Hugh Lashbrooke 11:15 am on February 6, 2020  

Community Team Reps for 2020

Now that voting for this year’s Community Team reps has concluded, I’m pleased to announce that the new Community Team reps for 2020 are Mary Job (@mariaojob) and Cami Kaos (@camikaos)!

Mary Job

Mary hails from Lagos, Nigeria. She started using WordPress about 7 years ago, and has been involved in organising her local WordPress community meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. group since 2016. Not only that, but she has been the primary catalyst for the explosive growth of WordPress community events all across Nigeria, offering countless hours of ongoing support to local organisers. She has also spoken at a number of WordCamps around the world and has served as a community deputy since 2017. Mary brings a passion and fervour to her work on the Community Team that is matched by few others. You can read more about her journey with tech and WordPress on HeroPress and her profile page.

Cami Kaos

Cami needs no introduction to those who have been involved in WordPress community events program for a while. A resident of Portland, OR, Cami has served as an integral member of the WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. team since 2013 where she has assisted hundreds, if not thousands, of local organisers in bringing their event ideas to life. While she has been such an active member of the team for so many years, it is very exciting to now have her serving in the role of Community Team repTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. so she can bring her trademark insight, understanding, and wisdom to new areas of the team. You can read more about Cami’s journey on HeroPress and her profile page.

From myself and @francina (the outgoing Community Team reps), we’re excited to see these two wonderful women step up to their new role and are looking forward to a fruitful and productive year ahead for the team!

Rocio Valdivia 11:58 am on October 4, 2019
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How to contribute to the Global Community Team

These are some of the different options for getting involved with the WordPress Global Community Team 🙂

1) The best way to start is by organizing Meetups and/or WordCamps in your city. If you feel like you can represent WordPress, follow the code of conduct for WordPress events, and follow the five good-faith rules for WordPress meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizers, then you can apply to join the program: 

  1. a) Check if there is a WordPress Meetup group in your city – if there is one, join it, attend the events, and step up by either helping the organizers or becoming an organizer yourself!
  2. b) Check if there is a WordCamp in your area – you can attend, apply to speak, volunteer, sponsor and/or help organize your local WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more.!
  3. c) If there is not an existing WordPress Meetup group (or if there is an inactive group) in your town/city and you want to start one, you can apply here – you’ll receive a reply within a couple of weeks.

2) If you already have experience organizing a successful WordCamp and have an availability of 2-3 hours a month, you can apply to become a WordCamp mentor here: – you’ll receive a reply within a couple of weeks.

3) If you have had at least 1 year of experience as a Meetup organizer and/or have been a WordCamp lead organizer, you are familiar with the WordPress Open Source project and philosophy, you have at least 2-3 hours a week available for contributing, and you accept our Code of Conduct, you can apply to become a Community Deputy. We are a team of community-minded people around the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.. You can apply to join the Global Community Team as a deputy here – you’ll receive a reply within a couple of weeks.

Note: if you have any additional questions, join us in the #community-events channel of Make WordPress Slack, we’ll be happy to help you there!

#contributors

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on March 2, 2020
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Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizers, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

Cami Kaos 7:12 pm on February 28, 2020
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Event Cancellation Guidelines and Procedures

Given the unfortunate crisis we find ourselves in with COVID-19 (corona virus) we’ve seen as many WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. cancellations this month as we would ordinarily see in a full calendar year. Being mindful that the question of when to cancel, and what to do if cancellation is required, is on the minds of many organizers I’d like to start collecting some information on and common questions you might have around cancelling/postponing an event so we can add them to the WordCamp Organizers Handbook.

We have some existing documentation on procedures followed for WordPress Community Support which we’ll publish along with an FAQ and other guidelines.

I know @courtneypk and @sippis have a lot to add to this conversation, I invite everyone to chime in as well.

While ordinarily we would wait until a call for feedback has been completed to add an update like this, in this case I hope you all agree we should add this documentation as soon as possible and update as necessary.

Please share feedback and concerns in the comments!

#community-events #wordcamps

Sandy Edwards 5:40 pm on February 27, 2020
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Youth Event Working Group (Formerly Kids) Chat Agenda | Thursday 27 February 2020

Our next Kids Events Working Group chat is happening Thursday, 27 February 2020 at 1900 UTC/ 3pm EST. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel.

This chat occurs every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month. Asynchronous chat will be noted in the minutes up to 12 hours after the chat occurs so feel free to chat when it is convenient for you.

Agenda

  1. Updates from the month
  2. Goals for next month
  3. Open Floor Discussion

Come and discuss how you can be involved. We need people to:

  • Research – laws surrounding minors at events globally
  • Writing – arts and crafts documentation, WordPress basics documentation, Parental Resources Documents
  • Editing – grammar, spell check, and general flow proof readers/editors

Everyone is welcome. Please attend even if you are not sure how to participate.

If for any reason you can not attend the meeting live but still want to be involved please comment on the post to introduce yourself. Share a bit about your WP background and what area you want to help with.

Please leave a comment below of anything else that should be added to the agenda for discussion.

#kids-events, #youth-events

Josepha 2:29 pm on February 27, 2020
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X-post: Daylight Saving Time Meeting Planning

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/updates: Comment on Daylight Saving Time Meeting Planning

jillbinder 6:02 pm on February 26, 2020
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Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#wpdiversity) on Feb 26, 2020

Summary: I shared where I’m at with creating the new Train the Trainers videos, and asked for help filling in some gaps in our 2019 year-end report.

