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

jillbinder 9:10 pm on November 13, 2019
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Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#wpdiversity) on Nov. 13, 2019

Quick summary:

We talked about what group members accomplished recently and are planning on accomplishing this coming month. We had good discussions.

@aurooba asked for help with our Marketing messages to organizers.

@jillbinder talked about moving our Train The Trainers material forward quickly this week due to creating a version for a Drupal training this coming weekend.

Continue reading →

#wpdiversity

Courtney P.K. 1:00 pm on November 11, 2019  

Discussion: Community Swag

A while back, we discussed swag for Meetup Groups and Contributor Days, and the ways we could improve. After this discussion, we integrated a few changes that I’d like to follow up on. Please comment if you have feedback on these current processes!

Swag 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. Groups

We shortened the 18 month limit that we had on meetup groups ordering swag packs to 12 months. Has this been helpful? Is there still a strong demand for this swag, and do any organizers find that they are running out before the 12 months is up?

Swag Source Files

We updated the organizer handbook to include source files for all swag items, so organizers could opt to print these items locally. Has anyone tried to do this?

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/. Stickers

We started distributing packs of Contributor Stickers to WordCamps that hosted a Contributor Day.

I’d like to hear from you if you organized a Contributor Day at a 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. and received the Contributor Stickers! Did your attendees enjoy the stickers?

A few issues with these sticker sheets came to light. Some attendees tended to take one or two stickers, leaving the rest of the sheet behind, or completely discarding the rest of the sheet — this is a concern since it generates waste.

Because of this, I propose that we create contributor sticker packs, similar to the community sticker packs. This would mean that each individual badge sticker would be printed as an individual sticker, and packed all together in a bag.

Your thoughts?

Do you have any thoughts or ideas about the above processes for community swag? To summarize, we’re looking for your feedback on:

  • Did shortening the limit on meetup groups ordering swag packs to every 12 months help with the demand?
  • Have you tried printing your own swag using the source files?
  • Have the contributor sticker sheets been well-received by Contributor Day attendees?
  • What do you think about changing contributor stickers from sheets to individual packs?
WordCamp.org 4:00 am on November 11, 2019
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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!

Hugh Lashbrooke 8:45 am on November 6, 2019  

Community Chat Agenda | Thursday, 7 November 2019

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 7 November 2019. 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, November 7, 2019, 11:00 UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, November 7, 2019, 20:00 UTC

Deputy/Mentor check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going? Anything you need help with?

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

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

Aditya Kane 8:00 am on November 6, 2019  

Meetup organizer newsletter suggestions for November 2019

It’s about that time again, when we start preparing the November 2019 edition of the 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 newsletter.

If there are any topics you’d recommend we include, or any interesting meetup event formats you think are worth highlighting, please comment/leave your ideas/suggestions in the comments on this post.

We’ll leave this post open for comments until the 19th of November 2019.

The newsletter typically spotlights:

  • an interesting event format that organizers might want to try out
  • news about global community team projects
  • news about the WordPress 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. project

Thanks!

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on November 4, 2019
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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!

Andy McIlwain 1:37 pm on October 28, 2019
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Grow Your Meetup survey results for #WCUS

Thanks to all the 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 who responded to our recent survey. We received 23 submissions from around North America and abroad.

Many of the responses were very detailed and thorough. They’re too long to include here verbatim, so we’ve curated some common themes.

We added a bit of commentary in this post, and we’ll discuss these topics in more depth during our Grow Your Meetup! workshop at 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. You’ll find us in the Community Room, Room 274.

Tell us a bit about your group

  • Many Meetup groups are established vs new, at least a few years, some 10+ years
  • Covering a range of topics: beginners, advanced users, development
  • Active members are a small subset of overall membership

Comment: There’s an oft-cited model of community participation: 90/9/1. Out of your entire community group, 90% will be passive (lurkers); 9% will be active; and 1% will be very engaged regulars.

How big is your group?

  • Ranges from 100’s to 1000’s of total members
  • Average turnout ranges from 20-50 depending on the topic
  • Presentations attract more people than socials

Comment: 30 seems to be the sweet spot for a reasonably-sized meetup group, regardless of the total number of members registered in the meetup, nor those who RSVP for each event.

