Tag Archives: meetups

Birgit Pauli-Haack 9:12 pm on February 23, 2018
Tags: meetups, roundtables   

WordPress Meetup Roundtables scheduled for March

In an earlier post about how to assist dormant Meetup Groups, we kicked around some ideas on how to support meetup organizers in their essential community work, especially if they are struggling or suffer from burn-out.

As a test, experienced meetup organizers will host four Meetup Roundtables. Kathy Drewien, Roberto Remedios, Jim True and Ulrich Pogson have already agreed to be our hosts, and we are recruiting a couple more people right now!

The Meetup Roundtables are an opportunity for Meetup organizers to connect and discuss challenges and opportunities for their local Meetups. We’ll hold them via video chat, using Zoom.

Here are the dates and topics, all Wednesdays at 16:00 UTC

The format is quite informal. We’ll kick-off the meeting with introductions, name, and location. The hosts will talk about their experiences for this week’s topic for a few minutes, and then we open it up for general Q & A from participating organizers.

For this first round, we’ll plan for these video chat Meetup Roundtables to last one hour. We will record them and make them available for those that couldn’t make it.

We hope you can join the discussion! If you’re an experienced meetup organizer in the WordPress chapter program and would like to participate as a host, please comment below!

Interested in learning more about WordPress Meetups?

#meetups-2, #roundtables

Cami Kaos 7:39 pm on August 25, 2017
Tags: , , meetups, ,   

Payment Intermission September 11-18

The Automattic sponsored staff members of the Global Community Team, who routinely handle WPCS banking, will be at a company offsite September 11-18. During this time we’ll halt WordCamp and Meetup vendor payments, reimbursements, and sponsor payment attribution. If you’ll need to pay for goods or services in mid-September, please submit all requests no later than 9am Pacific Friday, September 8, 2017. Payment requests submitted after that time will not likely be processed until Tuesday, September 19, 2017. Sponsor invoices paid September 11-18 won’t be marked paid until September 19.

If you have an urgent payment request that must be handled that week, but did not submit your request prior to September 8, please reach out to @kcristiano. He can be found on slack “@kcristiano“.

Deputies, mentors, and community members will still be available by email at support@wordcamp.org or on Slack in the #community-events channel.

Normal vendor payment and sponsorship attributions scheduled will resume Tuesday, September 19, 2017 though it may take us a day or two to get fully caught up.

#payments #afk #wordcamps #meetups-2

Cami Kaos 6:10 pm on August 2, 2017
Tags: , meetups,   

New Documentation: Presenter Best Practices

It seems odd that in our ever expanding documentation we don’t really have much content on the best practices for presenters in our program. Given that presenters are one of the cornerstones on which we build WordCamps and Meetups that’s something we’d like to change but we need everyone’s help.

We’re looking for a good general set of best practices for each of the following specific presenters/ presentations so please let us know what has worked best for you both at events at which you’ve presented and which you’ve organized.

  • Opening Remarks
  • Emcees
  • Speakers

Example questions we’re looking to answer: What should be covered during opening remarks? How much content should an emcee share? How do you deal with attendees who interrupt your presentation?

But please don’t let that limit your response. Anything that can be of help to organizers, presenters, and emcees at WordCamps and Meetups could be relevant. We’re looking to curate some truly helpful advice and best practices for the handbook so let us know what you know, or what you’d like to see.

#wordcamps #meetups-2 #handbook

Courtney P.K. 1:15 am on June 6, 2017
Tags: meetups,   

Swag for Meetup Groups

We currently have a policy that WordPress Chapter Meetup groups who have not received swag in the past 18 months are eligible for to receive a 100-pack of WordPress swag (which contains 100 stickers and 100 buttons with the WordPress logo). The reason we have this policy is because we usually restock swag with that 18 month cycle in mind. However, it’s possible that we need to scale that up if lots of organizers are experiencing unusual growth in their groups.

Do you think that this is of concern, especially as more Meetup groups experience growth, and as we’re seeing more new Meetup groups being created?

If so, what solution(s) would you suggest? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

UPDATE: We intend on coming to a decision on this on Friday, 21 July, soon after the Community Team meeting. Please chime in with any suggestions or opinions in the comments before then. Thanks!

