Masters Miata Club

In The Rearview Mirror

I did the Masters Miata Club newsletter from 1998 until 2006 when I ran out of steam doing all the printing and the mailing. There was a person who said they would take over and then didn’t, followed by two others who wanted to give it a go, but didn’t have the knowledge to do it. The no newsletter was not a total loss because the interweb existed and I had been doing a webpage for the club for several years at that point.

BMW Plant Tour

Date: Friday, February 2, 2001
Time: 7:45 AM
Place: South Carolina Welcome Center
Members Attending: Bob Anderson, John Battles, Bill Baugh, Bonnie Baugh, Brian Bogardus, Donna Bogardus, Karen Breitinger, Kurt Breitinger, Jim Creer, Judy Creer, Lee Davis, Carol Haff, John Haff, Ron Kaufman, Jean Schwalbert, Russ Schwalbert, Stacey Timmerman and Rudy Wilmoth.
Guests Attending: John Nichols, Jeff Timmerman, Bob Taylor and John Wages.

We had a eleven cars, three with hard tops being early February, gather at the welcome center in the early morning cold, even Rudy had his top up! It was Stacey Timmerman’s job, with son Jeff navigating, to keep this many cars together on the trip. Amazingly enough, they did a fine job. We got on the Interstate for a few miles before heading north on back roads to our rest stop in Clinton, SC. Not long after getting on US 25 we picked up the first of two planned additions. John N. & Bob T. in a Merlot with a black hard top.

Just past the mid-point we pulled our caravan into a McDonalds for brunch. Here we picked up our second planned addition, Bob Anderson. Bob had thought he would meet us at the BMW plant, but got an earlier start so he just meet us here.

The rest of the trip was all Interstate, I-26 to I-385 to I-85. As we merged with I-85 near our destination, reports came from the back that a white Miata was passing our group. After passing about half of us, he must have figured we were on our way to have some fun, so he tucked in line.

As we pulled into the BMW parking lot we were now fourteen strong. Our late joiner was John Wages, Vice-president of the Foothills Miata Club. He was out running errands when he happened on our group. We offered him a spot on our tour, but he pleaded poverty, didn’t even have $5. We offered to pay his way in and he took us up on it.

We were about an hour or so early for our tour appointment, so this gave us plenty of time to check out the Zentrum, which I guess is German for a mix of museum, gift shop and snack bar. Lots of interesting variations of BMW production cars, race cars and motorcycles in the museum and all kinds of trinkets and clothing in the gift shop. A lot of us ended up in the snack bar, where you get a cold German beer to help pass the time until it was time for the plant tour.

The tour started with a 20 minute movie that showed you some places that you can’t actually go into in person. There were three screens, one in front and one on each side, and the movie was filmed from the point of view of a car chassis going through the welding of the body and all the painting process. Kind of neat to stand there and get painted red by robotic arms.

After the movie we then donned safety glasses to protect our eyes and headphones so we could hear our perky little tour guide. When they designed and laid out the plant it wasn’t with tours in mind, so we were just wandering around on the assembly floor, staying inside some painted yellow lines though, so as not to get run over by forklifts. There were actually two guides, one up front with the microphone talking and one in the back to make sure you didn’t wander off or try and put a Z3 tail light in your pocket.

We stopped and got to watch them mate a body to the powerplant subassembly (engine, transmission and front suspension) and it took about 2 minutes and 8 bolts. Like everything there it looked too easy, which I guess is a good thing, just not as exciting as I expected. The best part was the final test room where they take the nearly completed car and put it on a dyno-like rollers and shift through all the gears and do some heavy braking. Someone gets in the car and a computer tells them when to shift and brake. That same computer reads the data to see if it meets specs. We watched a white Z3 go through its paces and when it was driven out of the booth an employee reached down and picked up a couple stray bolts and a washer off the floor from underneath where the car was! I hope none of those were one of the 8 holding in the powerplant.

