Can You Help the Week of WCUS 2023?

For WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. 2023, we are testing a new idea: scheduling Program Supporters to be responsible for specific tasks during that week.

We are looking for at least 5 volunteers to take ownership of the following tasks for the week.

  • 1 vetting 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.
  • 1 vetting WordCamps
  • 1-2 checking the Community Team 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/.
  • 2 HelpScout

Those vetting will check the trackers and ask for volunteers in Slack, as we have begun doing. You’re also of course welcome to vet applicants as you have time.

Those checking the Community Team Slack will answer questions when they can, and find help when they need to.

Those checking HelpScout will answer the questions they can – generally using saved replies– and keep the queue moving as possible.

If you are not attending the Community Summit or WCUS and are willing to take on one of these roles for the week of 21-27 August, respond in the comments or dm @peiraisotta or @mysweetcate in Making WordPress Slack.

Thanks in advance!

#community-team, #flagship-help, #wcus-help

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: JULY 2023

Hello 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. Organizers,

We’re halfway through 2023 already, and it’s amazing how time flies! In just the past month, approximately 250 WordPress Meetup events have been organized. Thank you for keeping our community thriving!

Last month, we requested your Meetup photos, and here’s the first picture we’re featuring in our newsletter: a delightful crowd at Ahmedabad WordPress Meetup on June 24, 2023.

Keep sending photos from your Meetup Event!

Please share one picture with the Community team! Rename the image as “Meetup-name_event-date” and upload it to this folder. Supported formats are jpg and png. Remember to always ask for permission from your group members before capturing and sharing the picture with us!

Training Team needs a Translation Coordinator

The Training Team is ramping up its localization efforts for Learn.WordPress.org content and seeks your assistance! If you have a passion for translating content and want more resources to share with your local community, consider this exciting opportunity: Be a Translation Coordinator of the Training Team!

Inaugural Cohort of the Contributor Mentorship Program

The diverse group consists of 13 contributors from all over the world and will be working 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. from July 12th to August 9th. Seven Make team also participates in this cohort. They are CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., Community, Documentation, Photos, Polyglots, Support, Test and Training. You can join or follow along with the cohort in the #contributor-mentorship channel on the 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/..

Let’s be creative with our community events! 

We invite you to share and organize events with fresh formats and topics we haven’t explored yet. Consider self-learning events, idea pitches, networking days, show-and-tell, or speed-connecting sessions to enhance engagement with your audience. Join our Next Generation Pilot Events by sharing your ideas with the Community Team using this form!


A special thank you to our 2023 Global Sponsors: GoDaddy, Bluehost, Automattic, SiteGround, Weglot, and WooCommerce!


Need support or guidance from the WordPress 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.

You can always reach the Community Team by sending a message to #community-events in Making WordPress Slack or an email to support@wordcamp.org.  

Thank you for your contribution to the 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/ projects and supporting the WordPress Community! Let’s keep growing together, and inspire each other!

The following people contributed to this edition of the Meetup newsletter: @bjmcsherry, @bsanevans, @_dorsvenabili, @harishanker, and @peiraisotta.

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

Q3: Community Team Process and Documentation Updates

This quarter, @peiraisotta and I will be focusing on two things:

  • Updating the new Supporter onboarding process to complement the role shifts.
  • Improving the resources that allow Program Supporters to perform group orientations, vetting, and HelpScout cleanup.

Focus for this Quarter

Updating the Supporter onboarding will empower new Supporters to begin working on a task immediately with no blockers.

Improving the training information and resources will better equip Program Supporters to undertake these three tasks to start: 

  • Group orientations
  • Vetting
  • HelpScout cleanup

We’ll also reorganize the Supporters and Managers Handbook (formerly DeputyProgram 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.) so information related to these three tasks is easier to find, and test some processes to maintain the consistency with which these tasks are being performed.

A New Approach to Flagship Coverage

Additionally, we will try out a new process for covering tasks during flagship events. We will be looking for at least four (4) Program Supporters to volunteer to manage vetting and HelpScout clean up during WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event..

  • Two (2) individuals to help with HelpScout clean up. 
  • Two (2) to manage vetting. 

If you’re not attending 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. US or the Community Summit and can take on these tasks during that time, please contact us — Cate or Isotta — directly. 

