you publish everything on behalf of the organisations. You can get started more quickly since it will take a while for organisations to start publishing their own data.
Coordinators handbook
Getting Started
Initial Workshop
Initial onboarding
Calendar Onboarding
Followups