Community Team Chat Recap: January 12, 2017

We held the monthly Community Team Chat today (January 12, 2017) at 19:00 UTC in #community-team on the Making 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/.. You can view the full Slack logs here (Slack account required to view).

2017 Goals

A reminder that we’d love to hear about your 2017 goals for the community. Please add your goals to the 2017 Goals post! (Slack logs):

DeputyProgram 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. Training

@chanthaboune gave an update on the Deputy training program (Slack logs):

@andreamiddleton wrote up the foundational modules for 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. which got some editing and testing at WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. in December. But we have designs on about six more modules to create and test that are specific to the tasks that deputies do:

  1. Vetting
  2. 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.
  3. Mentoring (which might get broken into some sub-modules to include budget review)
  4. Shipping swag
  5. Orientations
  6. SupportPress triage

If you’d like help test, please let @chanthaboune know!

WordCamps

@courtneypk reported on the status of WordCamps at the moment (Slack logs):

  • 3 WordCamps Scheduled for January: Pune, Waukesha, and Udaipur
  • 2 camps needs vetting
  • 1 camp needs an interview/orientation
  • 73 camps are in pre-planning

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.

@francina gave an update on Meetups (Slack logs):

  • 374 total 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. groups with 127,952 members and 1004 Organizers
  • 12 applications received
  • 12 new meetup groups
  • We have Meetup groups in 73 countries!
  • 34.2% groups in the US (128)
  • 65.8% groups are outside the US (246):
    • 6.4% Spain (24)
    • 5.9% Italy (22)
    • 5.1% Germany (19)
    • 5.1% United Kingdom (19)
    • 3.7% Canada (14)
    • 3.7% India (14)
  • We’re averaging about 443 events a month

It was brought up the issue that some of the smaller meetup groups struggle to stay around, and we should gather ideas for how to support these groups (Slack logs). @miss_jwo will be posting to this 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/. to gather more thoughts and ideas for meetup group promotion and growth.

Finances

@andreamiddleton shared her Sponsorship and Finances report for November and December 2016 (Slack logs).

To note: In December we executed a one-time equity transfer between 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. to WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. (WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program.),the subsidiary corporation we use to run 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./community funds through. The transfer was for $900,000, which was partly 2015 WordCamp revenue and partly surplus funds from 4+ years of WordCamps, to be a kind of a “nest egg” for WPCS.  This explains why the December revenue is quite high (without the transfer it is more in the $200,000 range).

MentorsEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is 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.

@brandondove gave a report on WordCamp mentors (Slack logs):

  • Active camps being mentored: 44
  • Active camps without a mentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is 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.: 29
  • Total mentors: 27
  • Active mentors: 19
  • Welcoming 1 mentor this cycle: @kenshino

We’re losing a few mentors in the very near future, and most of current mentors are at capacity. We’re hoping to pick up some new mentors as lead WordCamp organizers term out. Brandon will be contacting some folks soon.

There was additional discussion that deputies could benefit from more peer support and communication with other deputies (Slack logs). @andreamiddleton created a post to gather suggestions for ways to put deputies more closely in touch with each other. Please chime in!

Incubators

@chanthaboune shared a roadmap for the Incubator program (Slack logs):

  • Incubators were originally on a 12 month cycle when suggested, but since one of the main goals was to kickstart the local communities, it seems like an 18-24 month cycle would be best.
  • We have write ups about the WordCamps themselves coming, but are wanting to wait until 2018 for the next class of them.

Remember that these monthly Community team chats are on The first Thursday of every month at 19:00 UTC in #community-team on Slack. Check out the “Slack Chats” section on the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. of this P2 for other meeting & office hours times.

#agenda, #meeting