Announcing the Second Cohort (2024 Q1) of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program

We are thrilled to share the exciting news about the launch of the second cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship program, starting next week, Monday, February 19th! This program offers a special chance for those enthusiastic about WordPress to immerse themselves in the project and make impactful contributions.

Who Are the Mentees?

This cohort is made up of over 50 diverse contributors, each either matched with a 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. or part of a task-focused project under the guidance of multiple 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.. These participants were chosen from a pool of 76 applicants from around the globe. All those who submitted an application should have an email waiting for them with the application results.

Program Breakdown

This cohort will span over a six-week period:

  • Weeks 1 and 2 (February 19 – March 3): Kick-off session, initial mentor/mentee check-in, setting contribution goals, and online workshops.
  • Weeks 3 and 4 (March 4 – March 17): Focus on onboarding mentees to their chosen Make/WordPress teams, with support from team representatives, to make their initial contributions.
  • Weeks 5 and 6 (March 18 – March 29): Wrap up, set a 30-60-90-day goal, and a graduation session.

After these six weeks, mentees will gain a solid understanding of the WordPress project, contribute to their chosen Make/Teams, and prepare for continued involvement. Following the pilot cohort’s success, this cohort’s timing is again aligned with the WordPress 6.5 release, providing mentees with a firsthand look at the release process of WordPress.

Our Mentors

The success of this program is largely due to our dedicated mentors who provide one-on-one support, guiding mentees through their WordPress journey.

Project/GroupMentor(s)
6.5 DocumentationAnand Upadhyay @anandau14
Bengali Polyglots OnboardingMuhibul Haque @devmuhib
Community ThemesMargarita Cabrera Ramirez @onemaggie
Ganga Kafle @kafleg
Community/Polyglots/SupportArthur Kasirye @thehopemonger
CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.Kira Schroder @kirasong
Anne McCarthy @annezazu
Benjamin Zekavica @benjamin_zekavica
Docs SprintJenni McKinnon @ninianepress
India Event ReactivationAditya Kane @adityakane
Alexander Gounder @gounder
Aravind Ajith @aravindajith
Yogesh Londhe @yoga1103
Learn WordPress Content TranslationJenny Dupuy @jdy68
MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress.Steven Dufresne @dufresnesteven
Courtney Robertson @courane01
Photo Directory Reviewer TrainingTopher DeRosia @topher1kenobe
Polyglots & SupportTor-Bjorn Fjellner (Tobi) @tobifjellner
Polyglots Documentation OnboardingEstela Rueda @estelaris
Spanish Community + WPTVNilo Velez @nilovelez
Spanish Community Mentoring and Community OnboardingJuan Hernando @unintended8
Spanish Polyglots OnboardingJosep Morán @josepmoran/
SupportKavya Gokul @properlypurple
Sustainable ContributionPatricia Brun Torre @patricia70
TestOlga Gleckler @oglekler
Pooja Derashri @webtechpooja

Join and Follow Along

In the spirit of openness and collaboration, we invite the WordPress community to follow our cohort’s progress. While not everyone can be assigned a specific mentor,  those interested are welcome to join the #contributor-mentorship channel on Make/WordPress 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/.. Here, you can engage in public sessions and stay informed about the developments of the WordPress 6.5 release and the broader contributor community.

For future updates on this program, you can check come back to this URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/tag/mentorship-program/ (RSS)

Acknowledgments

This program couldn’t happen without the tireless efforts of our mentors, the Contributor Working Group, and all involved in organizing and supporting this initiative. Your dedication to fostering growth and learning within the WordPress community is invaluable. Let’s make this cohort a success together to enhance mentorship within the WordPress project and empower more contributors!

@adityakane @angelasjin @hellosatya @javiercasares @KafleG @kirasong @nao @oglekler @onealtr @patricia70 @ratneshsonar @unintended8 @webtechpooja @yoga1103 @coachbirgit @josepmoran @harishanker @alexcu21 @alexdeborba @annezazu @askdesign @gusa @nilovelez @tobifjellner @tokyobiyori @topher1kenobe @voboghure @ninianepress @malgra @soberbanda @anandau14 @devmuhib @leogopal @matteoenna @lumiblog @krupajnanda

#wpcontributors, #5ftf, #contributor-working-group, #five-for-the-future, #mentorship-cohort-july-2023, #mentorship-program #contributor-mentorship-program

Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | February 15th 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

The next Mentorship chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group is on the cards. We’re meeting today – on Thursday (February 15th) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats.