Your Feedback is Always Vital

Finally, if you are a Program SupporterProgram 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., please take this short survey. Your feedback is vital and provides a more complete view of who is currently contributing in this role and insight into what to focus on for the future. Please have your answers in by 4 August.

And as always, leave any thoughts, concerns, or questions in the comments below.

#community-team, #q3, #updates

Summary of the Q2 Community Team Role Updates

What a year it’s been so far! 

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 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 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.?
  • 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 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. role (now called Event SupporterEvent 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 SupporterProgram 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 ‘DeputyProgram 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.’).
  • We began using the new names, and started the process of updating documentation.
  • We invited some 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. 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

WCUS 2023 Contributor Day: Help Needed!

Time again to start planning for the next Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.!!!

The WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. Contributor Team has contacted all of the team reps asking us to help with their new approach to organizing this year’s Contributor Day. To hopefully make contributing easier, they are asking teams who will be present

Who would like to be the main onboarding contact?

The Contributor Team is suggesting we designate a 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. (or active team member) as the go-to person to send new contributors to on the day of, to answer team questions and help with onboarding.

Who would like to be table leads?

Table leads can help in a variety of areas. They might keep discussion flowing, facilitate on-site onboarding or orientations, and/or help the contributors stick to the schedule for the day.

Who would like to lead a topical discussion?

Lastly, you may have a community-related topic that would be valuable to discuss as a team. Share your ideas here or as a comment on the What Should We Work On post. We can decide as a team what to include in the day’s agenda.

Comment below to let us know how you’d like to be involved in WCUS 2023 Contributor Day!

#community-team, #contributor-day, #wcus

WCUS 2023 Contributor Day: What should we work on?

With less than 2 months to WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. 2023, we have been asked to share our thoughts and goals with the Contributor Team.

So far this year we’ve had some robust discussions at both flagship WordCamps. Let’s keep that going!

Goal Setting

  • What would you like to see the team accomplish at WCUS this year?
  • What topics do you think we should focus on?
  • What goals would be impactful to our day spent collaborating together?

Planning Resources

Take a look back at what we’ve done so far, and think ahead to what direction we want to head toward for 2024.

Your Feedback is Invaluable

The Community Team thrives because of it diverse perspectives and rich discussions. Don’t stop now. Please comment your ideas below!

#community-team, #contributor-day, #wcus

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: June 2023

Hello, Organizers!

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 2023 has just ended, what an experience!

This year, we had 2545 attendees from 94 countries. Congratulations to all organizers, volunteers, speakers, and sponsors who made it happen!

In this month’s newsletter, we invite you to join the organizing team for WordCamp Europe 2024, learn more about the next generation of WordPress events, discover the new Community Team 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. Program, and find out about the latest news from the WP Community. Read on to discover more about them!

WordCamp Europe 2024: Call for organizers

A famous WordCamp Europe tradition is to reveal the next year’s city host during the closing remarks, and immediately open the call for organizers. For those who didn’t follow the live stream we’re excited to announce, without any further ado, that WordCamp Europe 2024 will be in Turin, Italy! 

We hope to see many of you join the organizing team. Fill out the organizer application today!

Next Generation of WordPress Events

Since the Next Generation of WordPress events discussion began on May 8, organizers have rushed to join the experiment and organize pilot events. The goal of the project is to make the process of event organizing easier, and enable more communities to have multiple impactful events per year. For the latest updates, please visit this post.

Do you want to organize a pilot event for your community in 2023? Use this form to share your idea with the Community Team!

New Community Team Mentor Program

With the Meetup Reactivation Project successfully concluded and WordCamps coming back, every week more in-person events are happening all around the world. To better support organizers, the Community Team wants to refine its structure to create a stronger network of 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.. If you want to learn more about, and apply to join the community team, visit the latest update post on the Make Community Blog!

More from the WP Community

Learn WordPress: the Training team is creating new material and resources, don’t miss their latest updates post!

Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship: contributing to WordPress has never been easier thanks to the Contributor Mentorships. Find out more and join the pilot project!

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. Organizers, we want to feature you!

