When the calendar opens, you'll immediately see the coming week's events. Click anywhere on the monthly calendar on the left to jump to the date or week of your choice. Scroll forward or backward through the months to display the dates that interest you. Now there is no need scroll through all the intervening events.

Just below the monthly calendar you'll find a View field. Here you can choose how you'd like to see the calendar. The default view is a list of events for the coming week. You can also choose daily, weekly, or monthly calendars, or even a tabular view of all scheduled events.

In the area labeled Mixed-In Calendars you can filter events. This means that your calendar will include only the events in your chosen geographic vicinity, or events with a certain theme. For example, if you mark only the check boxes for Montgomery County and For Children, your calendar display will include only those activities. Check other boxes to see those activities as well. To find dancing activities in Center City Philadelphia, clear all the check boxes except for Center City and Dancing.

Activities are categorized geographically as follows: Bucks County, Center City, Delaware County, Montgomery County, New Jersey, Northeast Philly, and Northwest Philly. (Activities outside these areas are all included in the calendar, but cannot be filtered.)

Activities are also categorized by theme. At present the themes are "Dancing" and "For Children". We will add more themes as more and varied activities are posted on our calendar.

You can mark the check box for any calendar event and have Trumba (the new calendar tool) automatically email you a reminder about the event as it approaches. You can even ask Trumba to notify you if the event's time or date are changed! In fact, you can be notified by text message, email, and other methods. Details are found on the Trumba calendar website.

We're sure that you'll enjoy using the new calendar tool, we hope you'll use it often, and encourage your school, synagogue or other Jewish organization to list their events with the Philadelphia Jewish Voice.

-- Larry Angert, Calendar Editor

Send your press releases, comments and suggestions to Around Our Community Editor Bruce S. Ticker community @ pjvoice.com .  Bruce Ticker is the editor of Crisis: Israel. A Voice for Diverse Commentary.

Past Features Around Our Community

• July 2006: Coming Together To Worship God, Walking For Peace
• June 2006: Around Our Community
• May 2006: Philadelphia Pride, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg
• April 2006: Around Our Community
• March 2006: Successful Women, Israeli Film Festival
• February 2006: Delaware Gratz, Shul for Sale, Slots
• January 2006: Highland Parks Goes Egalitarian
• December 2005: Around Our Community
• November 2005: Around Our Community
• October 2005: Around Our Community
• September 2005: Around Our Communnity
• July 2005: Around Our Community