Deputy Chats

The weekly team meeting on Thursdays (vs the office hoursOffice Hours Defined times when the Global Community Team are in the #community-events Slack channel. If there is anything you would like to discuss – you do not need to inform them in advance.You are very welcome to drop into any of the Community Team Slack channels at any time. for organizers to pop in and ask for stuff) is intended to be when all the deputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. can get together and discuss issues real-time. As we expand the team, it seems that the percentage of deputies in the chat gets lower due to schedules and time zones. I’d like us to figure out a way for more deputies to be able to participate this way. Some possibilities:

  • Alternate meeting times so that one week is a good (or good enough) time for one side of the world, and the alternating week is a good time for the other side of the world. Pros: not so US-centric. Cons: Will still be inconvenient for a lot of people, and may be hard to remember which time meeting is happening (though you can set every other week gcal reminders).
  • Keep meeting as is (or another time that works for the majority), but post detailed notes immediately after, and consider the meeting to go on for another 24 hours in the comments before making any decisions. Pros: Easy to remember when meeting is, can probably get a quorum of deputies to attend. Cons: Will be biased toward the people whose schedules allow them to attend at that time in terms of real-time chat/connection, and decisions will be made by a subset rather than the whole group.
  • Continue weekly chats as is, but add a second chat at a time that is convenient for the opposite time zones, and have the people who missed the 1st chat get together and discuss the notes from it, and weigh in as a group on the summary thread. Pros: more opportunities for connection and discussion, more group opinions on decisions rather than individual one-offs. Cons: likely still weighted toward US because of where people live.
  • Continue weekly chats as is, but add a monthly chat that all deputies should attend, and rotate the time on the monthly chat so that it’s at a sucky time for different people each month. Pros: would get us at least a once per month group chat with everyone, and the inconvenience factor would be equal. Cons: saving things up for a once a month chat is not efficient, and having anyone do a meeting at 2 am is pretty terrible.

What do y’all think? Anyone have any good ideas?

#deputies, #agenda, #community-management, #meeting, #team-chat