We’d love to publish pictures from 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. all around the world in each newsletter. Do you want your Meetup to be featured? Share 1 picture with the Community team! Rename your picture as “Meetup-name_event-date” and upload it to this folder. The formats supported are jpg and png. Please remember, always ask for permission from your group members before taking the picture and sharing it with us!


A special thank you to our Global Sponsors: GoDaddy, Bluehost, Automattic, SiteGround, Weglot, and WooCommerce!


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 Meetup newsletter: @mysweetcate , @devinmaeztri , @juliarosia, @nao, @bjmcsherry

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

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

WCEU 2023 Community Table Recap

Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. was held on 8 June 2023 at 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. EU.

The community team created multiple sub-tables to discuss and work on several topics in a focused manner.

Here is a brief summary of the day’s discussions.

Contributor Working Group – Mentorship

Subgroup lead: Hari Shanker ( @harishanker )

We had 12 contributors who discussed the contributor mentorship program in detail. Shared ideas, and identified the next steps for the program. The mentorship program pilot dates have also been identified – our first cohort starts on July 12th! 

Improving Sponsorship Proposals

Subgroup lead: Taco Verdonschot ( @tacoverdo )

Discussion on how we can better describe the benefits sponsors are getting to create clarity for both sponsors and organizers. You can find the working doc in Google Docs. This will be added to/merged with the Handbook later.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in WordPress

Subgroup lead: Junko Nukaga ( @nukaga ) , Shusei Toda( @st810amaze )

We discussed what we perceive as challenges and actions we can take to promote diversity in our community. For example, how organizers can actively reach out to increase speaker applications from women, support from corporations, and sharing and encouraging active contributors to share their experiences. Also, promotion of Diversity Speaker training. 

Discussion about Next Generation WordCamp

Subgroup lead: Angela Jin ( @angelasjin )

Sixteen (16) people participated in the discussion. We discussed what Next Gen WordCamps are and how they came to be, the new challenges they bring and how we can address those, and also how they can be of excitement and benefit to the whole community. We explored new event formats and topics, and how sponsorship and contribution might work. People were invited to suggest new ideas for events, and to help the Community team improve its events tooling.

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. Orientation / Organizers Meetup

Subgroup lead: Isotta Peira ( @peiraisotta ), Francesco Di Candia ( @francescodicandia )

Orientation and vetting done for WordCamp Skopje (thanks to Stefano Cassone too)

Orientation done for two new Meetup

Budget Review for WordCamp Germany

Budget Review for WordCamp Leipzig

Documentation Update / Creating New Documentation

Subgroup lead:Megan Rose ( @megabyterose )

Had participation from 4 contributors, both in-person and remote.

We audited the Community Team Handbooks for clarity, typos, and other improvements. We fixed a broken link in the Virtual Events handbook.

We worked on migrating our old TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. goals boards from 2021 and 2022 into our new 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/ repo. Shout out to Benjamin for spearheading that even though they’re a new contributor to our team! 

Those who participated

Contributor Working Group

@angelasjin , @harishanker , @cbringmann , @casiepa , @st810amaze , @tobifjellner , @tinuzzo , @estelaris , @milana_cap , @sergeybiryukov , @javiercasares , @clorith

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in WordPress

@tessclare , @unintended8 , @tacoverdo , @coachbirgit , @st810amaze , @nukaga

Discussion about Next Generation WordCamp

@vivamundo , @Mixali , @viobru , @lupoair , @afshanadiya , @megane9988 , @harishanker , @megabyterose , @nukaga , @tacoverdo , @st810amaze , @danmaby , @smarty66 , @tomlach

Meetup Orientation / Organizers Meetup

@francescodicandia , @peiraisotta , @deadpool76 , @davidsojic

Documentation

@benjamin_zekavica , @leogopal , @megabyterose , @robinwpdeveloper

Sponsorship proposals

@danmaby , @smarty66 , @Mixali , @tomlach , @tacoverdo 

Participated in Another Way

@kafleg , @sumitsingh , @vishalbhisara

About the Community Table at this WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. Contributor Day

Since there were many topics that the community team wanted to address, we asked each sub-table to have a lead who would be in charge of facilitating the work, and each sub-table was asked to facilitate their own work.

We set aside about a month for preparation, soliciting the topics and work to address, recruiting leads, and announcing the sub-tables, in order.

