Calling all bazaars!

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By Alma Gaul | Friday, August 8, 2008 12:28 PM CDT | () comments

It’s that time of year, the time when nonprofit groups such as schools and churches schedule fall and holiday bazaars to raise money for worthy causes.

The Quad-City Times would like to help publicize these events.

In past years, we included a coupon in the newspaper that you could clip out and mail in, and, recently, there was an e-mail option as well.

Now we’re taking this a step further.

We’re asking you to submit all of your information online. If you don’t have a computer — or don’t have Internet access — you probably know someone who does. Here’s what to do:

* Log onto the Web site www.qctimes.com.

* Scroll down to the heading “Quad-Cities Events Calendar” and click on “submit event” (it’s written in red).

* You’ll be asked to type in a name and an e-mail address. This isn’t for publication; it’s just so we have someone to contact if we have a question. And you’ll need to type in the “authentication” portion, which is a security measure.

* Now, to the heart of the matter: Where it says “title,” type in “bazaar” or the name of your event. And where it says “description,” type in everything about your event — when it is (days and times), where it is (include the street address) and major items that you are selling, including meals/prices and raffle items.

* After that, there is a space for “event date.” If your event runs multiple days, just type in the first day of your event and the times, making sure to note a.m. and p.m. We’ll pick up the succeeding days and times from the “description” portion of the form.

* Next comes “event recurrence.” You can ignore that, however.

* Then fill in “location information.” Where it says “name,” we want the name of your organization’s building, St. Paul’s Church or Jordan School, for example, and its street address, not your name and address.

* If you want to include a name and telephone number or an e-mail address to appear in the paper (and on the Web site), you can type it in the “event contact info” space, but that is not required.

* Last, but not least, click on “SUBMIT EVENT.” Otherwise all your work will be lost.

Once the information is received, the procedure will be the same as in past years: On Sunday, Sept. 14, we’ll run inside the Home & Garden section a master list of all bazaars received by our deadline of Aug. 29.

Then, on every Sunday after that and continuing through the season, we will run a list of bazaars for the coming week.

This information also will be available online 24/7. And that’s one of the beauties of the Internet.