Today’s chat is particularly exciting, because we are launching the second cohort of the Contributor Mentorship Program next week (February 19th)!

Meeting times

We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack. Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar. Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@adityakane, @alexcu21, @angelasjin, @casiepa, @cbringmann, @coachbirgit, @courane01, @devmuhib, @foosantos, @gusa, @harishanker, @javiercasares, @jeffpaul, @jominney, @josepmoran, @juliarosia, @kafleg, @leogopal, @leonnugraha, @matteoenna, @meher, @kirasong, @milana_cap, @mysweetcate, @nao, @ninianepress, @nomadskateboarding, @oglekler, @onealtr, @onemaggie, @patricia70, @ratneshsonar, @realloc, @sereedmedia, @st810amaze, @sumitsingh, @thehopemonger, @thewebprincess, @tobifjellner, @topher1kenobe, @unintended8, @webtechpooja, @yoga1103, @hellosatya, @alexdeborba, @annezazu, @askdesign, @nilovelez, @tokyobiyori, @voboghure

Agenda

In the last mentorship chat, we finalized plans for our next cohort. Last week, thanks to y’all’s timely feedback, we published the call for mentors and mentees for the next cohort!

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves.

Any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Mentorship Cohort #2 status update
We closed our 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 last week, and we are close to announcing our selected mentors and mentees (waiting for some final confirmation/feedback from mentors). At this point, we will chat about the current state of the selection process for transparency.

3. Draft Program Schedule
A draft schedule for our program is ready! We will be discussing the same in this chat for members’ feedback.

4. Call for Help
As the program is about to launch, we’re going to need a lot of help from our mentors and mentees to make it happen! We will define the areas where help is needed in the chat, but to summarize:

  • Documentation Tasks (Review 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., mentee guides, showrunning documents, checklists)
  • Facilitators (Folks who can engage the mentees throughout the program and run the program broadly)
  • Onboarding sessions hosts (We need representatives from Make/Teams to host sessions on various topics for our group)
  • And finally, some additional mentors (While our call for mentors is closed, we are looking for additional mentors who can support our pool of mentors)

All available tasks can be found here: https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/102/views/4?sortedBy%5Bdirection%5D=desc&sortedBy%5BcolumnId%5D=Labels

5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss mentorship broadly and our program!

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/.

  • Please make use of the Slack #contributor-mentorship channel for open discussion.
  • Don’t hesitate to share any relevant information for mentorship in general.

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/

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #mentorship-chat #agenda

2023 WordPress Meetup Survey: Key Findings

Background

The WordPress annual 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. survey was open for responses from November 17, 2023, through January 14, 2024. The following Make Community posts relate to the survey creation and distribution:

About the Survey

In 2023, we didn’t have the bandwidth to prepare and coordinate two separate surveys for Meetup organizers and members in several languages as we did in 2022. Nevertheless, we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to collect feedback from the global community before setting the Community Team goals for 2024.

We decided then to create a unified survey for all meetup members and organizers in one language, English. 

After the survey was closed, a working group worked on the analysis and this presentation of the findings. The Community Team members who actively participated in the survey results analysis are Luis Miguel Climent, Juan Hernando, and Isotta Peira.

Two important premises to take into consideration when reflecting on our findings:

  • The survey was open for two months, this limited amount of time might have prevented members from filling it.
  • The survey was only available in English, which might have prevented members from more diverse backgrounds from filling it.

Global overview: 595 community members from 65 countries have participated.

Circle graph of the survey's answers by number and country: USA 186 (31.3%), India 46 (7.7%), Spain 40 (6.7%), Canada 32 (5.4%), Germany 32 (5.4%), Italy 31 (5.2%), Netherlands 21 (3.5%), United Kingdom 19 (3.2%), Australia 18 (3%), Brazil (2%), Costa Rica (1.7%), France (1.7%), and Other 138 (23.2%)

Findings: 2023 Annual Meetup Program Survey

We sought to answer the following questions through the meetup program survey:

  • How can we increase the number of WordPress events?
  • How can we increase the number of WordPress users worldwide?