I would like to thank everyone who led the table leads and sub-tables this time.

For those who were unable to attend Contributor Day

If you were unable to attend the Contributor Day, the community team frequently discusses issues in the Make WordPress chat. We also have regular chat meetings at #community-team channel. We welcome input from anyone, so please join us on Make WordPress Slack.


Thank you @st810amaze @harishanker @tacoverdo @angelasjin @megabyterose @peiraisotta @francescodicandia @mysweetcate for your help in preparing for Contributor Day, the day of the event, and for this post.

#community-team, #contributor-day, #wceu, #wceu-contributorday

Next Generation of WordPress Events: Updates

Hello there!

A massive thank you to all who have participated in the discussions about the next generation of WordPress events, and who have facilitated the discussions in their communities. 

Below are some nice numbers to share about the progress this far:

  • 64 ideas shared
  • 59 organizers willing to follow up on their ideas
  • 8 pilot events confirmed, of which 6 will happen in 2023

Here are the proposed formats for the 2023 pilot events:

  • Low-cost 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.: 90 attendees, no swag, no social dinner, no after party. 1 Track. The goal is to motivate and help new and veteran organizers to create a lighter, impactful event that is low cost and requires less time, financial resources, and fewer organizers/volunteers. Location: Leipzig (Germany). Date: Jul 1, 2023.
  • WordPress Day: contributor event for 50 attendees focusing on 3 areas of contribution. The goal is to bring new contributors to the community and retain them by organizing multiple events every year. Location: Sevilla (Spain). Date: Jul 2, 2023.
  • Rural: 1-day itinerant event per quarter to bring WP to rural areas in small towns/villages. WP activities in the morning, lunch locally, paid for by attendees, and in the afternoon, nature and cultural related activities to connect with the territory and local people. The goal is to bring WP to different rural areas, teach WP to local residents, bring people from the city to the villages, and expand the community. Location: Catalonia rural areas (Spain). Date: TBD, 2023.
  • WP for Publishers: 1-day event for folks who use WP for publishing. Discuss the new most used features and brainstorm about new ones. The goal is to bring publishers together who currently use different platforms and introduce them to WordPress as an alternative, and hopefully sway them to make a switch. Location: Bengaluru. Date: TBD, 2023.
  • Community Day: 1 day event made by WP organizers for WP organizers. 60 attendees max, hopefully from all 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. in the country, to attend workshops and refine their community management and event planning skills. The goal is to train and empower current and aspiring organizers, so they can foster sustainable and healthy communities. Location: Roma (Italy). Date: Sep 29, 2023.
  • Scale-up Workshop. 1-day training event that hosts 50 people with basic WordPress proficiency. The goal is to show the potential of WordPress and to enhance participants’ WordPress skills by diving into the world of WordPress for enterprise. Location: Tegal (Indonesia). Date: October 22, 2023.

This is so exciting, and it’s just the beginning, friends! The community is abuzz with ideas .

If you want to organize a pilot event in 2023 and haven’t submitted your idea yet, please do it now via this form: https://wordpressdotorg.survey.fm/next-generation-of-wordpress-events

Can’t wait to see all these new events happening!

Thank you @devinmaeztri, @harmonyromo, @nao for your precious help in drafting this post.

#community-team, #next-gen-events

Recap of the Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on June 15, 2023

Welcome to the recap post of the contributor working group’s mentorship chat that was held on June 15th, 2023. In this chat, we finalized the dates for our pilot mentorship cohort (July 12th to August 9th), and kicked off project management in preparation for the same.

In attendance: @adityakane @oglekler @yoga1103  @st810amaze @onealtr @tobifjellner @javiercasares @courane01 @sereedmedia @juliarosia  @harishanker  @leonnugraha  @patricia70 @webtechpooja @casiepa @realloc @peiraisotta @coachbirgit @angelasjin @chaion07 @ronakganatra @fitehal @sumitsingh @siddhantwadhwani @carl-alberto @kafleg @hapiucrobert @devinmaeztri @zunaid321 @christopheramirian

Notes: @harishanker

Agenda: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/14/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-june-15th-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting Start

EMEA: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1686812403775139
AMER: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1686844802822219

Project Updates

We kicked off the chat by sharing our project updates thus far:

  • Thanks to @leogopal, we now have a fully-fledged GitHub project board for our project. Our group will be working on adding tasks and content to the board. Group members also shared their 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/ and 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/ profiles to be added to the board. 
  • We also have a draft of the call for mentees post which is ready for publishing. 

