Two working group leadership opportunities

We have some new opportunities to take a leadership role on the global community teamGlobal Community Team A group of community organizers and contributors who collaborate on local events about WordPress — monthly WordPress meetups and/or annual conferences called WordCamps., recruiting volunteers to work on two different projects that we could take on if there is enough interest. 🙂

CoCCode of Conduct “A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia Training Project

We have a Code of ConductCode of Conduct “A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia for all WordPress community events, but do we equip all our organizers with the knowledge and skills they need to identify and address problem behavior? (The answer is no, we don’t — but we’d sure like to!)

The scope of the project is to design and execute Code of Conduct training course for WordPress community event organizers. When the organizer has completed the training, they should understand (at a minimum):

  • why our events have a code of conduct
  • what kind of behavior our code of conduct addresses
  • how to respond to code of conduct reports

Because we can’t predict whether we’ll always have the staffing to support synchronous, human-to-human training, this training will make the greatest impact if it’s available to be taken autonomously, rather like the WordCamp organizer self-training course we have now. The course doesn’t have to be original, but will probably be most effective if it’s tailored to the needs and interests of our community. It would be great if this working group included people familiar with curriculum design, code of conduct reports and enforcement, and/or diversity and inclusion work.

This idea was suggested on the Code of Conduct Response Questions discussion post, and multiple people agreed it was a good idea that they might be interested in working on. 🙂 (cc: @lucasartoni @gwendydd @mrwweb @trisha_cornelius)

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. Fundraising Research

Some WordCamps reach their fundraising goals with ease, and some really struggle. Are they all doing the same thing with wildly different results (surely not)? Is it always “who you know,” or are there practices we can add to our handbooks to help sponsor wranglers all over the world?

The scope of this project is to research the methods and practices of organizing teams that have been successful in their fundraising and then report back to the global community team with the results. The team may decide to try to send a survey out to WordCamp organizers, or might decide that interviews would be a more effective way to gather data. Volunteers with experience in successful WordCamp fundraising would be a big asset to this working group. We’ll be reporting which camps ran surpluses and deficits at the end of this year, so the group will be able to target their research.

Next steps

I’d love to identify a working group lead on both projects (interest permitting) by November 30. The work as a working group lead will include recruiting volunteers, scheduling and attending periodic meetings, posting reports on the team blog, and of course helping the group stay on track and achieve the goals of the project. Both of these projects involve temporary working groups, so you’re not signing up for a “forever” commitment. 🙂 Groups can also share the work and responsibilities in any way they find effective.

If you are interested in leading either of these efforts, or in participating in one of these working groups, please leave a comment on this thread! If you have questions, ask away.