Challenges

Similar to last year’s survey, we’ve found common challenges that our communities worldwide are facing:

  • The lack of free venues
  • The lack of information about our community and the resources available for the organizers
  • The lack of ideas for engaging event formats
  • The lack of time to organize and contribute to events
  • The lack of speakers and new technical topics
Circle graph titled: Most recurrent challenges for Meetups: Venue and Attendance (39%), Awareness and Perception (29.3%), Organizational Struggles (17%), and Technical Learning Curve (14.7%)

Actionable Insights

Not surprisingly, we noticed many trends related to ideas that we’ve been hearing from many communities in the past months:

  • The need to reach students and collaborate with schools and universities to include WordPress in their curricula
  • The need to increase our community and event visibility on social media and online
  • The need to improve communication and training for community leaders
  • The need to inspire organizers and community members
  • The need of attracting to our community speakers and professionals from outside the WordPress bubble
Bar graph titled 'What ideas do you have to attract more WordPress users to join the community?'. All vary from 8% to 6% in this order: Diverse offer of topics; Promotion & outreach; beginner-friendly initiatives; Community Engagement and Networking; Onoline Presence and Accesibility.

Suggestions of realistic actions to take in 2024

The survey analysis working group suggests the following action to address some of our community’s most impactful challenges.

  • Plan cross-team projects:
    • With the Marketing Team to increase WordPress community and events visibility on social media and with media partners.
    • With the Training Team to prepare training material for teachers to include WordPress in their curricula.
    • With the Training Team to prepare material about the latest WordPress updates for 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. to discuss and for speakers to include in their talks.
    • With the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team to improve the discoverability of our events and contribution opportunities in the WordPress infrastructure.
    • With Five for the Future to increase the number of sponsorships for active contributors.
  • Improve Community Team documentation, communication, and programs:
    • Increase and diversify the communication channels to share resources (meetup venue fund program, free Zoom accounts for online events, resources for organizers like examples of where to make local contacts: associations, types of businesses, etc.).
    • Highlight one meetup per month in the newsletter/web of events, showcase format ideas used elsewhere, share stories on how to grow the local community, and attract speakers.
    • Create a program for speaker mentoring and make it available to all Meetup groups.
    • Organize dedicated training sessions for organizers about community management, leadership and event organization.
    • Create a program for meetup mentoring with scheduled check-ins between the Community Team and the meetup groups to resolve doubts, and have dedicated volunteers mentoring organizers who need support.
    • Create a starter kit for event organizers with the basic information they need to simplify the onboarding process before using the exhaustive handbook. The kit should include tools and a framework for deciding the day and time for events, better engaging with group members, and attracting speakers from outside the WordPress bubble.

Pinging the Community Team repTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. so this post stays on their radar for when they will present the discussion to define the 2024 goals. @leogopal, @nukaga, @st810amaze, @peiraisotta.

Discussion

In the comments, please share your reflection on the following questions:

  • What stands out to you in these findings?
  • What feedback do you have about the actions we suggest?
  • What other specific actions would you suggest to the Community Team to include in our 2024 plans?

On behalf of the Community Team, we want to thank everyone who helped create the survey, everyone who filled it, and every person who shared their suggestions. The biggest thank you goes to each of you making the WordPress Community every day with your contributions, your time, and your passion.

The following people have contributed to writing this post: @lmcliment, @unintended8, and @peiraisotta.

#meetups, #community-team, #highlight, #meetup-organizers, #survey

X-post: Incident Response Team: Call for Nominations

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X-post: WordCamp Zaragoza 2024. Design table in Contributor day

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Reflecting on the NextGen Events Pilot Project and Looking Ahead

Background

In May 2023, the WordPress Community Team embarked on an ambitious journey with the “Next Generation WordPress Events” pilot project. Our goal was to explore innovative event formats beyond the traditional WordCampWordCamp 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. or 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., bringing fresh experiences to our community and attracting new audiences to attend WordPress events. Throughout the latter half of 2023, we experimented with a variety of creative events, each uniquely contributing to the WordPress community. Check out the full list of pilot events.

Today, @adityakane, @devinmaeztri, @no249a002, @francescodicandia, @unintended8, @lanche86, @samsuresh, @yoga1103 and I are excited to share our learnings, reflections, and a vision for the future of innovative WordPress events.

