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Greetings from MAG’s New Acting Chair Aine Gale
Behind the Lines EVSC
Ongoing
DRL for Cars
Biker Euro MEP Passes Test
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Reps’ Rant
Events on the Website
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MAG Events
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EVENTS POSTINGS ON THE WEBSITE - Mark Iline, National IT Advisor
There is a single database that feeds the various events lists that appear in MAG publications, such as StreetBiker, Network and the web-site. The presentation of this
information is tailored to the specific publication.
Hence, event e-mail addresses and web-site URLs appear on the list on MAG's web-site, but may not appear in the paper versions.
Consequently, the on-line version is more informative and up to date.
The current contents of the events database can be viewed at http://mag-uk.org/events
If a particular event isn't listed there, it's not on the list, and will not be appearing in StreetBiker, etc.
The only way to get an event onto this list is by using the
on-line submission form. E- mailing, faxing, or telephoning the details to MAG contacts will not get your event on the list. Please don't waste your time doing so.
The on-line submission
form is a secure form, hosted by our friends at Scottish Mall. As it's a secure form, you may need to accept the security certificate.
The on-line submission form is a little fiddly
to use, until you get used to it. (Then it's just annoying.) To try and make things easier, there's an example available of an event already filled in. You can play with this to see how it
works.
It's quite likely you'll need several attempts to get your event entry looking and working as you want it. It's designed to work like this - don't worry.
When you click 'ok' at the bottom of the form, the system checks for some obvious mistakes. If it finds one, the form re-displays with a description of the error at the top. Correct the
error, and click 'ok' again. It may then find another error - or the same one, if you're having a bad day.
When no more errors are detected, the form will re-display with a
request for you to check the layout of your entry.
Your entry will be displayed between two horizontal, red bars. This will be pretty much how it will appear on the web-site, except the
event date will be replaced by "[Date]".
If your entry contains links to an event web-site, an e-mail address or a location map, you can click on these links to make sure you
have entered them correctly. You may also decide to change some things to tidy up your entry a bit. Don't worry if this creates errors - just go and fix them as above.
Note: Do NOT type
your event details all in CAPITALS, or even mostly in capitals. This makes the events list look horrible, and the event organisers look illiterate. At my discretion, these capitals will
be removed. If this is too much work, the entry will be rejected, and you'll need to do it all again. Sorry.
When you're happy with your entry, go to the bottom of the form,
select 'yes ' (you're happy), then click on 'Ok'. Unless you've changed a field in the form to cause another error, the form should be replaced by a page saying the request has
been sent.
As well as this request to us, the form also sends an e-mail to the address you entered as your e-mail address. ou must reply to this e-mail before the event will be processed.
This is to check your e-mail address is valid. Once this has been done, your event should appear on the list within about 24 hours.The delay is so that the entry can be checked for questionable
information. You may receive a confirmation e- mail - but you might not, if things are busy.
What if you need to update an entry?
This might happen if details change, or more information has become available.
If it's a small change, reply to the automatic e-mail you were sent (above), saying exactly what you want
changed. E.g. Please replace "020 7456 1234" by "020 7456 1235". This will only be acceptable if the change is small. If it's too complicated or messy,
you'll be told to re-submit the event.
If the change is anything non-trivial, please use the on-line form to make a fresh submission for the event. To avoid having to type it all in
again, you can display the entry on the current events list in one window, and paste the various bits of text into the fields of the form in another window. The URLs for links are a little
bit trickier, but if you click on these links in
the events list window, they should be displayed when the target page is displayed - so you can paste these in as well. Other than that,
just us the form like you did before.
Obviously, we'll take steps to ensure these amended details are genuine.
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