Welcome Committee

Overview

Welcoming folks when they join the Training Team channel is a critical part of ensuring we create connections with them early. It allows us to guide new contributors to areas where they can make an impact or learn more about WordPress in general.

Any Training Team member can volunteer to be on the Welcome Committee. We aim to have multiple team members in this role at any given time. This page will provide guidance on how to perform this role.

Do you learn better by watching a presentation? If so, then jump to the bottom of this page to watch a 45 minute presentation all about the Welcome Committee.

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Responsibilities

  • Welcome new contributors when you notice they’ve joined the #training 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.
  • Direct new contributors to the team’s onboarding program to help them learn about and understand our team.
  • Answer new contributors’ questions in the #training channel.

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Requirements

  • Be an active Training Team member

We list our Welcome Committee members in the table below. If you’d like to join the committee (or have your name removed from the committee), please reach out to a Training 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 Faculty Member.

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Current committee members

A few Welcome Committee members will be “on rotation” each month. These members will pay special attention to new contributors joining the Training team and help them feel welcomed. This doesn’t mean they are the only people welcoming them, though. Anyone on the committee can perform the role’s responsibilities at any time.

Members currently on rotation should recruit a new or current Welcome Committee member to handover their “on rotation” status before their rotation concludes. We ask each member to commit to a two-month rotation at a time. Please ask a Faculty Admin to update the table below as necessary.

Wrangler NameSlack HandleOn Rotation
Amit Patel@Amit Patel✔️
Ben Evans@Ben Evans✔️
Courtney P.K.@Courtney P.K.

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Following and responding to the welcome thread in team meetings

In each team meeting, we take a moment to recognize new contributors who joined the #training Slack channel in the previous week. Here is a link to one of these messages in Slack:

Screenshot of Slack message during a team meeting, welcoming 28 new contributors who joined the Training Slack channel in the previous week.

As a welcome committee member, please keep an eye on these threads each week and help the new contributors feel welcomed when they comment. Sometimes, it will be a few days before a new contributors will respond to these threads. So that you don’t miss them when they comment, click on Get notified about new replies in the message settings. Or, by commenting in the message thread, you will be notified anyone comments after you.

Screenshot showing how to "get notified about new replies" to specific slack messages

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Other information

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Automated Slack welcome message

When somebody joins the #training Slack channel, a welcome message is automatically sent to them. They will receive this message as a direct message from Slack, and not in the #training channel itself. Below is a copy of this automated welcome message.

Hey [name_of_new_contributor] ! Welcome to #training. We’re so happy you joined the team!

The Training Team helps people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through learning material provided on Learn WordPress. Our team representatives are @Pooja Derashri, @Destiny, and @Ben Evans.

To get started, come walk through our onboarding program – Getting Started! Through this 30-60 minute onboarding program, you’ll:

  • Be introduced to the team’s mission
  • Find an area of contribution to get involved in right away
  • Complete your first contribution to the team
  • See what further areas of contribution are available beyond onboarding
  • Find out when our meetings are

If you have questions along the way, you can reach out in #training at any time. We’re always happy to help!

This welcome message is set up using the Slack Workflow feature. Workflows can only be edited by team reps. Once edited, those changes can only be published by Slack admins. Please contact a team rep if you notice edits need to be made.

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Slack off-boarding messaging

Sometimes, people will leave the team – and that’s ok! But if you notice someone has left recently, then it could be a nice idea to reach out and see if we could have done something to have made their experience in the team better. Consider sending them a variation of this message:

Hi XYZ! My name is ABC and I’m a Welcome Committee member for the WordPress Training Team. It’s nice to meet you! 

I noticed that you had joined the #training channel, but are currently no longer in the channel. That’s totally OK! I just wanted to reach out to see if there were any questions you had about the team or the projects we are involved in. And if you’re willing to share, I’d be interested to hear what prompted you to join, and what led to your channel departure. 

There are no wrong answers! We are working towards improving the experience for contributors, and your input would be helpful.

Cheers! 

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Video resource about joining the committee

If you’d like more information about the Welcome Committee, you can also watch this 45 minute recording of an Online Workshop hosted on April 14th, 2023.

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