Broadening the Horizon of WordPress Events

Based on our experiences with the pilot program, we recommend concluding the NextGen pilot project, and permanently adopting an expanded scope of WordPress Events. This means expanding the WordPress Events program beyond just WordCamps, 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. and do_actions, to embrace a broad range of creative event formats. The sky’s the limit, and we encourage the community to keep experimenting with new ideas.

It’s important to clarify that “NextGen” is the name of the pilot project, not a new categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of events. This project was a playground for experimentation and innovation in the WordPress Events program. Moving forward, we propose simply referring to these events as “WordPress Events.” This term encompasses WordCamps, meetups, do_actions, and an infinite number of other event types that are supported by WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. and the Community Team.

The Ideal WordPress Event

We’ve learned that the ideal WordPress event should be:

  • Replicable: Easy for other communities to adopt and for the same community to organize again.
  • Desirable: Each event should serve a purpose within the WordPress ecosystem and generate excitement.
  • Sustainable: Events should be financially viable and not overly complex to organize, to prevent burnout among our valued community organizers.
  • Scalable: Ideally, events are able to grow and scale as a community grows. 

We wholeheartedly encourage creativity and experimentation in WordPress Events. Innovation is the lifeblood that keeps our community vibrant and helps grow the WordPress project, its user base, and WordPress communities worldwide!

A highlight from the NextGen Pilot project:

The Rome Community Day event format inspired the Swiss community to organize a Switzerland Community Day, demonstrating that this event format is truly desirable, replicable and sustainable! The Rome event organizer mentored the Switzerland organizing team, a testament to the project’s collaborative spirit.

Tools

To sustainably expand the WordPress events program, we need some new tools, workflows, and documentation that will assist Community Team Event Supporters, Program Supporters, and Program Managers in vetting, onboarding, and mentoring events that don’t fit neatly in the established categories of WordCamp, meetup, or do_actiondo_action do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org.. Our new WordPress Events page (events.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/) is a crucial step in this direction, offering a central URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org and unified platform for all types of WordPress events. Additionally, we have a brand new WordPress event organizer application form, which streamlines the application review process (during the NextGen pilot project, event organizer applications were submitted through a Crowdsignal survey; this was unwieldy for the Community Team to review and process).

What this means for…

WordPress Event Organizers 

We invite you to think outside the box and consider organizing an innovative WordPress Event in your community! Let’s continue to experiment and grow together. Remember, some of the most impactful WordPress events are simple, low-cost, and easy to organize.

Apply now to bring a unique WordPress event to life in your community!

Global Sponsors

Sponsoring the WordPress community’s innovative events provides companies with a unique opportunity to reach new, diverse, and tech-savvy audiences. Global Sponsors already support WordPress Community Events worldwide; innovative event formats offer an opportunity to experiment with new sponsorship benefits and ways to connect with attendees. Do you have ideas that we could test at an innovative WordPress event in 2024? Let the Community Team know by commenting on this post!

Community Team Supporters

In the coming weeks, the Community Team will invite Community Team Supporters to participate in a Zoom session on innovative WordPress Events. This session will provide an opportunity to ask questions and share feedback so that Community Team Supporters are well-equipped to 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. innovative WordPress Events and amplify this exciting new development in WordPress Events. Stay tuned for more details!


Share your thoughts, ideas, and questions in the comments below. Your input is the catalyst for continued innovation and growth in our community. Let’s continue building the next chapter of innovative WordPress Events, making them more inclusive, engaging, and impactful than ever!

Props to the fantastic pilot event and future WordPress event organizers; Community Team NextGen Event Supporters, who reviewed event applications and mentored pilot events; and the entire Global Community TeamGlobal Community Team A group of community organizers and contributors who collaborate on local events about WordPress — monthly WordPress meetups and/or annual conferences called WordCamps. for their incredible effort to make the NextGen Pilot Project a reality by engaging in discussions, sharing ideas, and spreading the word!

The following people participated in writing this post: @juliarosia @devinmaeztri @peiraisotta @_dorsvenabili.

#community-events, #next-gen-events

Community Team Meeting Agenda for 1 February 2024

The Community Team chat takes place the first Thursday of every month in the #community-team channel on 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/.

