Email addresses and support queues for working groups

In experimenting with our team’s new “working group” model, it’s become apparent that some groups will need ways to communicate with the organizer community in an official capacity. Since these groups aren’t always entirely staffed with trained 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. (and don’t need to be), I’m reluctant to add them to our regular community organizer support queue for privacy reasons. I’m also reluctant to ask that anyone helping on a working group be vetted and trained as a 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.; that requirement makes sense when someone is working in an advisory or oversight-related role in our program, but working groups don’t always require that level of training.

So my proposal is that we set up a separate support queue, with multiple mailboxes, that the working groups  can use to interact with organizers (or attendees, etc) in a coordinated way. If a group needs to set up a contact form so people can reach out to them and ask for help or give feedback in a private way, we can forward the info from that contact form to the appropriate mailbox, and then the working groups can collaborate on handling and responding to the messages.

The Diversity Speaker Training Workshop group definitely needs an email address, so they can field requests for help with planning or running the workshops they’re promoting with organizers. An address will probably be necessary for the Fundraising Research group, which will get started next month with @kcristiano at the helm.

Proposed addresses:

Diversity Speaker Training Workshop group: speaker-training@wordcamp.org
Fundraising research group: fund-research@wordcamp.org

Does this sound reasonable to everyone? If so, I’ll get this set up as soon as possible. 🙂