Hari Shanker R 9:25 am on May 15, 2020
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Meetup Organizer Newsletter: Online Events Edition

Hello friends,

We are happy to share with you another 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. organizer newsletter, packed full of information about upcoming online events, along with news, information, and inspiration for your local meetup.

Newsletter contents:

  • New resources for online and in-person events during COVID-19
  • Upcoming Online Events
  • Training Tuesdays
  • Call for Content for the Youth Working Group

New Resources for Online and In-Person Events during COVID-19

The WordPress Community has begun to host online Meetups, and there are guidelines for online do_action charity hackathons. Now, the Community Team has prepared a new set of guidelines for online WordCamps, and for in-person events during COVID-19. 

Online WordCamps – Resources, Tools, and Information

In order to assist organizers with the process of moving their 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. online, and to pave the way for new organizers to get involved, the Community Team has set up some tools, processes, and documentation to make things possible.

We are providing online production and captioning costs associated with any online WordCamp taking place this year will be covered in full without the need for local sponsorship. You will find more information in the documentation about production vendors, as well as what to look out for if you do look for local companies. We’ve updated our guidelines to cover the regional focus of online events and important changes to the budget review and planning processes.

The handbook also includes a code of conduct that has been updated to cater to this new format. There is also some new documentation on effective ways to moderate the chat during a live stream and how you can ensure your event’s chat remains friendly and inviting. We also have a handbook page that shares some excellent ideas about how to acknowledge your online event sponsors, along with some tips for speakers at online events.

The WordCamp schedule has been updated to indicate whether an event is taking place online or not, and we also have tips for WordCamp speakers

In-Person WordCamps

When in-person events are able to resume, those events will follow the guidelines that were already in place, taking note of these additional guidelines for in-person events taking place in 2020. The Global Community Team is planning to keep these guidelines in place until Q4 2020, at which point we’ll revisit and reassess depending on the situation at that time.

Upcoming Online Events

All the upcoming online events from WordPress meetup groups are shown on this page – times will be shown in your local time zone unless otherwise noted. Feel free to participate in any event to see what other meetup groups are doing! For tips on how to organize an online meetup, visit this handbook page. 

WCUS Call for Speakers and Interactive Office Hours

WordCamp US 2020 will take place online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event still runs from October 27-29, 2020, and will be free to anyone who wishes to attend. 

At this time, the Call for Speakers is still open! You can apply to speak on the speaker application site until May 31, 2020 at 11:59 pm CDT (UTC-5). The WCUS programming team is holding an interactive office hours this Saturday, May 16th at 11:00 am CDT (UTC-5) to help prospective speakers learn more about WCUS attendees and brainstorm topics for their talk. This interactive session will be held in the Make WordPress Slack. For more information and to sign up, visit this post. This session will be followed by a second interactive office hours dedicated to helping prospective speakers create and submit their pitch, so follow the blog for the latest info. 

Bonus! The Call for Cities is also open. If your community is interested in hosting WordCamp US in 2021 & 2022, please fill out this application. 

WordCamp Europe

The biggest WordCamp in Europe is now fully online, including Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.! The event will be on June 4-6, 2020, and you can get the latest updates on their website, or by following #WCEU. Don’t forget to get your free tickets for WordCamp Europe now!

WordCamp Kent Online

On May 30-31, 2020, the northeast Ohio WordPress community will come together online for the first online edition of WordCamp Kent. You can get your free tickets for WordCamp Kent Online now!

Diverse Speaker Workshops and Coaching

The Diverse Speaker Training Group (#WPDiversity) is holding workshops and group coaching sessions in May and June. The workshop series will help dispel some myths about being a speaker, help you find a topic, create a great pitch, and provide tips for public speaking and being on camera. Participants are encouraged to attend all three workshops in the given week (the series will be run in May and again in June). In addition, there will be Group Coaching sessions where participants can get help with anything related to public speaking at WordPress events! These sessions are intended to train speakers who are members of a marginalized or underrepresented group in terms of gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, age, etc. For details on dates and times, and for additional information about these sessions, please read this post. If you are interested in participating, please sign up here.