This meeting is meant for all contributors on the team and everyone who is interested in taking part in some of the things our team does. Feel free to join us, even if you are not currently active in the team!

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly meeting: Thursday, 1 February 2024 at 12:00 PM UTC
Americas friendly meeting: Thursday, 1 February 2024 at 21:00 PM UTC

You will find a preliminary agenda for the meeting below. 

If you wish to add points to discuss, comment on this post or reach out to one of the team reps: @peiraisotta, @Shusei, @leo, or @nukaga. It does not need to be a blog post yet, the topic can be discussed during the meeting nevertheless. We use the same agenda for both meetings.

Call for meeting host
If anyone is available to host the second sessions of the Community Team monthly meeting at 9pm UTC, please reach out to one of the team reps, who are all based in APAC and EMEA countries: @peiraisotta, @Shusei, @leo, or @nukaga.

Check-ins: Program and Event Supporters / Contributors

  • What have you been doing and how is it going? 
  • What did you accomplish after the last meeting? 
  • Are there any blockers? 
  • Can other team members help you in some way?

Highlights to Note

Here are a few things everyone should be aware of.

Open Posts

Check out these new and ongoing discussions needing review, feedback, thoughts and comments.

Announcements / Newsletters

Open Floor

This is your chance to discuss things that weren’t on the meeting agenda. 

We invite you to use this opportunity to share anything that you want with the team. If you currently have a topic you’d like to discuss, add it to the comments of this post and we will try to update the agenda accordingly.

Hope to see you on Thursday, either in the Asia-Pacific / EMEA (12:00 UTC) or Americas-friendly version (21:00 UTC) of the meeting!

#agenda, #meeting-agenda, #team, #team-chat, #team-meeting

Community Team Training #12: WordCamp Budgeting Tips

We are excited to invite you to attend our upcoming Zoom Training Session scheduled as follows:

TitleCommunity Team Training #12: WordCampWordCamp 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. Budgeting Tips
Date08 February 2024
Time & RSVP2024/02/08 12:00 UTC (1 Hour) 
Open toAll community members
LocationZoom Video Conference

Training Brief

How much money do I need to raise? How much is “normal”? How do I keep the budget review call from being a sleepless night? How do I get Central to pay suppliers as soon as possible? How do I know if everything is going according to plan or if we’re going to have problems in the last month? Why does everything need to balance?

Event organizers and community team members alike face event budgets with more questions than answers. In this session, we will try to answer many of these questions and look at ways to make life easier for all of us.

Reading Materials

Related article:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer/first-steps/budget-and-finances/

Presenter

Juan Hernando
@unintended8 has twice been a budget team leader at WordCamp Europe and collaborated in four editions of the local WordCamp in Pontevedra, as well as reviewed other event budgets I have mentored and have seen many things we can share to improve together. We welcome all your ideas and experiences as well!

RSVP

Please RSVP, so you will receive an invitation in your email that will include the Zoom link. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.

RSVP: 2024/02/08 12:00 UTC (1 Hour)

REGISTER HERE:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUufuCorjkiGtHfa7KLmmpu_48cNjs4E25K

#community-team, #wordcamps

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: January 2024

Thank you for joining us for another year of contributing 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! 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. are the heart of this project, and your willingness to host one is invaluable. Thank you for all you do to make meetups a reality in your part of the world.

A particular Community Team focus this year is our meetups. We’ll be looking at new ways to get them the support they need to help them grow. 

To highlight events, we have created a new centralized WordPress Events landing page in WordPress.org! It’s a site with infinite possibilities, and we need your suggestions and ideas on how to shape it as it grows for the future.

Feedback Requested on the New WordPress Events Page

First, a little about the site.

This site aims to give more visibility to all kinds of WordPress events around the globe. Here you’ll find upcoming WordPress events like scheduled WordCamps, Meetups, Next Gen WordPress Events (WordPress Events from now on), as well as how to organize them. 

So far, the site consists of the following three pages:

Those three pages are just the beginning of a vision where we bring the WordPress Events our local meetups are organizing closer to our users and visitors of WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.

The goal is for this site to become the central source of information for all WordPress Community events and organizers. From getting started to finding an event to attend, we can have one resource that supports them all.

Share your ideas here and help us shape the future of this resource.