Continue reading →

#wpdiversity

Timi Wahalahti 9:29 am on February 25, 2020
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Forming the WordCamp Central Twitter account working group

I think that the WordCamp Central Twitter account is too silent, official and boring. Currently, the only content is automatically shared from central.wordcamp.org news. It would be awesome to raise local communities and their WordCamps more in the content of that account. One way of doing this could be re-tweeting curated content.

Birgit Pauli-Haack and contributors did write an awesome proposal about this in 2017 and feedback on that proposal was enthusiastic. After the proposal, activating the Twitter account didn’t get enough momentum because of a lack of interested contributors.

The proposal from 2017 is still valid and could be a good starting point for activating the Twitter account today. The missing part is contributors who want to commit to updating the account actively.

That’s why I’m calling all persons interested in contributing to this topic to express their interest in the comments. If we get at least six interested and tentatively committed contributors, we’ll start a working group.

The first task for the working group will be scheduling a video meeting where the plan for reactivating the Twitter account will be discussed. The next steps will be agreed on that call.

#marketing, #twitter, #working-group

Aditya Kane 5:22 pm on February 24, 2020
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WordPress meetup organizer newsletter: February 2020

Hello WordPress MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizers!

Welcome to another meetup organizer newsletter, packed full of news, information, and inspiration for your local meetup.

Newsletter contents:

  • Diverse Speaker Training Workshops
  • 2019 Annual WordPress Meetup Member Survey
  • Grow your meetup – from WCUS
  • Visual Composer is a 100% GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples.-Licensed PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party!

Diverse Speaker Training Workshops

As a meetup or WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizer, have you ever had challenges getting women and people from other under-represented groups to speak at your events? So have we.

There is a workshop created by and for people from under-represented groups to help us bust through Impostor Syndrome and other obstacles.

The Diverse Speaker Training workshop (#wpdiversity), run by the Community Team, busts through this and other obstacles.

Sign up to run the workshop in your local WordPress meetup chapter this coming year: http://tiny.cc/wpdiversity

Bonus! If you have run the workshop in your meetup, please let us know by emailing us at speaker-training@wordcamp.org. We’d love to hear your feedback. 

2019 Annual WordPress Meetup Member and Organizer Survey

Since 2019 has come to a close, we would like to gather feedback on how the chapter meetup program is doing. Please share the WordPress meetup program survey with your meetup members.

Help your chapter by letting members know about the survey. You can share it in both online and in-person discussions!

Also, for organizers like yourself, we have the WordPress meetup organizer survey here.

Grow your meetup – Tips for Meetup organizers.

WCUS 2019 held a workshop to help organizers grow their meetups, and a wide variety of general tips were shared at this workshop for Meetup organizers. These tips are relatable to all meetup organizers and volunteers – even if you are just beginning to start your first meetup, this workshop will ensure you are starting off on the right foot.

The workshop is available on WordPress.tv

Visual Composer is now a 100% GPL-Licensed Plugin!

We’re very happy to announce that Visual Composer (and all plugins/themes from the same company) is now 100% GPL compliant!

From now on, Visual Composer, WP Bakery and any other of their plugins/themes can be sponsors of official WordPress Meetup groups in the chapter program and WordCamps, and their employees can be organizers, volunteers and/or speakers at our community events!
  

Join us in welcoming the big team of Visual Composer, and we would especially like to thank Michael Makijenko, the company’s founder, for his amazing and quick collaboration.

That’s it for now — chat with you next time!

Your friends on the Community Team

make.wordpress.org/community

#newsletter

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on February 24, 2020
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Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizers, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

Timi Wahalahti 8:03 am on February 19, 2020
Tags: meetup applications   

Changes in Meetup Organizer Application form

For some time, we have had a problem with vetting MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. applications that we don’t have enough information about the applicant to do the proper vetting. First step for many applications have been sending email asking more information. This has caused extra work for deputies and delay in application processing time.

To tackle this issue, changes have been made to the Meetup Organizer Application form. From now on, the application form asks the same question deputies have usually asked in the email.

New questions added to the form are:

  • Could you introduce yourself and tell us more about your connection with WordPress?
  • Where we can find you online? (Please add links to your websites, blogs and social media accounts.)
  • Why do you want to start a WordPress Meetup in your city? And what are your immediate plans?
  • Have you talked with people in your community to check the level of interest?
  • Anything else you want us to know while we’re looking over your application?

These questions were removed because those are covered in new ones:

  • How would you describe yourself?
  • Anything you’d like to tell us about yourself, or what you hope to do with a meetup group?

When deputies are doing application vetting, all answers to these questions can be found from “Original Application” metaboxMetabox A post metabox is a draggable box shown on the post editing screen. Its purpose is to allow the user to select or enter information in addition to the main post content. This information should be related to the post in some way. at the very end of the page just like in WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. applications.

Hopefully, this change will make Meetup Organizer application vetting more smoother for deputies and reduce the processing time for an individual application!

Props to @sippis, @ryelle and @iandunn.

#meetup-applications

Mary Job 6:48 am on February 19, 2020
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Community Team Chat Agenda | 20 February 2020

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 20 February 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly: Thursday, February 20, 2020, 11:00 UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, February 20, 2020, 20:00 UTC

Deputy/Mentor check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going?

P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. posts needing review/feedback

Highlighted P2 posts

  • https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/02/19/changes-in-meetup-organizer-application-form/
  • https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/02/06/community-team-reps-for-2020-2/
  • https://make.wordpress.org/community/2019/10/04/how-to-contribute-to-the-global-community-team/

Please add any additional items to this agenda by commenting on this post as needed.

#meeting-agenda