Highlighted Online Meetup:  

In this section, we try to highlight the experiences shared by meetup organizers, about their experiences while organizing an online event. 

Sam Suresh from the Kuala Lumpur WordPress Meetup group shared his experiences about the first edition of their online event: MCO: WordPress Meetup via Zoom

The meetup draws its title from the Movement Control Order (MCO) issued by the Malaysian Government to enforce a lockdown in the country. This was the first online event organized by the meetup group, and over 50 people attended the live event hosted on Zoom. The event had four speakers who each spoke for 20 minutes, followed by a 10 minute Q&A. The organizers also live-streamed the event using the Facebook Live platform, in order to attain a wider reach. Attendees found the event enjoyable and they are planning to organize more online events in the future!

Would you like to share your experiences with organizing online events? Let us know!

Training Tuesdays

WordPress Community deputies and volunteers are creating a new series of content to share knowledge and help to train organizers and interested community members in a variety of skills, while also adding additional training documentation to our handbooks. The content will come in a variety of formats including blog posts, recorded presentations, discussions, and workshops. Each week on Tuesday a different topic will be highlighted on the WordPress Community Blog here with the #tuesdaytrainings tag. For more information, visit the announcement post. If you’d like to contribute your knowledge for a Tuesday Training, please email support@wordcamp.org 

Call for Content for the Youth Working Group

The Youth Working Group team is looking for individuals to contribute 5-10 minute video or video snippets that cover doing something with WordPress. This could be short instructional screencasts from the WordPress dashboard, or a short tutorial that depicts how one can build something fun and creative using WordPress. If you would like to contribute to the project, please pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” Sandy Edwards (@sunsand187) directly in the Make WordPress Slack. If you do not mind the video being used for WCUS KidsCamp, you can apply to speak here: https://2020.wcus-speakers.org/. If you have any questions, you can get them answered at the Youth Events office hours that happen weekly on Thursdays at 2100 UTC/5 pm EST in the the #community-events channel of the Make WordPress Slack. 

If you have any questions, Community Team deputies are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events 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.

Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community, let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring our Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. Community! 

We’ll see you online soon!

#newsletter

Angela Jin 10:00 am on May 14, 2020  

In-person WordCamps in 2020

Now that there is a solid plan for WordCamp organizers to move forward with online events this year, this is a good time to look at what in-person 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. events could look like.

The last post about this stated:

If you are planning an event scheduled between now and June 1, and there is any evidence of community transmission of COVID-19 in your area, we strongly recommend that you postpone the event until later in the year or 2021 and/or adapt to an online event.

This strong recommendation to postpone events or take them online remains in place for the foreseeable future, as do the health and safety precautions mentioned in that post. However, in order to make it possible for in-person events to resume in areas where community transmission of COVID-19 has been effectively reduced, there are new guidelines in place for organizers to take note of:

  • In order to account for the financial impact of potential cancellations, all contracts must have zero cancellation fees and any deposit must be fully refundable.
  • Speakers must all be local. While this has the added benefit of strengthening your local community, this also helps to reduce any disruptions that may come from last-minute travel changes or restrictions.
  • In the event that an in-person event is no longer possible for your scheduled event date, organizers are strongly encouraged to switch to an online event. The organizing team should discuss these expectations early on and lean on their mentors to help with any training or resources to prepare for this possibility.
  • To ensure the health and safety of everyone involved, all WordCamps will have a mentor assigned. The mentor will be directly involved with decisions regarding cancellations and respecting local health authorities.
  • Organizers must adhere to government mandates regarding the size of in-person meetings and other applicable laws.

These guidelines will remain in place until Q4 2020, at which point the Global Community Team will reassess and revisit these guidelines depending on the situation at that time. If you have feedback on these guidelines please comment below.

You will also find this content published in the WordCamp Organizer Handbook.

Hugh Lashbrooke 9:58 am on May 14, 2020  

Online WordCamps – Resources, Tools and Information

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. groups are already moving their events online, and there are guidelines for online do_action charity hackathons as well. The next event series to evolve into this online paradigm is, naturally, 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..