Grab your ticket for WC Europe 2024

WordCampWordCamp 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 2024 will be in Torino, Italy on June 13 – 15 2024. Tickets are now on sale! Grab your ticket today, you can choose between general admission and micro-sponsor.

Thank you and bye (for now), Jill!

After a decade of leadership, Jill Binder has decided to step away from her work with WordPress. Jill has been a key player in our community as the leader of the Diverse Speaker Training (#WPDiversity) working group and as the co-creator & maintainer of the Diverse Speaker Training Workshop. Her dedication to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) in the Project has been inspirational. Check out the extraordinary impact of #WPDiversity and use the invaluable open source resources created for WordPress event organizers, underrepresented speakers, Diversity and Community workshop organizers and #WPDiversity workshop translators.

Want to join us in wishing her the best for her next big adventure? Leave your comment to this post.


A special thank you to our Global Sponsors: Bluehost, GoDaddy, Automattic, WPBeginner, and Woo!


If you have any questions, Community Team 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. are here to help. Please email us at support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow and support the WordPress community—let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions!

See you online soon!

The following people contributed to this edition of the 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. newsletter: @mysweetcate, @pierraisotta, @juliarosia, @bjmcsherry, @devinmaeztri#community-team, #meetup-organizer-newsletter, #newsletter

#community-team, #meetup-organizer-newsletter, #newsletter

Events of the Month – November & December

In a continuing effort to provide some real-time information for event organizers and the community alike, below is a month-in-review post with recaps of the prior month’s events and how they fared financially, in terms of ticket sales and budget.

Of note, the end of 2023 was particularly active with a total of 12 events in November and December.

Updates on WordCamps Held Before November
WordCampWordCamp 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. Nairobi, Kenya (Aug 16-17)
Final Tickets Sold: 160
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed

Final cost $8,265 USD and cost per person/day of $26 USD.

Event closed on budget.
Open Items – Finances: No Open Items
WordCamp Finland (Sept 14-15)
Final Tickets Sold: 407
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Budget closed.

Final cost $36,805 USD/ 34,397 EUR and cost per person/day of $45 USD/ 42 EUR.

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $11,249 USD/ 10,513 EUR
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Pontevedra, Spain (Sept 16-17)
Final Tickets Sold: 254
Approved Attendee Total: 300
Budget Notes*: Budget closed

Final cost $24,125 USD/ 22,546 EUR and cost per person/day of $47 USD/ 44 EUR.

Event closed on budget
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Biarritz, France (Oct 6)
Final Tickets Sold: 304
Approved Attendee Total: 300 
Budget Notes*: Budget closed

Final cost $50,874 USD/ 47,546 EUR and cost per person/day of $167 USD/ 156 EUR.

Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $715 USD / 668 EUR
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Bhopal, India (Oct 7-8)
Final Tickets Sold: 353
Approved Attendee Total: 350 
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed. 

Final cost $10,399 USD/ 866,544 INR and cost per person/day of $15 USD/ 1,227 INR.

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $297 USD/ 24,778 INR
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Taiwan (Oct 14)
Final Tickets Sold: 321
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Budget closed.

Final cost $25,892 USD/ 835,240 TWD and cost per person/day of $81 USD/ 2,602 TWD.

Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $5,506 USD / 177,600 TWD. The main reason for this need is related to invoicing errors by the venue. The invoices issued were lower than the quoted prices, but this was not noticed until after the event. The venue issued an invoice for the unbilled portion post event. 
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Tokyo, Japan (Oct 21)
Final Tickets Sold: 424
Approved Attendee Total: 400 
Budget Notes*: Still awaiting Transparency Report submission and final numbers. 
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been in communication to say the information will be submitted as soon as possible.
WordCamp Tegal, Indonesia (Oct 22)
Final Tickets Sold: 83
Approved Attendee Total: 75
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed. 

Final cost $2,164 USD/ 33,298,615 IDR and cost per person/day of $26 USD/ 401,188 IDR.

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $86 USD/ 1,324,385 IDR. 
Open Items – Finances: No open items.
WordCamp Mumbai, India (Oct 28-29)
Final Tickets Sold: 495
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed. 

Final cost $23,351 USD/ 1,945,944 INR and cost per person/day of $24 USD/ 1,966 INR.