After the tour, most all of us went back one exit on I-85 to eat at a California Dreaming restaurant. Fortunately it was 2:30 PM on a weekday and after a little bit of rearranging, we were seated at a table for 22.

After eating, most all of us went back home. Four cars just went across the street to the Courtyard by Marriott to spend the night, so they could hook up with the Foothills folks in the AM.

North & South Drive

Date: Saturday, February 3, 2001
Time: 9:00 AM
Place: University Square Publix, Greenville, SC
Members Attending: Brian & Donna Bogardus, Karen & Kurt Breitinger, Carol & John Haff and Rudy Wilmoth.
Guests Attending: Sean, Jerry, Tony, Ron & Cat.

Brian figured we need to leave the hotel a little after 8 to make it to the starting point on time. This required an early rise, so we could eat, get checked out and get gas and be ready to go at 9 AM.

Conveniently located in the Publix shopping center is a McDonalds and this is where we parked while waiting. Ron Merrit was the first of. the Foothills Club to show and Cat Thomson was the last, which, they said, is how things normally shake out on their runs. So our early rise was all in vain as these folks normally meet, eat and then drive. We finally got moving sometime after 10 AM.

And when we did, we got twisty. They took us on some roads that were only a few miles from the start that were totally awesome. It is almost enough to make you want to move to Greenville. After a circuit around the reservoir we headed up SC-11 and then cut up towards Caesar’s Head State Park. After a brief break in the park’s parking lot we went back to zooming around windy roads until we came Highlands, NC where we made ourselves at home in the Sagebrush Steak House for some grub.

After lunch we were all pretty much wore out, so we just headed back to Greenville and then on to Augusta. Fortunately, we couldn’t get home without traversing some very snaky roads.

February Meeting

I did the Aiken Bicycle Club newsletter from 1993 until 1998 when the club decided to move to the web, which I of course volunteered to do. I created a rudimentary website by today’s standards on the now defunct Geocities.com. To fill my not so free hours in the evening and satisfy my need to write witty things, I took over the newsletter of the local Miata club I was in.

Date: Thursday, February 1, 2001
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Old Country Buffet
Members Attending: Bill Baugh, Bonnie Baugh, Brian Bogardus, Donna Bogardus, Kurt Breitinger, Tony Cappucci, John Haff, Gail Smith, Tom Smith and Rudy Wilmoth.

No meeting room and no Treasurer’s report this month. But we did get the Smiths to join us, we haven’t seen them since last year’s anniversary dinner. Also, a chance meeting at an Interstate rest area brought someone else to the meeting who would have missed it. (I’ve left the names out to protect the guilty.)

Old Business:
1) New Logo. Still again no progress on this front. Wendy seems to have forgotten us. Brian brought along a doctored up copy of Rembrandt van Rijn’s painting “The Syndics of the Cloth Guild” as a tongue-in-check offering of a new Club Logo. (In case you are unfamiliar with the painting, it was the basis for the images used on the boxes and in the advertising for Dutch Master’s Cigars.

New Business:
1) We chatted about a few of the upcoming events. Kurt floated a trial balloon up on maybe attending an Augusta Lynx game. It was well received, so he is going to proceed with arrangements.

2) Brian read the first, and he thought, easiest, of his two proposed amendments to the bylaws. Section A. under Article III, Meetings, states “General membership meetings shall be held monthly, on the last Saturday of each month, unless otherwise determined by majority of a quorum vote of the general membership.” Brian would like to change, “last Saturday” to “first Thursday,” because that is what we are doing now anyway. After quite a bit of discussion on what a quorum was, not putting a day in at all, and other stuff, Brian was about to withdraw his proposal. Hating to see a grown man pout, the rest agreed to let Brian fulfill his obligation under Article XII of the bylaws entitled Amendments, i.e. read the change to the membership so it can be voted on at the next meeting.

