The first weekend in May 2009, there were seven charity golf tournaments scheduled in and around Southeast Texas. Now, golf is pretty popular. No doubt there are many golfers in the area, but are there really enough to populate seven charity events in one weekend. Area golfers, who might have played more than one tournament had they been spread out over four weekends in April, were having to pick one of two.
In June, the Press Club held its annual awards night on the same night as the American Red Cross Hurricane Party fundraising event.
Constituents of the press club would have made great attendants for the Red Cross event, but as a member of the Press Club, they had no choice but to prioritize the annual Press Club Award’s night event over the Red Cross soiree.
These events weren’t scheduled to compete with one another, quite the opposite. Event planners checked every organizational website they could think of and made calls to various groups trying to determine the best date for their events. However, even after due diligence, events competed, and event planners were oblivious to the conflict until a mere weeks before their events.
Unfortunately these aren’t isolated occurrences. Over and over again in Southeast Texas, events compete, patrons have to choose and great organizations lose – people, dollars and all their hard work and effort to create wonderful events. The Case for Centering
As Executive Director for VIP Magazine, Kathy Catalano was trying to help organizations by printing an event calendar but still she witnessed events suffer, and even completely bomb, time and time again because of scheduling conflicts.
“Not only was I frustrated trying to print dates in the magazine that would change between printing and event time, making our printed calendar inaccurate, but I was also serving on various boards, like the American
Heart Association, that could never determine the best date for their events because there was no calendar that comprised all event dates,” said Catalano. “It was like taking a dart to calendar and just hoping for the best and rarely getting a bull’s eye.”
Catalano started researching local calendar websites and found these community calendars allowed organizations to upload their events. Although, a nice service and good way of letting the media know of events, these community calendars were not comprehensive because not all organizations were uploading their events.
“Community calendars have some events but not all of them and when things change, or hurricanes blow through, oftentimes organizations don’t update their calendar listings,” said Catalano.
Soon Catalano was talking to VIP contract writer, Shelly Vitanza, about the idea of building a web calendar to unify all events - big, small, formal, casual, business, sports, retail, charity – in Southeast Texas for the sole mission of helping people plan their lives and optimize event participation.
“We met time and time again and dreamed about what it would take to really pull all organizations and all events together and ultimately decided that we needed advice from others in the community,” said Catalano. “We formed a community advisory board of the movers and shakers and basically the event planners in the area.”
Achieving Centering
Ultimately, with the input of this group, Catalano and Vitanza, incorporated www.setxsocialcenter.com and since April have become the one calendar for all events in Southeast Texas with more than 4000 event listings.
The calendar is extremely powerful with a multi-category search engine, the ability to download specific events to personal calendars, to email events to friends and to set personal reminders for specific events. It also Google maps event locations.
Catalano, now known as “Calendar Catalano,” for her near obsessive efforts compiling events from every source she can find, and Vitanza, the writing, technical component of the operation, have partnered with many Southeast Texas organizations to ensure their calendar is comprehensive. In addition their business has taken them to areas they didn’t envision initially.
As the socially centered team partnered with nonprofit organizations they realized that many of these organizations needed additional help not only listing their events in a calendar but also promoting their events.
“Big and small companies, profit and non, need someone to help them Facebook, Twitter, alert the media of their events and help them get people to their functions- sales, ribbon cuttings, fundraisers, open houses, blood drives and on and on,” said Vitanza. “The Convention and Visitors’ Bureau works to get ‘heads in beds,’ I guess we work to get ‘butts in seats’.”
Not only can you find events on www.setxsocialcenter.com you can also purchase tickets for events there, too. Vitanza builds custom registrations for partnering organizations, like the YMCA. The new “Y” opening in spring 2010 on Dishman Road is accepting registrations for its Jingle Bell 5K Run and even membership through the security certified website.
“We just want to offer convenience to event goers and success for event planners,” said Vitanza. “If Southeast Texans can see events in one place and then also pay or R.S.V.P. to attend them, that’s a great time saver, and we hope a community wide resource.”
about the idea of building a web calendar to unify all events - big, small, formal, casual, business, sports, retail, charity – in Southeast Texas for the sole mission of helping people plan their lives and optimize event participation.