#meetups, #swag

Hugh Lashbrooke 11:15 am on May 29, 2017
Tags: , meetups,   

Group Meetup Orientation at WCEU Contributor Day

Greetings potential meetup organisers!

At the Contributor Day for WordCamp Europe this year (which will be taking place on 15 June), we will be holding a group meetup orientation at some point during the day. So, if you’re planning on starting a meetup group in your area and you will be attending the Contributor Day, then please get your meetup application in as soon as you can by filling in this form. That way we can process it before the day and you can join in the group meetup orientation along with the other new organisers who will be doing the same thing.

Even if you are attending the Contributor Day as part of a different contribution team, you can still attend the meetup orientation as it will not be longer than 1 hour. We will decide on the time of day for the orientation closer to the date, and will let those of you who are going to be a part of it know when it will be.

This will be a great way to kick start your meetup group as you will immediately have a friendly network of other organisers who you have chatted to in person 🙂

#meetups #training #deputies

Birgit Pauli-Haack 8:02 pm on May 17, 2017
Tags: , meetups   

Premium Plugin in exchange for promo favors for Meetup Organizers

We’ve had a lot of discussion with Meetups and organizers in the past about how to handle sponsorship for meetup groups. One of the types of sponsorship offers we see are  similar to this one:

Modern Tribe offers the Event Aggregator plugin to meetup organizers on the chapter program who also maintain a WordPress site for the group.On the application form, they request from the applicant: (paraphrased here)

  • to send information to the group’s members via email 
  • to share information at an upcoming Meetup
  • to tweet our thanks (if a twitter account is available)<
  • to post a Thank You Facebook page (if available)
  • to give Modern Tribe and The Events Calendar permission to show meetup logo within their lists of participants/customers.

As I understand  #1 of the Good Faith rules, this doesn’t seem to benefit the community as a whole. As a WordPress meetup organizer, I would not sign up for this kind of offering.

What do you think about offers like this? How do you think, it should be handled by Meetup Organizers? Please add your comment below.

#meetups #deputies

bridgetwillard 5:47 pm on March 1, 2017
Tags: meetups, Video Testimonials   

Dear Meetup Organizers, we need your help with Meetup Video Testimonials

WordPress meetup TestimonialsDear Meetup Organizers

A favorite moment in all WordPress meetups is that time when you meet new WordPress users and hear their stories of how they use WordPress. Sometimes it’s a simple blog, sometimes it’s a complex content management system for news, or a mid sized e-commerce site for their local store front. Whatever the story, it’s always fascinating.

We would like your help in sharing those stories with the WordPress community.

Can you take a few moments to record a video testimonial with one of the attendees at each of your meetups? Nothing fancy, no special cameras, microphones or glaring lights. Just a camera phone and a good, honest story that will inspire others as they search for how to use WordPress for their own projects.

Let’s do this in March and April, folks. WordCamps count, too.

As Dave Navarro says, impromptu videos are best.

“I work for a TV and Radio station in the midwest and I can tell you, from experience, that unpolished raw video has more of an impact on most people in social media than polished professional video.”

Suggested prompts:

  1. How long have you been using WordPress.
  2. What brought you to the Meetup?
  3. How has coming to this Meetup affected you?

Scope:

  • Spontaneous or planned video testimonial.
  • Make sure the lighting is good.
  • Quiet place is best.
  • Have them speak up (good audio).
  • 1-2 minutes is best; max 5 min.
  • Upload to WordPress.tv in the Testimonial Category.
WordPress.tv Testimonial Category for Meetup Marketing

WordPress.tv Testimonial Category for Meetup Marketing

Videos that you lovely meetup organizers upload for the Marketing The Community are here.

Once the videos are accepted and published, share, share, and share!

Love,

The Marketing the Community Team

#video-testimonials #meetups

Jenny 12:49 pm on January 16, 2017
Tags: meetups   

Collecting ideas & methods for Meetups promotion / growth

Hi Everyone,

We would like to share ways that people are promoting, growing and sustaining their local meetups.

The idea will be to collect what people are doing in their local areas and turn them into information we can share with everyone via our meetup handbooks and the way we give meetup support to all the organisers we meet.

Let us know below how you are organising your local meetup and share your ways of promoting, growing and sustaining the local community where you are!