3) Brian then read his 2nd proposed bylaw change. With the all but official demise of the Miata Club of America, he would like to change the Club’s name from Master’s Miata Chapter to Master’s Miata Club. And remove the line “This organization shall be a local chapter chartered by the Miata Club of America.” from Article I, Name, of our bylaws. Everyone just shrugged and said, “Whatever.”

Th-that‘s all f-f-folks, the February meeting was adjourned and the weary went home.

Masters Miata Club Bug Splat

This is a word for word cross posting of my write-up on the Club’s Website…

This is not an actual photo of the number of cars that showed up to kill bugs, but it felt that way to the organizers…who at the start were way too busy handing out dot stickers and route maps and removing any previous bug splats off the noses of cars and then again at the end with judging and handing out prizes to take any photos, so if you did take pictures, could you kindly email them to masters.miata.club@gmail.com, so I can add them to this post.

When: Saturday, August 17, 2019
Where: Greg’s Gas Plus, Sonic and the dark back roads of South Carolina in between
Attending: Sarah Acord, Donna & Brian Bogardus, Don & Kaye Boltz, Ellie & David Brock, Pat Charlotte, Shirley & Mike Dyer, Brenda Hays & Guest1, Glen Link & Deb Tonini, Dennis & Karol Mason, Trudy & Hal Scott, Stacey & Cindy Timmerman, Margie & Bill Vandermaas, Ralf & Annie Wilms and Sue & Dave Woomer.

There were 3 cars already parked in the usual spot by the time we arrived at Greg’s Gas Plus.2 And soon after Miatas started rolling in. And rolling in. And rolling in. Quickly we filled the left side of the parking lot. They still kept coming and now they were lined up in a double row on the left side of the building. It has been a few years since we have had this large a turnout. Departure time was set for 8:15 and just about the time everyone were heading towards their cars to leave, an 18-wheeled behemoth inched its way into the parking lot to fill up the business’s gas tanks leaving barely room for the first 4 or 5 cars to get out.

Consequently, when we did leave, where we normally lead the troops, Donna and I ended up about car number #4. Cars #5 & 6 were not too far behind us, but after that the next 8 had to wait a bit to leave the start point as random OTMs3 came along on SC230. We were not too worried as I had gone over the route with several people and we did hand out a copy of the map for the technical 6 right turn route. When the light rain started after about 10 miles of the first leg, most everyone shrugged it off, but it started to come down a little harder as each of the next few miles were driven. When we got to the turn onto SC23 we caught car #2 with it’s roof up already and could see car #3 pulled over and raising theirs. A little further down the road we found the lead car pulled over and car #2 pulled over with them. So now Donna and I were in our usual spot, in front, with the rest of the 13 cars stretched back beyond our visible horizon. About then the rain tapered off to nothing and nearly all the folks who stopped to put their tops up, just left them up rather than stop again.

The rain, besides the damp car interiors and occupants, had little effect on the overall outcome of the Bug Splatting Contest because it seems that most of the insects came out of hiding after the rain stopped. At turn No. 4 onto Sweetwater in Car #10, the Timmermans, noticed that the cars ahead of him continued on straight. I guess the lead car of that, as it turns out 4 car group, either missed my briefing or didn’t look at the map or both and they all went the more pedestrian and 2 mile longer route to end up at the Sonic with everyone else.

The big, and I mean literally big, winners of the night were the Dyers as they claimed the beautiful Biggest Bug Trophy to take home with them. There were a couple other cars who had very similar sized splats on the front, but Mike & Shirley also had a quarter-sized, still twitching, partially flattened mayfly on the lower bumper which put them over the top. Glenn and Deb earned the Fewest Bug honors by arriving at the finish with as clean a car as when they started and if I didn’t know it was impossible, I would swear they must have activated a Star Trek-like front shield. The Vandermaas’s, er, Vandermaases, oh never mind, Margie and Bill did a direct flight path crossing with a formation of miniature housefly looking insects to take home the Most Bugs prize. Trudy and Hal Scott were awarded the Closest to the Dot prize for there own squashed mayfly that was within a couple inches of their green Avery dot.

