Few weeks ago, @kcristiano, @angelasjin and I began discussing our Community Team meetings, and how they could improve to foster more discussions and connections.
The Current Challenge
In short, we believe that there are too many meetings taking place at the moment and the format of those meetings are not catering to the Community Team as well as they could. To give you a hint where the problem lies, here’s a list of current Community Team meetings (not including working groups):
- Community Team meeting every first and third Thursdays of month. Repeated twice on the same day to cater different time zones. Takes place in #community-team Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel. Meeting agenda consists mostly of going through published blog posts about current matters and important discussion.
- Community Office 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. every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Takes place in #community-events Slack channel. Opportunity for community members and event organisers to ask everything from community deputies 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..
- Deputy 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. Office Hours every other week on Thursdays and Fridays. Repeated twice on the same day to cater different time zones. Takes place in Zoom. No agenda, more a space for deputies 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. to talk about their work and related challenges face to face. This is a new thing that started in 2021.
The basic problem appears to be hat there are many meetings, but attendance and engagement is low. These meetings are mostly targeted for community deputies that are deeply involved with the team, and not for event organisers. That feels a bit skewed, as the Community team’s ultimate objective is to work to benefit the greater community.
The Proposal
To make Community Team meetings more interesting, helpful, easier to approach and attend, Angela, Kevin and I would like to propose updating our meetings! Instead of the meetings listed above, the Community Team would move to the following ones:
Community Team meeting
Once a month for anyone currently involved or who wants to get involved in the Community Team. Still repeated twice on the same day to cater time zones and taking place in #community-team Slack channel.
Shorter agenda, more open floor discussion and personal updates from community members. Highlighted blog posts at the end of the meeting instead of being in limelight and taking most of the time. We will encourage discussion in these meetings and link to the discussions on the agenda posts for those who cannot attend to review.
We are also hoping to record minutes for these meetings and post that to the P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. as well. A volunteer is needed to take the minutes. This role can rotate, one need to make a long term commitment (but we’d love it if you did).
Community Local Organiser meeting
Once a month for WordCamp 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 meetup 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. organizers. Repeated twice on the same day to cater time zones. Taking place in #community-events Slack channel.
No formal agenda. The purpose would be to become a place where local community organisers can share how their community is doing, successes and challenges, and learn from each other. Ambition is to bring local community organisers closer to each other as well as the community team, strengthening the connections.
Deputy and Mentor 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. Chats
Once a month for all active Deputies and Mentors 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.. Repeated twice on the same day to cater time zones. Taking place in Zoom. No formal agenda. Place for deputies and mentors to share their knowledge with each other and to talk about challenges encountered in our weekly work.
What do you think, would these new meetings make sense? Is there something that should be included in these meetings? Are some meeting types missing from the list?
Please share your thoughts and ideas by 2021-08-23 at latest.
#meetings, #team-chat, #team-meeting