Updates from 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 2023

The Contributor Working Group had an informal tribe meeting at WordCamp Europe 2023 with nearly twelve participants. We did an informal discussion of the program, introduced the pilot, and brainstormed different aspects of our program. In the discussion, we arrived at two important updates:

  • Our pilot cohort will kick off on the second week of July (July 12th) and will run for four weeks until August 4th. We discussed this at the cohort and group members approved the same. 
  • Continuing from our last chat, we finalized the following teams were finalized for our pilot. 
    • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.
    • Community
    • Docs
    • Photos
    • Polyglots
    • Support
    • Test
    • Training

Wins from the past month

Our group did not forget to celebrate some wins from the last month! 

  • Our contributor mentorship program was featured on the June Edition (Episode 57) of The Official WordPress Podcast – WP Briefing. Support from @chanthaboune – our executive director, was a great encouragement for our group and for our work!
  • At WordCamp Europe 2023, our group and our work got a lot of attention with several folks expressing interest in being 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., mentee, or a facilitator. Our mentorship program also found a prominent mention in the event’s keynote session with Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden, and Matias Ventura. Check out the Q&A video of WordCamp Europe 2023 to catch the moment!

While our wins were humbling, we reminded ourselves that we still have miles to go! 

Implementation and Project Management for our Pilot

With dates finalized, we started working on steps to implement our pilot program. We’ll be using our GitHub Project Board to coordinate everything. The action items are divided into high and medium priority, and we sought group members’ help in proceeding with it.

High Priority Action items

  • Call for Mentees announcement
    We already have a draft post going which we aim to publish by early next week. Make/Marketing has also offered to review and amplify the same
  • Finalizing our 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.
    Many group members have offered to become mentors for our program, we hope to finalize at least 5-10 mentors. For our cohort. 
  • Recruit Make/Team Representatives and support their involvement in our pilot.

As shared earlier, we have the following teams in our pilot program. Core, Community, Docs, Photos, Polyglots, Support, Test, and Training. Group members offered to reach out to these teams to get support for our program. 

Medium Priority Action Items

Group members can note down changes or suggestions in this Google Doc: Suggested Changes to Learn WordPress Contributor Courses

  • Prepare mentor script or playbook 📜
    We’re working on a detailed step-by-step guide that mentors can use to adequately support mentees as they go through the contributor mentorship program. We’re collaborating together in this task using this boilerplate script document.
  • Facilitating the program ⚓
    We also asked cohort members to support by facilitating the program (keeping the cohort active and overseeing program progress). While all group members will be engaged in this, anyone who has more bandwidth to support was encouraged to join. 

Making Progress Towards the Pilot Program

With less than a month remaining until the pilot program, we decided to meet more frequently. Our idea is to: 

  • Try a weekly sync on our task, synchronously or asynchronously in the #community-team channel. 
  • Do at least one synchronous audio/video chat before our event.
  • Start a dedicated channel for the working group discussions, but default to public in #community-team as much as possible. 

Discussions

  • We discussed the possibility of a multilingual cohort. While the mentorship cohort will be in English, we’ll try to make it as local as possible by assigning mentors based on language preferences. @javiercasares is also attempting to translate our cohort’s content to Spanish for Spanish language speaking mentees. He has already kickstarted work on the same and is looking for collaborators! @coachbirgit has offered to support German mentees, while @leonnugraha has kindly offered to support mentees from Indonesia. 
  • @angelasjin suggested that we amplify our program in the #team-reps channel to get broad support from team representatives. 
  • Our group members felt strongly about the need for a dedicated channel to discuss the program. So while we will attempt to work in public as much as possible, we will also create and use a dedicated 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/. channel for focussed discussions. 
  • @pascalcasier offered to do an onboarding for group members to the TV team!
  • @milana_cap offered to onboard new contributors to the Docs team.
  • We’re attempting to do yet another contributor working group at WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. (around contributor dayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.). @s810amaze has offered to help broadcast it live.

#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #meeting-notes

#mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-recap