Because the Rally Masters had a little bit too much fun in the Dollar Store there were also four Door Prizes up for grabs for the rest of the folks who didn’t claim any of the “major” prizes of the night. The Timmermans took home a pack of edible glowing worms.4 The Boltzes left with a wooden 3-D puzzle of a spider that they didn’t have before. The Brocks were the lucky recipients of a Matchbox-sized Chip Foose modified VW Beetle. And Ms. Acord received a possible cheat for a biggest bug win next year with a prize that consisted of life-size plastic Palmetto Bug dining on a fried egg.5

Presidential Decorum

Not him, me as President of the MMC. Yesterday the Masters Miata Club participated in the Ridge Peach Festival Parade. This is a copy of my write up about the event for the Club’s web page. I wanted to get up on my soapbox and whine about the small participation, but thought it would be better to do that here, so I’ve included it at the end of the quoted post.

We had 7 cars parked out front of the Airport Grill for breakfast. The 12 of us did as usual and made ourselves at home by rearranging the furniture to line up about 4 tables in a row to eat at. Our orders were taken in the semi-random order of our arrival and the food was delivered in a different semi-random order which was in no relation to when the orders were placed. But, as always, this is not a problem for the Club because the conversation and flowing coffee kept us entertained. The inexpensive and delicious food, plus the capability of the folks there to put up with us, places the Airport Grill at the top of the Masters Miata Club’s Mom & Pop Breakfast spots. Glen and the Garners had other commitments, so they did not join us after breakfast for the drive or the parade.

Stacey had plotted out a different loop for this year’s pre-parade drive and at first it seemed like we were just heading straight to the parade start, only to pass right through the cute little town of Trenton and head east and who knows what other direction to zip around among the local peach orchards. Even though I’m familiar to a lot of roads in the area there were at least a few times I though we turned the wrong way. The Vandermaases probably knew where there were the whole time because at one point we drove right by their house. He ended our drive at the usual Ebenezer Church so we could find out our place in the parade line up. At this point, Sarah parted ways with us to head back home.

Even though Stacey was in communication with the organizers, when he asked our line up number we weren’t on the list. It was determined that they would just add us to the end of the parade. They did have mercy on us though as they vowed to put us at least in front of the horses… Even though we caught a break with the weather, it was only in the 80’s as opposed to the typical 90’s, Donna and I ran our A/C along the 9/10 of a mile route. For all you statistic junkies out there it took us just less than an hour to drive the parade, so our average speed was pretty close 1.0 MPH. During the trip we never left 1st gear, I depressed the clutch pedal roughly 3.8 millions times and we tossed 8 pounds of candy to an adoring crowd.

Afterwards we all found a place to park and headed into the fray of people, port-a-potties, speakers, bands, food vendors and craft booths.

I have discussed this before with the Club and have tried mightily to get across the fact that anything less than 6 cars is not a parade entry, but nothing more than a couple people with the same car randomly happening to be driving together. I’ve had little success. This year we had 4 cars out of 31, or 13% of the Club, line up for the parade participation.

Because they were a few “floats” ahead of us, I know the roughly 50 member Augusta Corvette Club Pride Riders had practically 40% of their club show up because I counted 20 ‘Vettes when they eased by. Also, even though I didn’t see them because we were so far back in the line-up, I would be willing to bet the Shadetree A’s had a better turnout with their 90-year old cars than we did.

Next year if the MMC commits to be in the parade, Donna and I will join them for breakfast and for the drive, but we are bringing lawn chairs and will watch the parade go by from a shady spot.

A Cooked CAS Sensor and Smoked Pig Butts

Cross posted from the Masters Miata Club web site:

There were 4 almost entirely gray scale flavored Miatas gathered at the almost entirely re-branded Sprint quick stop for today’s Drive-Eat-Drive event. They only thing that remains of the previous Greg’s Gas Plus is just the big giant sign out by the street. The assembled consisted of the Masons who were there in their Sparkling Black NC, the Garners who were there in their Brilliant Black NC, the Scotts who were there in their Galaxy Gray NC and we were there in our Sunlight Silver NB with a touch of blue.