In order to assist organisers with the process of moving their WordCamp online, and to pave the way for new organisers to get involved, the Community Team has set up some tools, processes, and documentation to make things possible. You will find all of this in the new Online Events Handbook, but read on for a broad overview.

Production & Captioning Vendors for All

Since the pilot program for supplying production vendors to online WordCamps was announced, a few WordCamps have taken advantage of this – namely WordCamp Spain, WordCamp Santa Clarita, and the upcoming WordCamp Kent. This pilot program has proved to be a success, which means that all WordCamp organizing teams in 2020 will be able to count on this support.

In practice, this means that the online production and captioning costs associated with any online WordCamp taking place this year will be covered in full without the need for local sponsorship. As an organiser, you can make use of the vendors available or choose to work with a local supplier.

You will find more information in the documentation about production vendors, as well as what to look out for if you do look for local companies.

Updates to WordCamp Guidelines

In order to cater to online WordCamps, the guidelines for these events have been updated to be more flexible and adapt to the needs of the format. You can find these updated guidelines in the new handbook – they cover the regional focus of online events and important changes to the budget review and planning processes.

Note that these updates apply to online events only – when in-person events are able to resume, those events will follow the guidelines that were already in place taking note of these additional guidelines for in-person events taking place in 2020.

Code of Conduct for Online Events

In order to ensure these online events remain as safe and welcoming as in-person WordCamps, the new handbook includes a code of conduct that has been updated to cater to this new format. There is also some new documentation on effective ways to moderate the chat during a live stream and how you can ensure your event’s chat remains friendly and inviting.

Acknowledging Sponsors at Online Events

You can read this handbook page for some excellent ideas about how to acknowledge your online event sponsors, and more information will be published soon with information about recognising global sponsors. One requirement that has been added in here, is that all organisers must have their sponsorship packages approved by a deputy at the budget review stage.

The WordCamp Schedule

The WordCamp schedule has been updated to indicate whether an event is taking place online or not – this will provide an easy reference for anyone interested in attending an online WordCamp no matter where they are in the world. Note that Online WordCamp tickets will always be free, so anyone around the world can easily attend.

Tips for WordCamp Speakers

Since presenting a talk online is a very different experience to doing so in-person, here are some tips for speakers to help you make the most out of the experience.

Guidelines for In-Person WordCamps

If you would like to organise an in-person WordCamp for any date after June 2020, please refer to the updated guidelines for these events.

WordCamps Beyond 2020

The updated guidelines outlined here will be in effect for the remainder of the year. The team plans to review these guidelines in Q3 2020 so that organizers applying for a 2021 WordCamp have greater clarity and enough time to prepare for either an online or in-person event. 

Does this all sound like something you want to get involved in? Fill out the WordCamp organiser application form to get started!

On a personal note, I’m excited to see the online events that local organisers put together – while this is a challenging new frontier for all of us, the need to move our events online will provide a platform for a huge amount of innovation within our community.

Is there anything you think was missed here? Or any other resources or documentation you think would be helpful for the team to provide for organisers of online WordCamps? Please make it known in the comments!

jillbinder 12:38 am on May 14, 2020
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Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on May 13, 2020

Summary: We talked about how we’re doing. (Everyone’s exhausted.) We celebrated the great success and lessons learned of April’s workshops & group coachings. We are planning the May workshops & group coachings, and I’m asking the team to help out with admin and with promoting them. We are also working through a sign-up system for them.

Continue reading →

#wpdiversity

Cami Kaos 6:53 pm on May 12, 2020
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Tuesday Trainings: a new series!

I’m excited to announce a new series of posts beginning here on the Community 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/. next week. I’m calling them Tuesday Trainings.

What are Tuesday Trainings all about?

It’s a series of content created by WordPress Community deputies and volunteers to share knowledge and help to train organizers and interested community members in a variety of skills while also adding additional training documentation to our handbooks.

The content will come in a variety of formats including blog posts, recorded presentations, discussions, and workshops. Each week on Tuesday we I’ll highlight a different topic right here with the #tuesdaytrainings tag.

