WordCamp.org 4:00 am on October 11, 2021
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Weekly Updates

Hello to all our DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook., 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 Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. 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!

Courtney P.K. 9:18 pm on October 8, 2021
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Proposal: 2022 Global Community Sponsorship program

tl;dr: Due to the unpredictability in what events are happening and where, the global sponsorship program proposal for 2022 is similar to the pared-down 2021 program, with a single package. Sponsorship of WordCamps will be offered as an add-on, billed quarterly.

Below you will find a proposal draft for the Global Community Sponsorship program for 2022, with one package being offered as an annual commitment.

As the WordPress Community transitions to holding in-person WordCamps, the question arises of how the Global Sponsorship program will accommodate those events. Until we have more predictability in what events are happening and where, we will offer 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. sponsorship per event, billed at the end of each quarter.

Questions? Feedback?

If you have any questions, observations, or critical feedback about this proposal or the program in general, please comment on this post, no later than 15 October 2021. We hope to finalize the program details by 28 October 2021, to allow sponsors time to sign up by the end of the year.

Thanks so much for the hard work, input, and feedback by @angelasjin, @kcristiano, @_dorsvenabili, @sippis, and @courtneypk, with help crunching the numbers from @harmonyromo.

Now onto the proposal!

Continue reading →

#global-sponsorship, #proposal, #sponsorship

Timi Wahalahti 7:29 am on October 6, 2021
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Community Team Meeting Agenda for 2021-10-07

The last Community Team bi-weekly meeting is happening tomorrow. The meeting is meant for all contributors on the team and everyone who is interested in taking part in some of the things our team does. Feel free to join us, even if you are not currently active in the team!

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly meeting: 2021-10-07 12:00
Americas friendly meeting: 2021-10-07 21:00

Below is a preliminary agenda for the meeting. If you wish to add things you’d like bring to into discussion, comment below or reach out to team reps @sippis or @kcristiano. It does not need to be a blog post yet, the topic can be discussed during the meeting nevertheless. We use the same agenda for both meetings.

New meeting times

As per the decision made some weeks ago, this is the last Community Team bi-weekly meeting. After this meeting the Community Team will have three monthly meetings:

  • Community Team meeting, on the first Thursday of each month
  • Comunity Local Organiser meeting, on the second week of each month
  • MentorMentor Someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. and DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. chat, on the third week of each month

The exact weekday and time for the two last meetings are still being voted. Please read the full announcement and vote for meeting times!

Deputy / Mentor / Contributor check-ins

What have you been doing and how is it going? What you got accomplished after the last meeting? Are there any blockers? Can other team members help you in some way?

Proposals

Tuesday Trainings:

Announcements, Invites, and Workshops

Open floor

Opportunity to bring things into discussions that weren’t on the meeting agenda and if anyone has something they would like to share with the team. If you have a topic in mind before the meeting, please add it into the comments of this post.

Hope to see you on Thursday, either on Asia-Pacific / EMEA or Americas friendly version of the meeting!

#meeting-agenda, #team-chat, #team-meeting

Timi Wahalahti 10:34 pm on October 5, 2021
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Tuesday Training: How mentors and deputies are chosen

Earlier in the Tuesday Trainings series, Angela has told everything about Community Deputies and Courtney has explained what the WordCamp Mentorship program is about. This week I thought to share how mentorsMentor Someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. and deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. are chosen.

It’s actually a lot easier than you might think! Like all other roles in the Community Team, becoming a mentorMentor Someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. or deputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. is not an invitation-based thing. It’s usually a natural part of someone climbing the leadership ladders of the Community Team from connecting and understanding to engaging.

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. Mentors

If you have experience in organising WordCamps, you are most probably a good fit to be a WordCamp mentor and can apply for that role!

Mentors are not some super WordCamp organisers, they are just like almost everyone else in the WordPress community – individuals who have gained some experience and want to share it and help others. At the same time, the mentors are also themselves WordCamp organisers learning and evolving.