How often do you meet?

  • 65% meet once a month
  • 35% meet more than once a month
  • No respondents said less than once a month

Comment: Consistent, routine events are a must if you want to build a strong meetup group. An active meetup group should meet at least once a month. This consistency builds momentum that helps make future meetups more likely to happen.

How do you promote your group?

  • Meetup.com is the primary method
  • Social media (Facebook & Twitter) and word-of-mouth
  • WordPress Dashboard, if part of the Chapter program

Comment: In general, it seems like meetup organizers don’t do a lot of outreach or promotion — we rely on Meetup.com to bring members to us, as well as word-of-mouth referrals through existing group members. This could be a big opportunity for us to find new members.

What’s worked?

  • Consistency – same day of the month, every month
  • Mixing it up – different locations, times, appeals to different people
  • Involve the group – planning, choosing topics, online groups
  • Setting topics in advance; focusing on peer/user support

Comment: Two things here. First, consistency leads to routine which leads to habit. But what works for some people won’t work for others. That’s where options come into play: different days, different times, different formats, different topics, different locations.

Issues?

  • Finding locations/venues
  • Finding speakers/presenters
  • No-shows, low turnout vs RSVPs

Comment: Totally consistent with our experiences as organizers, and an ideal topic for our group brainstorming session on Friday morning.

Advice for new meetup organizers?

  • It takes time. Start small, persist, keep showing up
  • Don’t overthink/overcomplicate; have a structure/template
  • Plan in advance, get experts in as speakers
  • Have a team of committed co-organizers

Other advice?

  • Don’t try to do everything yourself; you’ll burn out
  • Recognize other leaders, invite others to step up
  • Diversity and inclusion takes effort, but it’s worth it
  • You’re growing a community, not just hosting a meetup

…

That’s just an overview of what we’ve heard through the survey. We’ll address all of these points, and much more, during the Grow Your Meetup! workshop at WordCamp US in the Community Room, Room 274.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey!

#wcus, #meetups-2

WordCamp.org 4:00 am on October 28, 2019
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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!

Milana Cap 10:52 pm on October 27, 2019
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Update: Contributor Orientation Tool

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. Europe 2019 organising team presented new tool that we’ve been developing to help new contributors select the make team they wish to contribute to – Contributor Orientation Tool. The tool was built as a prototype at which state we asked for feedback from broader community. Many thanks to @webcommsat for writing that post and @fabiofava, @iandunn, @karmatosed, @melchoyce and @mburridge for their feedback and input on that post.

As WordCamp Europe 2020 organising team is back to work, we are continuing our work on Contributor Orientation Tool as well. General plan is to write proposal and ask for help from community outside of WCEU org team, rebuild codebase, enable Make Teams reps manage content for their teams, launch 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 at WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and after that, at WordCamp.org with close collaboration with #meta and #meta-wordcamp teams, respectively.

Before we publish our proposal, we would like to ask anyone interested in getting involved to reach out either here, in comments; or in Make Slack, look for @francina, @webcommsat (@abhanonstopnewsuk on 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/.), @siemens82 (@aleksandarnis on Slack) or myself (@zzap on Slack); or come directly to GitHub repo.

Also, if you are attending WordCamp US, feel free to find @francina and/or myself and we can chat in person. Thank you.

Courtney P.K. 9:43 pm on October 23, 2019
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Announcing the 2020 Global Sponsorship Working Group

Thanks for all the interest in participating in the 2020 Global Sponsorship Working Group! I received lots of interest via both the call for volunteers post and direct email.

The working group this year will have the following members: @kcristiano, @mpmike, @lucasartoni, @bph, @aaroncampbell, @lindseyanne, @andreamiddleton and @courtneypk.

Timeline:

  • 7–15 November: 2–4 hours of independent program analysis and two 1-hour Working Group meetings
  • 20 November: Post program proposal
  • 25 November: Send program to sponsors

If you have been mentioned in this post and your availability has changed, please let me know as soon as possible. Thanks!

#global-sponsorship