Here are the guidelines for posting events.

Social or Commercial?

The first thing to do is to decide whether it's a social or commercial event. In short, if you're organising a get together and not charging for it, then it's probably a social event. If you're advertising your business, charging a fee or hoping to sell something, then it's a commercial event.

Social events are group activities for all forum members. For example, drinks evenings, coffee mornings, skating, hiking, attending concerts, ski-ing, etc. There is no commercial interest for the organiser. This does not include club events that cost a fee or have the aim of member recruitment.

Commercial events are almost everything else. Comedy nights, wine tasting, salsa class, concerts (commercial promotion). These events have a commercial interest, whether there's an entry fee (concert), price (english breakfast) or sales angle (wine tasting). They should also preferably have some angle of interest for the expat/englishforum community.

If your event doesn't fit the above, then it's probably a commercial event. If you aren't sure, then you can always send a PM to me to check.

Example: If I invite people to meet in a pub to watch Chris Black sing, then it's a social event. If Chris himself makes the invitation, then it's commercial.

Please don't create invitations for events that you won't be going to (“Just wanted to tell everyone to go and see this great band...”). If an event is unclear, then you'll hear from one of the moderators anyway.

Calendars

There are now three calendars: social (default calendar), commercial and Concerts. This helps to separate the different types of event. To see the commercial or Concerts calendar, look at the bottom right of the calendar and use the “Calendar Jump” field, or see the 'Events' drop down menu on the options at the top of the screen.

Who can post events

In order to post an event, you have to have a little forum history. Most people qualify pretty quickly. The reason for this is that we want to encourage people to be an active part of the community and not to use it just for free advertising. The qualifications are as follows:

• At least 10 forum posts (not off topic)
• (and) Member for at least one week
• (and) Neutral or positive reputation

Editing Events

If you create an event and wish to edit it, you can go back to the event and click on the "Event Options" button. Then you'll see another button that allows you to edit your event.

Please note that editing an event will erase all of the RSVP information. This is unfortunately something that isn't easy to fix at this time.

Further Advice

Anyone is welcome to organise a social event. Although there are a small number people who organise most of them, this is an open community and everyone is welcome to create events.

Post your event ahead of time - don't be disappointed if you advertise something last minute and nobody comes.

If you plan on attending – use the RSVP function and say so on the thread. When other people see that others are planning to attend they may also be encouraged to attend - don't keep your desire to attend a secret!

If you have attended then use the thread to post some feedback. This will help create a better event next time.

In case you have further questions, feel free to post your question here.