When someone applies to be a WordCamp mentor, the main thing we look for is how involved they have been in organising WordCamps. You don’t have to have multiple years of being a lead organiser in your belt – few years with experience in the team and usually at least one year being a lead organiser is enough. What matters most, is how active you have been in WordCamps and how diverse your knowledge is.

Do you have experience in WordCamp organising and want to help other WordCamp organisers? Take the WordCamp Mentor Self training to get started and then submit an application!

Community DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook.

Like mentors, Community Deputies are fundamentally like any other community members – meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. attendees, event organisers and WordPress enthusiasts themselves. There’s no requirement that you should be a community professional.

If you have experience in WordPress event organising, you are active in your local community and you find yourself being a people-oriented person, there’s a good possibility that you would be a good fit in the group of deputies!

Deputies tend to have a little deeper knowledge of the WordPress community, but it’s not necessary to know all aspects of it or the Community Team. The most valuable skill of every deputy, that the team is looking for, is to be very keen on helping community contributors. Other things the team is looking for are passion to develop Community Teams various event programs and to be good in different situations as well as with people. A deputy role is something where everyone grows while carrying out the responsibilities, there’s no set skillset that is required – the most important thing is the mindset and that’s what we are looking for.

If you have a passion for not just helping other WordCamp organisers, but all local communities, apply to become a Community Deputy!

After submitting a WordCamp Mentor or Community DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. application, few existing deputies will review it. If they find you would be a good fit, they’ll send you an email with a request to have an orientation to tell the essential details before starting to help the community. Sometimes they might ask to take a self-training to exercise your skills a little further before the orientation.

In case your application is rejected, that does not mean that you couldn’t apply again after gaining some more experience in the WordPress community!

Have some questions about becoming a WordCamp Mentor or Community Deputy? Not quite sure if you should or can apply? Do you want to prepare before applying? Come and join us in the #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!

#community-deputies, #community-mentors, #mentors, #tuesdaytrainings

Timi Wahalahti 3:57 pm on October 4, 2021
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Proposal: Sunsetting Weekly Updates

Community Team blog has automated “Weekly Updates” posts starting from around 2016. The idea behind those posts is that every Community Team member, event organiser, mentorsMentor Someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. and deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook., could share with others in the comments section what they have done during the last week.

The posts have never gained popularity. Most of the posts have only one to three comments and around half of those posts do not have any comments. At the same time with these posts, the team has a tradition to share at the beginning of each meeting what the attendees have done after the last meeting.

So basically there has been two opportunities to share updates with the rest of the team, and the latter one has been widely more used.

That’s why I’m proposing that we sunset (eg. remove all future) automated Weekly Updates posts. As a replacement, in every meeting attendees could take an extra minute or two to post their update into the comments section of the agenda post. Those team members who can’t join the meeting can also share their updates in the comments.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts before 2021-10-21.

#weekly-update

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on October 4, 2021
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook., 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 Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. 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!

Ryan Marks 3:18 am on October 1, 2021
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Proposal: Link WordCamp schedule track headings to Pages

While organizing 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, I suggested that we link each of the track headings on the schedule page to the pages where attendees would see our YouTube video and chat embeds (Yukon and Columbia). Since we are using the schedule blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience., it’s not possible to edit that part of the page.

To support this feature, I believe two changes are necessary:

1. Add a term metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. field

Add a field to Add Track and Edit Track screens to allow a relative URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org path to be specified. In the case of the Yukon track, the value entered would be “/yukon-track”.

The current Add Track screen.
The current Edit Track screen.

This field should not be required for many reasons including:

  1. The schedule is ready to be published but the track pages are not.
  2. The WordCamp is 100% in-person and doesn’t have a need for track pages.

2. Add the link to the schedule grid

If the a URL path was defined for a track, add a link in the respective grid column headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes..

An example of the schedule grid if only the Yukon track had a URL path defined.

Feedback requested

I would appreciate getting feedback on this proposal.

  1. Would this be useful to WordCamp organizers?
  2. Are there any reasons why not to do this?

Deadline: October 15th, 2021 Extended until October 29, 2021 to gather additional input.

