Tokens are used in CiviCRM to create mail merges in much the same way as, for example, Microsoft Office. They are currently implemented in (at least) four places in CIviCRM: 'CiviMail', 'Send Mail to Contacts', 'Create PDF Letter' and 'Create Mailing Labels'.

Out of the box Civi comes with a decent set of tokens, including tokens for all the address fields. One thing it doesn't do is provide a token that correctly formats an address block taking account of when fields aren't present. For example, if i used the following address tokens for my address:

{contact.street_address}

Following on from our training camps last summer, we are very pleased to announce another two training events in London this September/October. The first is aimed at users and administrators, and the second is aimed at integrators, implementors and developers.

We'll have folks from around CiviLand joining us for these trainings (Archduke Lobo, Grand High Wizard Dave Greenberg, and more) so you'll be learning from the experts.

Come to St Ethelburga's Centre for Peace and Reconciliation this Tuesday 1st of June for a real-life CiviCRM case study and to find out more about CiviCRM and how it can benefit your non profit organisation.

St Ethelburga's use CiviCRM and Drupal to publicise and administer their event programme and keep in contact with their supporters. They are about to start using it to support their fundraising campaigns. We'll have a look how they are using CiviCRM, how they have managed their CiviCRM project, what they learnt in the process, and what the next steps are. St Ethelburga's staff will be able to answer questions and give their experiences.

We'll also take a took at CiviCRM more generally (both in terms of what it can do, and how you can implement CiviCRM at your organisation) and talk about how you can become more involved in the CiviCRM community.

It's 5 to midnight and we're just wrapping up. Mr Kurund says that I can't go to bed until I've written this post, so...

Participating in the second book sprint is just as fascinating as it was the first time around, but the dynamic is definitely different. Having a book in place already makes a big difference - there's no panicking that we'll end up with the sections half finished, and it is easier to cover components when a lot of the design decisions have already been made. Having already written sections on the components is especially helpful when covering new components.

Calling all Drupalers: we'll be holding two BOF sessions at Drupalcon this year. Both are on Monday in room 212. The first one, from 11am to midday, is aimed at end users and administrators. The second, from 4 to 5pm is aimed at developers. Come along to talk about all things CiviCRM-Drupal!

More details on the drupalcon BOF page. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Just finished up two days of work with CiviCRM at campaigning camp in Oxford UK bringing together members of Plone and CiviCRM community. The Camp followed on from the two day e-Campaigning forum and that was really useful in helping us keep the user at the forefront of work and discussions. And led to some really interesting conversations about a user focused approach to campaigning in CiviCRM which we plan to take further at CiviCon in April.

We've had some great session proposals on the wiki but are still on the look out for more. CiviCon is your chance to debate the parts of CiviCRM that matter to you, so if you have something you want to show off - or something you' like to get off your chest - then sign up for CiviCon and add your proposal.

We've split the day into three tracks

• Developer track
• CiviCRM in action track
• Usability and community track

Exactly one month from now, a team of CiviCRM developers, implementors and users will sprint to update 'Understanding CiviCRM: A Guide for Non-profits'. We've heard from lots of folks that to have this free online book as a learning resource is really important. And we're pretty excited about this sprint, especially given the amount we achieved last time.

There is lots to update and improve and we'd like your input to make the new version of the book as useful as possible to you. There are a few ways in which you can help now.

Gift aid is tax relief on money donated to UK charities: essentially, the UK government allows non profits to claim pay an extra 28% on each donation made by a UK taxpayer if they are a UK tax payer.

Millertech and

Last Wednesday was a packed usergroup with more than 25 people squeezed into our meeting room in Scrutton Street. We were split more or less evenly between end users and developers/implementors, and between current and new users. There was a definite Drupal bias in the room, but there were some vocal Joomla implementors too. It was good to see familiar faces from last years developer camp and user training, as well as people that have started using CiviCRM in the past few months, and those that are just starting out.