City Councilor Dondley Announces New Westfield Community Event Calendar
Have you ever missed an event here in Westfield because you didn’t know about it? Have you ever wished there was a central listing of Westfield events so you could find out about everything happening in your own backyard?
Well, I have, and I think probably a lot you, too. And so I am very excited and pleased to publicly announce a new website that I’ve been working on for the past few months to help Westfield residents easily find out all the cool stuff going on around them. It’s called the “Westfield Community Calendar” and you can view it on the web at http://calendar.dondley.com.
Creating a listing and keeping track of all the events in Westfield is no small task. Not only are there dozens of different event listings scattered around the internet, you also have to constantly recheck and monitor the events for changes and cancellations and then update the central calendar to make sure it’s accurate. This would be a daunting task and probably require at least a full-time job that would be very tedious.
I certainly don’t have the time or desire to maintain an event calendar manually. So what I’ve done is put my computer programming chops to work and automated the collection of events from many different websites and inputs them into one central website calendar. And so now, with only minimal oversight on my part to make sure the calendar is accurate and running smoothly, Westfield can now have a comprehensive and up-to-date event listing.
The calendar is in its early stages and only collects from four different venues which have event listings on their website:
- City of Westfield government website
- Westfield Athenaeum
- Short Stop Bar & Grill
- The Tavern Restaurant
But now that most of the heavy lifting of creating maintainable and reusable code is done, I will be focusing on adding new event listings to the calendar. My goal is to add one to two new event listings per week. A new event listing can be added to the calendar in about one to five hours, depending on the complexity of how the events are listed on the website. For example, Westfield on Weekends keeps and maintains a calendar of events on their website. I will write a new piece of code specific to their event listing that automates the process of downloading and storing their event data and then uploading that data to the central calendar. My code will also monitor the Westfield on Weekends website for and changes to the events and update the central calendar automatically. In just a few months, I expect to have just about every venue in Westfield of any significance covered.
One great thing about the calendar is that all the events are categorized. So whether you are interested in live music, educational opportunities, sporting events, arts and crafts or family activities you’ll be able to find something you are interested in quickly and easily.
One new feature I will be adding soon is the ability for anyone to add their own events to the calendar. For example, if you are having a tag sale or if your business is having a special event or sale, you would be able to come to the website and share your event with the rest of Westfield.
I am strongly considering selling the naming rights of the calendar to an organization. There might also be some advertising opportunities available on the site as well. All money raised would go toward holding a New Year’s Eve celebration here in Westfield which has been a goal of mine now for a couple of years.
So there is a lot more work to be done but the calendar is well under way. It is my hope that my project helps improve the quality of life for the residents of Westfield by helping them discover all the cool stuff happening right around the corner from the. I also hope it will be a huge boon to businesses and organizations reach a huge new audience. I think having a central calendar like this will help our local economy and so I’m very happy to pitch in and see this new tool through to fruition.
But I can’t do it all alone. As the calendar evolves and grows, I’d like to get your thoughts, feedback and ideas on how to make it a great resource for our community. Also, if you are a business or organization interested in working with us to get your events in our calendar, I’d love hear from you as well. You can reach me by phone at 413-537-4451 or by email at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DondleyForCC/.
I hope everyone has a wonderful spring. Enjoy the lovely weather!
Sincerely,
Steve Dondley
City Councilor, At-Large