#proposal, #schedule

Hari Shanker R 1:09 pm on September 30, 2021
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X-post: 30 days of translation celebration!

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/polyglots: Comment on 30 days of translation celebration!

Afshana Diya 9:28 am on September 28, 2021
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Tuesday Training: How to Promote WordPress Meetup In Your Local Tech Community To Get More Attendance [Meetup Marketing Guide]

If there’s a question you’d like to see answered or a topic you’d like to see discussed, please share it in the comments or email support@wordcamp.org with the subject line “Tuesday Trainings”. Now onto this week’s topic!

Promoting your WordPress meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. and getting enough attendance might look more challenging at this moment because of COVID-19, but there are a handful of things that you can do and increase participants. The Marketing team previously published WordPress Meetup Tips & Tricks to help you promote your meetup and we hope it helped you. 

In this guide, we will focus more on how to promote your Meetup Event in a non-WordPress community and reach a new audience in order to increase attendance.

First Things To Do: Tailor Your Meetup Event Page For New Audience

  • Catchy Meetup Title & Featured ImageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts.: Meetup titles and featured images are very important to grab initial attention. Make sure you are utilizing that properly to make people sign up. 
  • Compelling Description to Welcome Anyone: Please make sure you have a proper description for your meetup event and a basic agenda. Mention clearly that anyone, even folks that are new to WordPress, is welcomed to join.
  • Information About Speakers & Expertise: Gather diverse speakers with different expertise to make people interested in the event.
  • Pick a Suitable Time & Date: Consider adjusting the time and date for your event to ensure that it is convenient for your targeted audience. Even though many organizers prefer hosting their events during weekends, the perfect date/time for scheduling a meetup changes from place to place.

10 Ways to Promote Your Meetup To Non-WordPress Community

1. Embrace The Power of Social Media

  • Share on Facebook Local Groups: In many countries, Facebook groups are very popular and a great way to engage with people. Find the relevant tech groups in your local area and share your meetup links with some customized caption to connect with that specific community.
  • Share in LinkedIn Feed: Unlike other social media, LinkedIn is popular among professional people. So sharing WordPress meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. on your LinkedIn feed might be helpful to spread the word to different professional individuals. 
  • Share on Instagram: In these days, people love to share about attending events and their experiences on Instagram with images. A photo from a previous meetup can be intriguing and could be a great way to invite people to join your next event.
  • And Tweeeeet: Twitter is commonly very popular among the WordPress community and you should leverage this to promote your meetup. Use hashtags and share them multiple times on Twitter with your meetup event link.

2. Find Diverse Speakers & Empower Them To Promote Meetup

There are a lot of people who are involved in more than one technology community or use CMSes other than WordPress. Find them and invite them to participate in your WordPress Event. Once they are onboarded, ask them to share about your meetup with their networks, especially out of the WordPress community. Help the speakers with blurbs to share on social media to promote to their followers. You can check out WordPress Diversity Speaker Training Workshop to learn more.

3. Leverage Your Sponsors To Spread The Word

It’s very common to accept sponsorship for the venue or refreshments for in-person meetups. Ask your sponsors to spread the news about upcoming Meetup events.

4. Partner With Local IT/Tech Companies

Reach out to local IT companies, even those that are not focusing on WordPress. Invite them to join your WordPress meetup for FREE and connect with fellow programmers

5. Help Attendance to Promote With Pre-written Text Messages

We are all busy. If you can prepare some pre-written text messages that anyone can easily share to promote your event, then it can be very helpful and a lot of people can quickly share with their networks. 

6. Collaborate With Other Local Communities

In most countries, there are multiple tech communities. You can partner up with them and promote your WordPress meetup in their community to get some new attendees. 

7. Reach Out to WordPress Experts In Your Locality

As they are passionate about WordPress and have long experience, request them to spread the word or ask for suggestions if they have any plan to promote WordPress.

8. Invite With Local Universities Or Educational Institute

Reach out to the IT department or club of the local institute and invite them to attend the meetup. It could be helpful and eye-opening for students and potential users.

