Tutorial III - Using a Database for the St. Paul's Carnival

Candler

Tutorial III - Using a Database for the St. Paul's Carnival

Candler

Up until this evening, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do this tutorial on.  I was leaning more towards the history of the World Wide Web or even the history of Mozilla Firefox browser system, but then it hit me tonight on the way home.  My wife has been working tirelessly building a volunteer list of over 400 parents for the annual St. Paul's Carnival.  The volunteers coordinate everything from games, rides, food, raffle, rummage sale, all the way to build up and break down.  Her list was hand-made and was extremely labor intensive.  After completing the Access project, using a database will be an extremely effective way to to coordinate all aspects of this project, from tables, to forms, and finally reports.

Candler

Coordinating 400 volunteers can be extremely cumbersome.  Her process begins by distributing forms to be completed and returned, so that she can begin building her volunteer board.  With Access database, she could immediately create the From template, print a blank for submission, including name, contact info, time availability, and choice of volunteer work.

Candler

Once the forms are filled out and completed, she could input the information straight into the database to create a usable table.  Currently she was placing phone calls for verification, making individual notes, and then trying to tabulate from there.  By entering the information straight into the form, everything is available on her new table that she can create.

Once all of information has been entered, tables set up, then she can go back, manipulate the data and create the reports that she needs, for example, who is working the Friday night second shift for the games.  The reports would be essay to create, and last minute volunteer adjustments could be made without having to use white-out.

Candler

In conclusion, using Database can highly streamline any major project such as the St. Paul's carnival.  The data would be extremely accessible and adjustable, making one's productivity much higher, therefore allowing for more time for the little one's that would truly enjoy the carnival in the first place.