The Garners were the lead car and off we went north on SC230. Determined not to have any Interstate miles on the trip, they set up their GPS to plot a route. After several miles of not being able to get the GPS to find our lunch destination, Shealy’s Bar-B-Que in Batesburg-Leesville, they broke out the phone and Google had no problem plotting a course. Well they must have had “shortest route” selected as an option because about 90% of the way there, it popped us off the main road onto a little dirt road over some railroad tracks. Less than 50 yards ahead was a stop sign, so we figured it must be paved at that point. Nope. But after another 1/2 mile of driving down what seemed to be farm paths through rows of peach trees we turned right onto blacktop and the road the restaurant was on.

With a bit more than 3 miles to go, car #3, that would be us, inexplicably lost forward momentum. The car hiccuped, the CEL came on and while the engine was still running, there was no power to be had. We coasted to a wide shady spot along the road. Car #4, the Masons, slowed and pulled in behind us. I unlatched the hood and while Dennis was under there looking for anything obvious I went to the trunk and got out my Bluetooth OBD II dongle. We called ahead to the two leading cars to let then know what happened, almost to the BBQ place, they both turned around and soon we had 4 Miatas parked along the road. I had the dongle, but the app to use with it was no longer loaded on my phone, so I attempted to download it.

Someone suggested it was bad gas, I had purchased a couple gallons at Sprint. I wondered out loud how come the Garner’s car wasn’t acting up, they bought gas at the Sprint too. After more than a few minutes of not finding anything obvious under the hood, someone asked for me to start it up to see what the engine was doing. The car fired right up, I mashed the go pedal a few times and the car responded as it should. We decided to see if our car would make the last three miles to Shealy’s. It did. Still no download.

Because Shealy’s is a buffet, I always feel as if I don’t polish off 2 heaping plates of food I haven’t gotten my money’s worth and based on a quick sample of the dining room, I’m not the only one. As the rate of food consumption, as well as the conversation, at the table waned every one started making after lunch plans. Of course, they offered to follow us home to make sure we made it, Donna and I declined. We knew the trick, if it acts up again, stop, set a spell, and try again. Still no download.

Wouldn’t you know it, but just a touch more than a mile from home, the car started to stutter again. I pushed the clutch in and coasted a bit hoping to make it around the next corner where there was place to pull off. Realizing we were going to be a bit short, I down shifted to second and eased the clutch out. The engine returned to normal. The two of us held our breath and tried to levitate off the seats to lessen to load so we could make it home. We did.

After we got home, the Torque Light app I was trying to get ever since the Miata first stalled, finally downloaded. My phone was set to auto update its apps and in its infinite wisdom would not let me add a new app until the 5 that needed updating were through. Once the car cooled off I ran the code – P0340: Camshaft Angle (or Position) Sensor circuit malfunction. A quick search of the Miata.net forums let me know that a failing cam position sensor will generate the symptoms we had. When it gets hot it acts up, then when it cools off it might work fine (for a while.)

None of the auto parts stores in the area (at least according to their web sites) have a one of these beauties in stock, so I guess I will have to order one. It was then, that I remembered I have an extra one of these items in the garage. It was a left over from a couple years ago when I was having issues with the maroon car. Turns out I did, so I’ve swapped it out and we’ll see how it one goes.

Aiken Spring Steeplechase

Once again we had a chance to go to the event of season through the generosity of a friend and fellow Miata Club member. Three years ago he offered the use of his railside spot for the Aiken Spring Steeplechase and 4 people took advantage of it, Donna and I and Dennis & Karol. Since then and now there have been 2 other spring events plus 2 fall events and there has been anywhere from 6 to ten people enjoying this hospitality, always including the original Gang of Four. This year it was only Donna and I. The following is a cross posting of the write-up I did for the Masters Miata Club website.