Here are just few of the upcoming trainings topics:
* Best practices for communicating online
* Events that can be run online to keep your community connected
* Different (and valid) types of team leadership
* How to handle transitions in community leadership
* 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. Budgets
* Giving and receiving feedback
* WordCamp Mentorship best practices
* Conflict de-escalation
* Handling/taking CoC reports

The list goes on and on and on some more.

What now?

If you’re interested in learning from these trainings, follow along here for the trainings and announcements about the trainings. If you’d like to contribute your knowledge for a Tuesday Training comment below or email me at support@wordcamp.org

Cheers to learning!

Timi Wahalahti 12:26 pm on May 11, 2020
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X-post: WCEU Online 2020 Contributor Day: Submit your introduction videos, office hours times and introductory session needs this week

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/updates: WCEU Online 2020 Contributor Day: Submit your introduction videos, office hours times and introductory session needs this week

Kevin Cristiano 12:20 pm on May 11, 2020  

Financial update on WordPress community programs

Because so many WordCamps have been cancelled or moved online due to the global pandemic, it seems smart to share some information about the financial position of WordPress Community Support PBC (WPCS). (WPCS is the wholly-owned subsidiary of WordPress Foundation that serves as the fiscal entity for official WordPress events like WordCamps and meetups.)

The following people collaborated on this update and these projections: @kcristiano, @andreamiddleton, @courtneypk, and @harmonyromo

WPCS has two sources of income: ticket sales and event sponsorship. In the event sponsorship categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging., there are two types: local sponsorship income, which originates with local organizers on a per-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. basis, and global community sponsorship, which is managed by Global Community Team deputies. 

Here’s where to find the financial statements for WordPress Foundation and WPCS for previous years, for your reference. 

Summary:  WPCS entered this crisis with just over 2 million cash (USD)  on hand.  It’s expected that we will burn through 1.9 million of that in 2020, between event refunds, cancellation costs, and expenses related to online event production. The details are as follows:

Ticket sales: Of the total $242,000 received in revenue related to ticket sales for 2020 WordCamps, approximately $160,000 has been refunded.

Local sponsorship: $1,350,000 has been collected for 2020 WordCamps from local sponsors, and approximately $611,000 has been refunded to date. WPCS has issued sponsorship refunds for those WordCamps that have been cancelled or that have been postponed until 2021. More refunds are expected to be issued in the coming weeks, related to WordCamp Europe.

Global sponsorship: We also have received $642,500 this year in sponsorship income from WordPress Global Community Sponsors.  Because we have only had a handful of in-person events this year and expect a majority of WordCamps to be held online for 2020, deputies are actively discussing how to move forward with the Global Community sponsors. 

Sunken costs: In addition, deputies are reviewing the signed agreements for all the WordCamps that were cancelled and are working with vendors to reclaim prepaid expenses totaling approximately $164,000. We are attempting to recover as much of that as possible, by asking vendors to hold the deposit until the date the WordCamp reschedules. This will not always be possible due to contracts in place, so some of this will be a loss.

Expenses: We have an estimated $200,000 in remaining fixed expenses that must be paid in 2020, for 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. fees, insurance, and other general expenses. In addition, $440,000 has been budgeted to cover production and captioning services for an estimated 20 online WordCamps, to facilitate our community organizers moving events online. 

For the organization’s largest conferences (WordCamp US & WordCamp Europe), WPCS will need to cover any net costs related to cancelling the in-person components and converting to online conferences. 

If WordCamps are able to cover some costs through fundraising (which is still under discussion), this would alleviate some of the pressure on the organization from a cash flow perspective. However, there is no guarantee that online event sponsorship will be a reliable source of income for this program in 2020 or beyond, which means the online event production budget should be treated as a cost that may not be recovered. 

Where does this put us?  

The WordPress community program is very fortunate, as this will not bankrupt us. WPCS entered this crisis with just over 2 million cash on hand. This may seem like a great deal of money, but once refunds and expenses related to those WordCamps at the beginning of the year, the online WordCamps, and general overhead are paid, it leaves little wiggle room for unexpected expenses. Total cash on hand at year end could be as low as $100,000, so being mindful of spending will be crucial. 

