Recap of the Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on January 18, 2024

Agenda: 
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2024/01/17/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-january-17th-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting links (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/.): APAC/EMEA, AMER

Hosts: @adityakane (EMEA) @harishanker (AMER)

Notes: @patricia70

In Attendance:
APAC/EMEA @adityakane (host) + @angelasjin @harishanker @hellosatya @javiercasares @KafleG @kirasong @nao @oglekler @onealtr @patricia70 @ratneshsonar @unintended8 @webtechpooja @yoga1103 + async @coachbirgit @josepmoran

AMER: @harishanker (host) + @alexcu21 @alexdeborba @annezazu @askdesign @gusa @hellosatya @nilovelez @tobifjellner @tokyobiyori @topher1kenobe @voboghure + async @ninianepress

Last meeting recap:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/12/28/recap-of-the-contributor-working-groups-mentorship-chat-on-december-21-2023/

Notes

We shared the agenda and latest win:
@adityakane: “Currently, we have received 10 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. and 13 mentee applications”

Mentorship Cohort Details

Program Schedule and status

• Call for 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. and mentees – Published
• Cohort selection & program building: (Jan 8 – Feb 15) – Ongoing
• Announce selected mentees/mentors (Feb 14)
• Mentorship Program: 4-6 weeks (Feb 19 – March 29; 6 weeks leading up to the release week)
• Graduation & Retrospective: 2 weeks (April 1 – April 12)

@gusa asks if it’s possible to publish which teams are selected by applicants.

More Mentorship Projects Wanted

Here is a summary of the ideas we have received thus far:

• @onemaggie and @kafleg have agreed to run a Community Theme Project within the program (this is a confirmed project, and we will be having this for our program!)
• Courtney (@courane01) had proposed an idea of creating collaborative Learn WordPress workshops (this program can only be worked on if there is a mentor from the training team)
• @annezazu proposed the idea of a dedicated mentorship opportunity for folks to shadow WordPress releases. (this idea is being worked on)
• gusaus (@gusa) proposed that we extend the do_action format to host a collaborative hackathon for the event. (this idea was just suggested and needs to be considered)

@ninianepress mentions potential projects for the Marketing and Docs:

• Mobile app end user articles
• Leveraging marketing strategies to eclipse WordPress competitors
• Data Liberation docs: https://wordpress.org/data-liberation/
• So many open issues in the Docs Team Issues Tracker: https://github.com/WordPress/Documentation-Issue-Tracker/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22good+first+issue%22
• https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/07/07/project-thread-learning-pathways-on-learn-wordpress/

@annezazu suggests a dedicated release-oriented mentoring project that offers participants an inside view of releases with dedicated projects. She also shared that as part of the Queeromattic Employee Resource Group of Automattic, scholarships could be made available for participants. The idea was welcomed with great enthusiasm. 

Request for Feedback

We had a discussion around @gusa proposal and comment about scholarship/stipend.

Additional ideas for Mentorship Projects:

• @patricia70 shares that BuddyPress expressed their interest in participating
• @yoga1103 proposes Guided Test sprints
• @yoga1103 and @webtechpooja mention Test bug scrub 

Amplify the Mentorship Calls

All working group members were encouraged to amplify the Mentorship calls. The Make/Marketing team already has published the following posts in social platforms on official WordPress accounts:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Additionally, the Make/Marketing team has an Amplify entry in their GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ profile.

@hellosatya proposes to involve the Make/Marketing team to have the mentorship program mentioned in every team’s meetings.

Criteria for Selecting Mentors and Mentees

Discussion around the criteria:
https://github.com/WordPress/wp-contributor-working-group-tracker/issues/9

Upcoming Tasks (Help welcome!)

We also reviewed upcoming tasks for the mentorship program. Working group members are encouraged to leave a comment on the relevant GitHub issue or help us by creating an issue.

• Documentation Tasks
  • Revise & establish a Mentor guide (handbook, resource guide)
  • Revise & establish a Mentee guide
  • Show running document
  • Status checklist template for each mentee
    • Check-in templates (30-day, 60-day, 90-day)
• Scheduling sessions and managing shared calendar
  • Kick-off Call
  • Onboarding sessions
  • Graduation Call
• Planning and executing Projects
• [Low Priority] Follow-up on the Mentorship Program participant spotlight articles

Open discussion

@angelasjin proposed “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.” for mentors where she will be answering questions and providing support to mentors as needed. 

Notes by @patricia70, reviewed by @harishanker and @nao 

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