Seeing as it was just going to be Donna and I attending the Steepelchase, we concocted a plan to just walk over. This would make getting out at the end of the day much quicker, there would be no car to have to drive out one of the only three exits, along with the other 10,000 vehicles at 4:15 PM after the last race.

That plan promptly fell apart on Thursday afternoon when we realized that our Little Red Academy Sports Wagon was over 50% full with just our small gas grill in it. After stacking the two small chairs on top of the grill (the other two, optimistically for guests, would be carried by the person not dragging the wagon) there wasn’t any room left over to take all the other items we needed. There was still a tray of chicken shishkabobs, a bag of hot dogs, cookies, brownies, and chip & dip, and another bag with the tablecloth, condiments, paper plates, bowls, and utensils. Don’t even think about adding the styrofoam cooler with ice and drinks on top of that.

Plan B was implemented. On race day, Brian packed up the gas grill, the 4 chairs and the bag with the tablecloth, condiments, paper plates, bowls, and utensils into the Big Red Mini Cooper Wagon and drove over right at 9:00 AM, when the gates opened. He parked the car and walked the mile home. At 11:00 AM we walked over with cooler and food in the Little Red Academy Sports Wagon. Then maybe after the 4th race they would pack everything into the Big Red Mini Cooper Wagon and drive out the gate with maybe tens of cars.

After we walked over and set everything up, we started eating. Hard not to, with the once or twice a year treat of chips and dip staring right at us. Didn’t help that the tent next door was grilling chicken on their grill. After our pre-meal we walked over towards the finish line to the rail side spot of the company (ASCO) we used to work at, to bring them some of Donna’s chocolate cookies in trade for a drink and to sample some of their bountiful spread. When we got back to spot #471, its owner Tom Varallo, was next door chatting up with the the chicken grilling crew. He talked with us a bit and said he’d probably be done working somewhere between 2 & 3:00 PM and would stop back over for a longer visit. We promised to save him some chicken and a hot dog.

The rest of this timeline and details are hazy, might be old age or it might have been the Moscow Mule I got at the ASCO spot, but two women popped into our rail side spot and asked if we knew a so and so. They were supposed to meet them at spot 471. We of course didn’t because as far as we knew we were the only ones from the Club coming, so we told them maybe they got the number wrong. They hustled off texting madly.

A minute or two later a couple showed up and said their names were Renee and Allen. They had run into this nice man called Tom and explained that they had purchased Guarantor tickets to the VIP tent but were supposed meet someone, but those folks couldn’t get in to the VIP tent. Tom, knowing it was just Donna and I at his spot, told them to meet their friends at #471. At this point in the story we said, “I think they were just here.” “Two women, one older than the other?” we asked. “Yes” We said, “They just went that way maybe you can catch them.” But they didn’t.

Sometime after the first race, two women did show up, a mother, Shirley and her daughter, Kate. The daughter is Renee’s dressage instructor and was accompanied by her boyfriend Eric. They brought with them a couple kinds of chips, a couple kinds of dip and some potent potables. We welcomed them to stay. Eric and Allen were sent across the street to their truck to get some more chairs. Then another mother/daughter team joined our group, Randy and Katelyn. At this point I’m not sure which duo was the one that showed up first. The second pair brought some chicken wings and cookies to add to the smorgasbord. After the second race, Donna and Renee walked across the street to get a cooler that had wine and cookies out of their truck (stuff the guys should have brought)

This is where Plan B dematerialized. We were having too good of a time and the weather was too nice to go home early, so Donna and I stayed with our new found friends until all 6 races were through. Everyone pitched in to cleanup and started packing up. Renee and Allen left. Randy and Katelyn drifted off. Finally then Shirley, Kate and Eric left, leaving Donna and I to wait out the thinning crowd. To kill some time waiting for the roads to clear we made a loop of the inside of the track stopping in at the ASCO tent again for a few minutes. We then tried to stop in at Donna’s Yoga teachers spot to say hello again, but they had already gone.