9. Utilize The Meetup.com Message Feature

Request your existing member to join and share your event with their friends and colleagues. Using the Meetup.com ‘Contact Members‘ feature, you can easily send emails to current members of your meetup chapter.

10. Turn Attendees Into WordPress Ambassadors

Your attendees liked your event enough to register in the first place and they are the most passionate advocates of WordPress. So, it should be easier to convince them to spread the news and become WordPress Ambassadors.

Questions?

Contact the Community Team, or come join the conversation in the #community-events channel in the Making WP Slack!

Are you 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 and have more tips for promoting WordPress events? Please share your ideas in the comments!

#meetups, #tuesdaytrainings

Hari Shanker R 10:20 am on September 27, 2021
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Announcement: Returning to in-person do_action charity hackathons

In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, do_actiondo_action do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org. hackathons moved online in March 2020. In the past 18 months, there have been five successful regional do_action events that were held fully online with more events in the pipeline. As in-person meetups and now WordCamps are slowly coming back, it is time to bring back in-person do_action events too. 

Since do_action hackathons are similar to in-person meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook., the guidelines applicable for in-person meetups apply to do_action hackathons as well.

In other words:

If:

  1. local public health authorities say people can gather in person, AND
  2. your region passes the in-person safety checklist, THEN

Go ahead and hold an in-person do_action hackathon, following local health guidelines!

ALSO… If:

  1. local public health authorities say people can gather in person, AND
  2. your region doesn’t pass the in-person safety checklist, BUT
  3. vaccines are available for anyone who wants one in your region, THEN

Local community organizers can (if they want to) plan in-person do_action hackathons for fully-vaccinated, recently tested negative, or recently recovered people, following local health guidelines! 

Due to the charitable nature of these events, WordPress would like to highlight do_action events (whether they are held online or in-person) on the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. website (wordpressfoundation.org), through social media, and whenever possible, in local media. Send an email to info@doaction.org or 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.” one of the Community DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. in Make/WordPress 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/. (in the #community-events channel) if you would like help with outreach.

Important

The most important guideline to note for in-person do_action hackathons is that in all cases, organizers should always follow local health guidelines.

do_action events could have more close contact between volunteers than regular meetups, so it is important that organizers follow local safety guidelines closely. Check out the website of your local health authority for more information. We have compiled a list of some local health authorities in our handbook.

  • No organizer should request or collect information from members about their vaccination status.
  • Additional safety measures that go beyond local health guidelines are OK! Organizers could consider asking attendees to wear masks, or limiting attendance at indoor events, for instance.
  • Venues should be fully refundable in case of any cancellation (Free or donated venues are preferred).
  • Online do_action hackathons can continue for the foreseeable future.

Recommendations

  • Try aiming for smaller events – a hackathon with two participating non-profits with 10-20 volunteers is still an excellent event!
  • In-person do_action hackathons have historically been full-day events, but it does not need to be that way. You could organize a half-day opening/closing event, providing light refreshments, and continue the work online, spreading things across a few days. You can still organize a full-day hackathon if you wish to, following local safety guidelines.
  • Look for a free venue to host your hackathon. Public institutions such as schools or colleges, or WordPress agencies are generally happy to provide their space for a charitable event. Such venues (especially WordPress agencies) usually have excellent internet connectivity and can be onboarded as in-kind sponsors too. Just make sure that your venue meets our guidelines. You can also find sponsors for event refreshments.
  • If you are interested, you can organize a hybrid do_action hackathon, where participants can choose to join the event remotely and collaborate online. 
  • For local, in-person hackathons, consider creating anevent for your local meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. group on meetup.com and ask participants/volunteers to RSVP in order to get an accurate headcount – this might help with contact tracing, and attendee tracking if your local laws mandate so.
  • Try to keep your in-person hackathons as local as possible. Out of station volunteers can be encouraged to participate remotely. 

You can learn more about do_action charity hackathons in our handbook. Feeling inspired, and wish to organize an in-person (or online) do_action hackathon? Apply now!

#do_action #in-person #announcement

The following people contributed to this post: @courtneypk @dansoschin @_dorsvenabili and @yoga1103