Event closed on budget
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp and Events Held in November
WordCamp San Jose (November 4 – 5)
Final Tickets Sold: 411
Approved Attendee Total: 450 
Budget Notes*: Budget closed.

Final cost $41,481 USD and cost per person/day of $50 USD

Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $4,770 USD. 
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Madrid (November 4 – 5)
Final Tickets Sold: 619
Approved Attendee Total: 600
Budget Notes*:  Budget closed.

Final cost $85,951 USD/ 80,300 EUR and cost per person/day of $69 USD/ 65 EUR

Event closed on budget. With some special negotiations, the organizing team was able to apply a payment of approximately 7,000 EUR from a 2020 venue deposit towards the 2023 chosen venue.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Montreal – ONLINE (November 8 – 9)
Final Tickets Sold: 79
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed.

Final cost $326 USD/ 446 CAD and cost per person/day of $4 USD/ 6 CAD

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $755 USD/ 1,034 CAD. 
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Valencia (November 10 – 11)
Final Tickets Sold: 394
Approved Attendee Total: 390
Budget Notes*: Budget closed.

Final cost $34,206 USD/ 31,968 EUR and cost per person/day of $43 USD/ 41 EUR

Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $1,160 USD / 1,084 EUR
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Manila (November 11)
Final Tickets Sold: 289
Approved Attendee Total: 230 
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed but awaiting a few answers to open questions
Open Items – Finances: Open questions sent 1/10/2024
WordCamp Verona (November 17 – 18)
Final Tickets Sold: 295
Approved Attendee Total: 300
Budget Notes*: Budget closed.

Final cost $25,974 USD/ 24,275 EUR and cost per person/day of $44 USD/ 41 EUR

Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $4,481 USD / 4,188 EUR
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Hong Kong (November 18)
Final Tickets Sold: 77
Approved Attendee Total: 70
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed. 

Final cost $7,927 USD/ 60,975 HKD and cost per person/day of $103 USD/ 792 HKD

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $2,264 USD / 17,417 HKD. 
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Islamabad (November 25 – 26)
Final Tickets Sold: 176
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed. 

Final cost $5,404 USD/ 1,512,951 PKR and cost per person/day of $15 USD/ 4,298 PKR

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship funds of approximately $489 USD / 135,764 PKR
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Udaipur (November 25)
Final Tickets Sold: 300
Approved Attendee Total: 350
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and team has responded to say they are working on the final numbers
WordCamp and Events Held in December
WordCamp Ahmedabad (December 9)
Final Tickets Sold: 1051
Approved Attendee Total: 800 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, a post event email has been sent to the team requesting their submission
WordCamp Lahore (December 9-10)
Final Tickets Sold: 363
Approved Attendee Total: 350
Budget Notes*: Transparency Report reviewed and budget closed. 

Final cost $6,200 USD/ 1,722,361 PKR and cost per person/day of $9 USD/ 2,372 PKR

Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship funds of approximately $3,600 USD / 1,000,000 PKR
Open Items – Finances: No open items

Budget Notes*: An event closed on budget if the approved Global Sponsorship amount is what was utilized. If an event is able to raise more sponsorship income or ticket income, or the expenses are less than amounts listed in the approved budget, the additional funds are contributed back to the Global Sponsorship fund. If, on the other hand, an organizing team raises less sponsorship income or ticket income than planned, or expenses are higher than originally budgeted, the additional amount needed to cover all expenses is covered by the Global Sponsorship fund and will be stated as additional Global Sponsorship funds used. This amount represents funds in addition to the approved Global Sponsorship amount.

The goal of WordPress events is to provide a space where community members can come together and share knowledge, build relationships with other members and sponsors, and spread love for WordPress. The goal is never to make money. Because WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. pays taxes on any income at year end, we strive to hold events where income is equal to expenses.

Transparency Report**: WordCamps that run funds through WordPress Community Support (WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook.) – meaning WPCS collects ticket income and sponsorship income, and pays vendors directly – are not required to submit a Transparency Report. 

Alternatively, organizing teams that run money locally collect all or some of the ticket income and sponsorship income directly. The team then uses the collected funds to pay expenses of the event. The organizing team is responsible for completing a transparency report after the event where they submit receipts/documentation for all expenses, support for ticket income collected, and support for sponsorship income collected. More info can be found here