Thanks!
#meetups

Francesca Marano 9:08 am on October 7, 2016
Tags: , , meetups, ,   

Global Translation Day 2

Hello hello!
As some of you might know, last April the Polyglots team hosted the first Global Translation Day with 24 hours of streamed sessions and live events around the world. It was an incredible experience: we translated thousands of strings, on-boarded hundreds of new contributors and ate tons of cake (oh well, that might have been only in Torino). If you wanna read some really impressive statistics, head over to the recap post:

Global WordPress Translation Day – recap & results

It was such an incredible experience that we decided to have another one on November 12 and we would like to get *even* more people excited from all over the world.

I have been involved with Polyglots and Community for a while now and I think it would be very helpful to have the support from the Community team to do some outreach.

I will get in touch with WordCamps that have Contributor Days coming up to announce the event, and I think it would be super cool and effective if we could send a message to all Meetups organizers in the chapter: @chanthaboune do you think it would be possible?

We have a ton of materials from last WGTD to help Meetups organise a local event if they want to, even if they never contributed to Polyglots before.

Here is the website for the upcoming event: https://wptranslationday.org/
Here are all the videos recorded last time, I think they make an incredible resource for Meetups: http://wordpress.tv/event/global-wordpress-translation-day-2016/

Can you think of other ways to get local communities involved? I am all ears! We can brainstorm here or chat on Slack, I am @francina.

Ciao for now!

#contributor-day, #contributor-meetup, #meetups-2, #translation, #wordcamps

Hugh Lashbrooke 9:43 am on July 8, 2016
Tags: , , meetups, , ,   

Notes from Community Team Chat | July 7, 2016

We held the monthly Community Team Chat yesterday (July 7, 2016) at 19:00 UTC in #outreach on the Making WordPress Slack. You can view the full Slack logs here (Slack account required to view).

Mentorship Programme

@brandondove gave a report on the current status of the WordCamp mentorship programme (Slack logs):

  • 29 total mentors (17 active, 4 maxed out, 8 inactive)
  • 37 camps actively being mentored
  • 9 camps that need mentors

In general the mentorship programme is working well and being very effective. Given that the number of active WordCamps fluctuates over the course of the year, there are times of the year when we do not have enough mentors and times when we do. Right now we do not have enough to cover all of the camps that need them.

WordCamps

@camikaos reported on the status of WordCamps at the moment (Slack logs):

  • 5 camps needing vetting
  • 2 camps needing orientation
  • 34 camps in the pre-planning stage
  • 49 camps scheduled
  • 37 camps closed in 2016 so far

Given that some of those camps are for 2017, we’ll be looking at around 115 camps in total for 2016.

WCEU Contributor Day

@miss_jwo gave some feedback about what the Community achieved at the WordCamp Europe Contributor Day on July 26, 2016 (Slack logs):

  • @camikaos and @chanthaboune lead a workshop on WordCamps and Meetups
  • @kcristiano and @camikaos led a Q&A session
  • Testing sessions were held for new WordCamp organisers using WordCamp.org
  • A number of people worked on improving the handbooks

Meetups

@chanthaboune gave an update on Meetups (Slack logs):

  • We have 305 total meetup groups (97,130 members)
  • 21 new groups created in the last month
  • 28 applications received in the last month
  • 0 groups closed in the last month
  • 63.2% groups are outside the US
  • 36.7% groups in the US
  • We average ~350 events a month

She noted that we have not been sending out the monthly emails to meetup groups around the world and some discussion was had about possibly making those email quarterly instead of attempting to do them monthly.

Miscellaneous

@chanthaboune had a few miscellaneous items at the end of the meeting (Slack logs):

  • We are in the process of moving our P2 to an O2 (much like the Meta blog has already). Everything will continues to work as it should, but it’s worth mentioning.
  • The team at WordCamp Central has grown with the addition of @courtneypk and @hlashbrooke – this means we have more effective coverage across most time zones.

Remember that these monthly Community team chats are on The first Thursday of every month at 19:00 UTC in #outreach on Slack. Have a look at the sidebar of this P2 for other meeting & office hours times.

#debriefs, #events-2, #meetups-2, #mentorship-programs, #report, #team-chat