Talk of the Town - September 2015 - The Shoofly Magazine

Talk of the Town - September 2015

9/1/2015

Touchdown for the Cleaver Community Calendar!

Your one-stop-shop for local happenings! One of the most comprehensive community resources on the coast, the Cleaver's Calendar now lists local school sporting events - in addition to live music, festivals, civic meetings, library functions and art events!
- by Ana Balka

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Cruisin' the Coast in October is just one of hundreds of events listed on the Cleaver Community Calendar! You'll also find, arts, music, festival and civic events by category! And new this year - school sporting events!!!

Have we mentioned that the Cleaver has a calendar?

We have asked around. We’ve investigated. We’ve Googled. And we believe the Cleaver has the most comprehensive community calendar on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Some of you haven’t discovered our calendar. Perhaps you’ve been busy. Maybe you’ve been meaning to check it out and haven’t gotten there yet. You may find calendars passé or unfashionable, dull. Pedestrian, even, with their predictable “dates” and “times” in little boxes.

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The Cleaver Community Calendar now lists most local school sporting events!

We beg to differ! And we want you to know about the exciting possibilities that our calendar holds for you.

To browse all of a month’s listings, just go to the calendar. You'll see library, civic, educational, music, special, sports, and arts events in color-coded text.

Let’s say that you want to cut through the mass of information. It’s easy to narrow it down! Do you want to see some live music?

Locate the “Select Category” pull-down menu at the top.
Check “All” to clear the boxes, and then check one or more categories you want to highlight: in this case, “Live Music, Entertainment.”
Click on the Go button, and voilà! All you see is bands and entertainment!

Hey, Thursday night trivia at the Ugly Pirate! Whoa, band listings for the casinos!

Calendar Manager Willard Deal

Of special interest is our sports category, which not only features community sporting events (like Thursday fun runs from the Mockingbird), but—this is huge--schedules of sporting events at Bay High, Hancock High and Middle schools, Bay/Waveland High and Middle schools, St. Stanislaus College, Our Lady Academy, and North Bay Elementary.

“We started last spring with the school sports coverage,” says calendar maestro Willard Deal. “So far there’s football, volleyball, and a few others, like swimming and cross-country.

“We would love to cover plays, orchestra and band concerts, and other events at the schools,” Deal says. “As of yet, we’re relying on a variety of sources like print media and other websites to gather information.

A screen shot showing the calendar's drop down menu of categories. Click here to go experiment with the feature right now!

"We encourage individuals, organizations, and the schools to keep us posted on a regular basis about upcoming events, to consider us a resource for getting the word out to the community.”

The calendar is a trove of horizon-broadening information. Did you know that the BSL Library hosts a screening of a popular film once a month, which they call “Matinee in the Bay” (September 10, BSL Library)? Or that you could take a basic computer course at the library (several dates are listed)?

Go see a play! The Bay St. Louis Little Theater lists its performance dates with us. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” starts September 25th.

Get involved in our community’s decision-making processes. Look to the calendar for listings of important civic meetings, such as:

BSL City Council
Hancock County Board of Supervisors
Hancock and Bay/Waveland school district boards
Waveland Board of Mayor and Aldermen,
the Hancock County Utility Authority
the BSL Historic Preservation Commission
the BSL Planning and Zoning Commission

Inform the Cleaver of an upcoming event by clicking the “Suggest Event” button in the bar just above the month. A couple of rules apply: events are limited to those in Hancock County, and we generally list events that are free or whose proceeds go to community non-profit groups. Grand openings for new businesses may be eligible for listing. See the FAQ page for more detail.

Deal emphasizes that one should call ahead to any event to confirm date and location. “No one informs us if an event has canceled or if the venue has changed,” he says.

So, miss out on cool events no more! Bookmark the Cleaver’s calendar, which we update on a constant basis. Make it your home page, and email the link to your friends. The more people who know about and use it, the better it gets.