In the unknown column at this point are:

  1. How much of the prepaid money to vendors will we get back?
  2. How much, if any, will we need to refund Global Sponsors in 2020?

All that said, there is no way to avoid that this program will burn through substantial amounts of cash due to COVID-19.  

What does this mean to all of us, now and for the future?

WPCS and organizers need to continue asking the questions “Is this expense a wise use of funds? Will spending this money benefit WordPress event attendees and the broader community?”

Your Thoughts?

If you have any comments or questions about the data in this post, or thoughts on the possibility of WordCamps covering most of their respective expenses, please comment below! 

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on May 11, 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!

jillbinder 12:34 am on May 9, 2020
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Call for Participants: Diverse Speaker Workshops and Coaching in May & June

The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) is holding workshops and group coaching sessions to support diverse voices to share knowledge and stories at virtual WordPress meetups and WordCamps.

Workshop 1 of 3: Who am I to be speaking? & Finding a topic that people would love to hear

– We will dispel some myths about being a speaker and answer your questions about speaking. Together we will work on overcoming the thought, “But I’m not an expert in anything”.

– Via hands-on exercises and small group discussions, we will help you come up with topics and show you how to choose one. Everyone has something they can talk about – let’s find yours.

– No prerequisite

Tuesday, May 19 @ 5-6pm UTC (10-11am PT)
Tuesday, June 9 @ 5-6pm UTC (10-11am PT)

Workshop 2 of 3: Creating a great pitch

– Together we will write a 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. description 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. pitch for your talk. This also doubles as helping you start to write your talk!

– Prerequisite: Please come with an idea for a talk. If you don’t have one, then please make sure you attend Tuesday!

Wednesday, May 20 @ 5-6pm UTC (10-11am PT)
Wednesday, June 10 @ 5-6pm UTC (10-11am PT)

Workshop 3 of 3: Online stage presence

– We will give you tips for public speaking and being on camera. We will be making the improvements together in the call.

– No prerequisite

Thursday, May 21 @ 5-6pm UTC (10-11am PT)
Thursday, June 11 @ 5-6pm UTC (10-11am PT)

You are encouraged to attend all 3 workshops in a week, but you are also welcome to attend only the sessions you wish.

The following week, we’ll have group coaching both for workshop attendees to get additional support on the material as well as open to those who haven’t taken a workshop.

Group Coaching on Zoom: Q&A and Get Feedback

People from marginalized or underrepresented groups can get help on anything related to public speaking at WordPress events, such as:

– feedback on your title and pitch
– feedback on your slides
– practising your public speaking
– feedback on improving your public speaking
– feedback on organizing your talk structure
– answering Q&A questions you are worried people will ask
– etc.

Tuesday, May 26 @ 7-8pm UTC (12-1pm PT)
Thursday, May 28 @ 4-5pm UTC (9-10am PT)
Tuesday, June 16 @ 4-5pm UTC (9-10am PT)
Thursday, June 18 @ 7-8pm UTC (12-1pm PT)

You are also welcome to attend to just watch and learn from others getting coaching.

Please note! These offerings are intended to train speakers who are members of a marginalized or underrepresented group in terms of gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, age, etc.

If this is you, please register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wordpress-diverse-speaker-workshops-and-coaching-in-may-june-tickets-105466180184

Everyone, please help us spread the word!

—

P.S. Others who like to attend these sessions because you want to learn how to be good allies, please note that this is a closed workshop for members of marginalized or underrepresented groups only. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion material is not covered in these workshops. If there is enough interest, we could hold a different workshop for you in the future.

We do have a couple of resources available for you: Building A Diverse Speaker Roster and Inclusive and Welcoming Events.

Angela Jin 1:40 pm on May 8, 2020  

Update: Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for WordCamp US 2020

The 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. US organizing team has recently made the difficult decision to move WCUS 2020 online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship is intended to provide travel assistance to a woman-identifying contributor with financial need who has never attended WordCamp US before, we will not be issuing the scholarship this year. When it is safe to meet in person, we will resume the scholarship once again for future, in person, WordCamp US events.