An earlier iteration of this newsletter was posted by mistake — the only differences were in the headers, which were converted to more of a “call to action” on each line before the newsletter was sent. I’ve also corrected the title of the post, but not the URL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org, since I don’t want to break the links that subscribers received by email.
Howdy WordPress meetup 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!
Welcome to another meetup organizer newsletter full of news, information and inspiration for your local meetup.
Newsletter contents:
- Organize a first WordCamp 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.
- Get more speakers for your events
- Try a new meetup event format
- Try the new Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ editing experience
- Check out the Q2 community events report
Organize a first WordCamp
You’ve organized some great meetups 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 your local community is happy, active, and looking for a new project. Have you considered organizing a WordCamp?
While some WordCamps attract hundreds of attendees, they all started off as smaller events created by enthusiastic fans of WordPress. We encourage all new WordCamp organizers to start small: if your group is meeting regularly, and you think that at least 50 people in your group would be willing to attend an all-day event about WordPress, consider organizing a WordCamp!! WordCamps are a fun way to build your local WordPress community. It’s also a great opportunity to learn about how people in your community use WordPress!
You can read lots more about being a WordCamp Organizer in the organizer handook: https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer/welcome/.
Get more speakers for your events
Struggling to find speakers for community events? If you’d like to recruit more women (and other people from groups that are underrepresented in tech) to speak at meetups and WordCamps, organizing a Diversity Outreach Speaker Training workshop is just the thing: https://make.wordpress.org/training/speaker-training
Every single community that has organized this workshop — all over the world! — has experienced a significant increase in the number of speakers who identify as women at their events.
Interested? Let us know here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/meetup-organizer/event-formats/diversity-speaker-training-workshop/
Try a new meetup event format
From time to time we will feature interesting and notable meetup event ideas, formats and topics in this newsletter — you can use these ideas to bring some fresh inspiration for events in your community.
For this edition, we are highlighting the Perth meetup group, who combined their WP15 celebration with a dedicated Help Desk. While all attendees celebrated the WordPress anniversary, they were also able to give or get assistance with websites! The Perth group found that this format also enabled people who prefer not to speak in front of a whole room to contribute comfortably. Sometimes called Happiness Bars, Help Desks are great resources for all WordPress users at WordCamps as well, and they naturally make for engaging meetup events!
You can see an example of this type of event format here: https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Perth/events/249901706/.
Please let us know by emailing support@wordcamp.org if you have examples for an interesting meetup event format ideas that you have seen or organized!
Try the new Gutenberg editing experience
You may have heard about the new way to WordPress at a meetup event or WordCamp. The Gutenberg project is an entirely new way to create, edit, and customize content in WordPress — and it’s coming very soon!. Check out the latest update from Tammie Lister regarding Gutenberg’s progress and current timeline.
Additionally, check out these great talks on WordPress.tv!
Want to try Gutenberg yourself? Test it out, or install it on your own site. Afterwards, please provide your feedback to help Gutenberg (and WordPress) get better!
Check out the Q2 community events report
2018 continues to be a great year with a lot of exceptional events wrapped up already. Continuing our update from Q1, here’s how the program has grown in the past three months:
Meetups:
From April through June, 51 meetup groups joined the chapter program, with 8,940 new members joining groups around the world. The meetup program reached 619 groups around the world. We now have WordPress meetup groups in 92 countries, all over the world!
WordCamps:
From April through June, 37 WordCamps were held, and 41 WordCamps were approved for planning. Eleven of those WordCamps in-planning are the first in their city! They’re in Cáceres, Spain; Islamabad, Pakistan; Lille, France; Nordic; Mombasa, Kenya; Rockford, IL, USA; Pokhara, Nepal; Thessaloniki, Greece; Cali, Colombia; Biratnagar, Nepal; Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
That’s it for now — until next time!
– Your friends on the Global 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.
make.wordpress.org/community
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