Re: Volunteer needed to automate the Boston area physics calendar

[Benjamin Lehmann <benvlehmann gmail com>]

Hi Ken,

I've set up automated systems in the past that are somewhat similar. I 
think the requirements here are relatively simple, so it should be trivial 
to implement. I'm happy to take care of it if we can discuss the minimal 
functionality that we want to ensure.

Cheers,
Ben

> On Dec 9, 2025, at 10:56, Ken Olum via bapc <bapc cosmos phy tufts edu> 
> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Boston area physics calendar subscribers.  The bapc is in trouble.
> It seems the best hope for keeping such a calender going is to have an
> automated system where schools could enter their events in an online
> calendar and mailings would be sent out automatically.  But I don't have
> the time to develop such a system.  So it would be great to have some
> volunteer who could work on such a project.
> 
> Here are the details:
> 
> I've been been maintaining the mailing list for this calendar since
> 1999.  There was a rotation of schools, each serving for two years,
> managing the receipt of postings and assembling them into a single
> calendar posting.  Tufts did it last year.  This year it should have
> gone on to Boston College but they refused to do it.  They said that
> they have not been listing their talks on the BAPC for several years.
> Next in the rotation would have been MIT, but they said they wouldn't do
> it either.  So the current plan does not seem viable.
> 
> Jake Mandel here at Tufts going to do the calendar until June.  After
> that, we will need a different plan.  Otherwise there will be no bapc
> next academic year.
> 
> In recent years, the number of listings has gone down.  But there are
> 560 email addresses subscribed to this calendar.  So it seems there are
> a lot of people who find it valuable.  I certainly think it's very
> useful to have something that ties together the different area schools.
> 
> Everyone seems to agree that the best plan would be an automated system,
> where there isn't a single person putting together listings by hand.
> This would consist of some calendar program into which different schools
> could enter information about their events.  People could then include
> this calendar in their personal calendars, and the system would send a
> weekly email to those who are interested.  There would also be a way to
> send email about talks that were canceled or moved, as we do now.
> 
> I don't think this is terribly difficult, but I don't have the time to
> set it up myself.  I'm happy to discuss the design, to supervise it once
> it is set up, and to maintain the email list as I have been doing.  So
> if you think you could set up such a system, or you have a student who
> could be encouraged to do it, please let me know.
> 
> I think the 560 subscribers to this list would probably not appreciate a
> high volume of discussion, so please just reply to me.  I'll forward
> anything that anyone sends to other people who express interest, and if
> a lot of discussion develops, perhaps I'll create a bapc-future mailing
> list, or something like that.
> 
>                                        Ken
> 
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