I guess because this was (supposedly) a Masters Miata Club event, I should mention that Chip Cunningham dropped in for a bit of a chit chat and Tom Varallo did make it back in the afternoon, not to eat though as he was still driving around on a golf cart solving event issues.

Event Calendar 3.1.4

Over on the Masters Miata Club Website I have been using a calendar plugin Event Calendar by Alex Tingle to keep track of the Club’s events since the very beginning of the site’s WordPress era, circa 2008. Coincidentally 2008 is the year of the last stable release of the plugin, Version 3.1.4, and I have been using it ever since. It was tested to work with WordPress Version 2.6.3 and it was still working with its current version 5.1.1 ( a whopping 220 updates.)

It would probably still be working except for one thing, PHP. PHP is the server scripting language that WordPress runs on and like WordPress it has been going through its updates and version numbers too. The Club’s website is hosted on GoDaddy and when it first started there it was running on PHP Version 5.2.6. PHP is up to Version 7.1.26 which is somewhere around 200 updates as well, but WordPress is barely ready for that new a version yet and quite a few of the plugins aren’t either. But WordPress has been nagging me to update to a minimum newer version of 5.6 (105 updates from 5.2.6) that at least has included some more modern secure scripting to keep it stable.

Last Monday I broke down and updated the hosting server to run PHP5.6 and sure enough, doing so broke down the whole Club website. I finally managed to get logged in to the WordPress dashboard and deactivate the 30 some odd plugins used to make it pretty and functional and the website came back online. It looked ugly and was barely usable, but it was back up. I then started activating plugins one by one until it crashed. The one that did it was the Event Calendar. This was bad, there were quite a few stylization plugins we could have lived without, but an event calendar is kind of integral.

I headed over to the WordPress Add a Plugin page to find another event calendar plugin. Searching for the phrase event calendar results in 605 items. Now, not all of these are actual event calendar plugins, quite a few just have one of the words event or calendar in their description. In the block showing each result there was a line listing how many active installs of the plugin there were, ranging from over 700,000 for one all the way down to numbering in the tens.

I had four requirements: 1) event posts integrate seamlessly into the site’s temple, 2) be able to display a monthly view calendar on a separate page, 3) have a sidebar widget that could display a list of upcoming events and 4) have the ability to leave comments on the post. I started installing plugins one by one, entering a couple of events that were actually upcoming and looked for my four criteria. Below is a list of all the plugins I tried (in alphabetical order):

  1. All-In-One Event Calendar
  2. Calendar
  3. Calendar by WD
  4. Calendar Event Multi View
  5. Event Calendar – Responsive Calendar
  6. Event Calendar WD
  7. Event Organizer
  8. Events Made Easy
  9. Events Manager
  10. FooEvents Calendar
  11. FT Calendar
  12. Modern Events Calendar (Lite)
  13. My Calendar
  14. Simple Event Planner
  15. Spiffy Calendar
  16. Sugar Calendar (Lite)
  17. Super Simple Events Calendar
  18. The Events Calendar
  19. Tokify Events
  20. WP Event Manager
  21. XO Events Calendar

There were a few that wouldn’t work at all for one reason or another. About two-thirds of them wouldn’t meet the first one. The club’s site has a dark green background and the template worked by overlaying a lighter color for the posts and other information displayed and most of these plugins created a post that was somehow outside the normal WordPress “loop” so that light color didn’t display leaving the post information unrecognizable against the dark background. The only one I found that did display the posts correctly failed on generating a readable monthly calendar.

Eventually I came to the realization I was going have to modify the look of the site by making the background lighter. Once I did that I started going back through some of the more popular ones and finally ended up with the All-In-One Event Calendar. I’m not real thrilled with the look of the sidebar widget, I can’t modify it, but after installing and uninstalling 21 plugins, many multiple times, I’m done looking.

You know, now that I have slightly changed the template colors once, maybe I should do it again turning everything else blue to match that widget look…