Getting Started FAQ

What sort of meetup should I organize?

Your WordPress meetupMeetup 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. event can be anything you like. Who are the people you have talked to about setting up your meetup interested in? Start there.

If you are looking for inspiration about the kinds of meetupsMeetup 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. people host, here are some ideas.

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Where should we hold our meetup?

Where you hold your meetup will depend on the kind of meetup you have. Coffee shops and public spaces are a great idea if it’s a casual hangout. If you are keen on doing some educational or informational meetups, you may want to look at your city or town’s public education locations.

Your meetup group members and their network of contacts can be a great resource for meetup venues; ask group members to suggest venue ideas for future gatherings if one of your favorite spots suddenly becomes unavailable or if you’re struggling to find somewhere to meet.

Here are some locations where other WordPress meetup/user groups have found work for them:

  • public library
  • coffee shop
  • community college
  • state university
  • co-office/co-working space
  • community center
  • the conference room of a friendly local business
  • restaurant
  • food court at a mall

To ensure that meetups are as inclusive as possible, we now ask organizers to avoid holding events at venues that have ties to religious or political organizations. Our goal is for any event to be welcoming for every member of the WordPress community (regardless of economic or social status, race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age, or disability), and thus we avoid venues with affiliations that might not be inclusive.

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How do I post my meetup on meetup.com?

In the center column of your group’s meetup.com home page just below the title of your group you will see a plus sign (+) and the text “Suggest a new meetup”. Select that and complete the following information.

Because meetup.com will update your members as you make adjustments to the page, in order to help the group retain a non-“spammy” feel, we ask that you have the following items ready to go when you post your suggestion.

  1. Title
  2. Description
  3. Location
  4. Time duration
  5. Event Type (Presentation, Q&A, Hangout, Social, Help Desk, Other)

Here are some suggestions for event title formats that start with a targeted user level or event type to help your members quickly decide if the event is for them:

  • Beginner: Managing images in WordPress
  • Intermediate: How to troubleshoot a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party
  • Social: Bloggers meet and greet
  • Developer Beginner: Building your first plugin
  • Developer: Breakfast with Q&A
  • All Levels: WordPress Help Desk
  • Hangout: Let’s chat about our sites over coffee

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Who is eligible to speak at our event?

Event organizers for meetups should follow the same rules as WordCamp when finding eligible speakers. We do ask that individuals do not schedule meetups in order to sell products or services.

Teaching a workshop organized by an official meetup group is a contribution to the WordPress open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project, just like submitting a patch to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., writing documentation for the codex, or answering questions in the support forums.

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Can I get sponsors for our meetup?

Sponsors are able to support the meetup by paying for or donating the venue, refreshments and/or hosting for your meetup website (if you have one), or other things that benefit the meetup group as a whole.

Handling money for a community event can get complicated quickly (taxes! transparency!), so we suggest that sponsorship be approached as “in-kind.” For example, a company could sponsor an event by ordering pizzas or a sandwich platter.

The key point to remember is that Meetup sponsorships are donations, and companies that sponsor do not get anything in return, even through “innocent” means such as handing out company swag. Any sponsor activity that elicits some sort of marketing for the company is not allowed, as described in the Five Good-Faith Rules. We want local communities to focus on sharing knowledge and connecting with each other, not on providing a cheap marketing platform.

Examples of things that are not considered meetup sponsorship and are not permitted: Merchandising, excessive flyers/banners, coupon codes, or excessive swag (t-shirts, pencils, notebooks, etc.). In fact, these things are cheap marketing for companies. It is important that the event is not full of sponsor banners or merchandising because we want to avoid people attending a WordPress meetup and thinking that they’re attending an event of the sponsor.

Meetup sponsors are allowed to have a discrete banner and provide some swag at a side table. Organizers can thank the sponsors at the beginning and/or end of the event for donating the meeting space, refreshments, etc., and can invite attendees to take their swag.

Any company that wants to sponsor any official WordPress event should understand that supporting local communities to grow healthy will benefit the ecosystem of small and medium businesses in the area and thus will have a positive effect on the sponsor as well, apart from visibility. Additionally, sponsors should follow this set of expectations for engaging with official WordPress events.

You can add your local sponsors in Settings –> Sponsors:
https://www.meetup.com/g/YOUR-GROUP-NAME/settings/sponsors/

We recommend adding the company logo, company name and a short phrase with a description of what they’ve donated/paid, for example: “Thank you XXXX for donating the venue for our Meetup events!”

For more discussion about meetup sponsors, check out this post.

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How do I make our meetup attractive to people?

There are many ways to help attract members to your event. Please keep in mind that it may take one or two tries to gain traction, while others may be a smash hit from the start. Some suggestions for the event itself:

  • Find a time when people can attend.
  • Choose a location that is easy to find and has easy or free parking.
  • If you select a topic choose one that you are interested in or knowledgeable about.
  • Optimize your meetup.com page/s and welcome email to give people great information about your meetup There are more ideas on how to do that, and [resources to help you do that on this page here]

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How do I spread the word about our meetup?:

  • Meetup.com: Any scheduled events will be shared with the meetup group via email. Please keep in mind users have the option to turn this feature of meetup off and may not receive your meetup emails.
  • Meetup.com: group message board
  • Other Groups: contacting local PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php., JavascriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/., social media, blogging, or open source groups (etc) to tell them about a new WordPress group in town
  • Websites: city blogs, local tech community message boards or event listings
  • Twitter: connect with local users who have an interest in WordPress and community
  • Flyers: if there’s a local coffee shop where you see other people blogging or coding, put up a flyer there. Same thing with your local co-working space.

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