What a year it’s been so far!
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. Europe sparked new events and new supporter interest. We celebrated the successful closing of the Meetup Reactivation Project. And Next Generation events are being held while new ideas continue to flow in.
With that, @juliarosia and I continued to work on updating our Community Team contributor roles that help make this all possible.
Q2 Accomplishments
The Q1 Phase largely focused on the structure of our roles. It answered questions like:
- Should we add new roles to support our meetups 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.?
- Should we restructure our current roles to support our meetups?
- Should we update the role names? If so, what should they be?
- How can we unify our contributor system to remove busy work and provide paths for growth?
For Q2, we took those answers and began implementing them.
- We changed the tasks of the 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. role (now called Event 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.), allowing it to encompass Next Generation events as well as meetups.
- This role restructure provides an opportunity for new contributors to become more active on the team and grow their skills towards becoming a Program 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. (formerly referred to as ‘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.’).
- We began using the new names, and started the process of updating documentation.
- We invited some 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. Reactivators to apply to become Event or Program Supporters. Those who accepted have been able to test the new unified application, orientation, and onboarding process.
Outcomes
So far we have 5 new supporters who have gone through orientation and are in the process of being onboarded. We will continue to onboard new supporters in groups throughout Q3, as we update and test the system. Today, we can welcome these new Community Team contributors.
New Program Supporters
New Event Supporters
Additionally, Pooja Derashri (Program Supporter) and Ahmed Kabir Chaion (Event Supporter) are waiting to schedule their orientations. Seven others are being vetted, and new applications continue to come in.
WordCamp Mentoring
As we’ve been discussing, mentoring has moved from a role to a task. This enables the flexibility our contributors need to support the community as the Community Team programs evolve.
Event and Program Supporters will be able to mentor meetups and non-WordCamp Next Generation events, even if they don’t have WordCamp lead organizer experience, opening the door for new contributors to grow their mentorship skills.
Note: for now anyone mentoring a WordCamp is still required to have led a successful WordCamp from application to completion, and demonstrated the necessary communication skills to support these events.
Documentation
The Q2 Phase had two goals:
- Implement the new name changes and unified application and orientation system.
- Update the documentation to support the changes.
New Additions
These updates are underway. The handbook name has changed (though not on the handbook itself just yet), the new unified application is in place, and a page describing the new Event and Program Supporter roles has been added, along with the new orientation script.
Ongoing Work
As you can imagine, there is a lot of documentation to review and update. I’ve been working with the development team to implement a system for recording name changes so they’ll be able to create the necessary redirects.
To support these efforts, I will be asking for help and providing documentation for those interested. Please consider if that is you!
What’s Next
The Q3 Phase will focus on streamlining the contributor onboarding process, improving our task documentation, and testing ways to make performing our tasks more sustainable and more enjoyable.
Thank you for your support and feedback so far. We look forward to your continued help with these updates.
#community-team,
#new-supporters,
#updates
