Hugh Lashbrooke 10:24 am on December 1, 2020  

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Rocio Valdivia 11:58 am on October 4, 2019
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How to contribute to the Global Community Team

These are some of the different options for getting involved with 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. 🙂

1) The best way to start is by organizing 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/or WordCamps in your city. If you feel like you can represent WordPress, follow the code of conduct for WordPress events, and follow the five good-faith rules for WordPress 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, then you can apply to join the program: 

  1. a) Check if there is a WordPress Meetup group in your city – if there is one, join it, attend the events, and step up by either helping the organizers or becoming an organizer yourself!
  2. b) Check if there is a WordCamp in your area – you can attend, apply to speak, volunteer, sponsor and/or help organize your local 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.!
  3. c) If there is not an existing WordPress Meetup group (or if there is an inactive group) in your town/city and you want to start one, you can apply here – you’ll receive a reply within a couple of weeks.

2) If you already have experience organizing a successful WordCamp and have an availability of 2-3 hours a month, you can apply to become a WordCamp mentor here: – you’ll receive a reply within a couple of weeks.

3) If you have had at least 1 year of experience as a Meetup organizer and/or have been a WordCamp lead organizer, you are familiar with the WordPress Open Source project and philosophy, you have at least 2-3 hours a week available for contributing, and you accept our Code of Conduct, you can apply to become a Community DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook.. We are a team of community-minded people around the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each.. You can apply to join the Global Community Team as a deputy here – you’ll receive a reply within a couple of weeks.

Note: if you have any additional questions, join us in the #community-events channel of Make WordPress Slack, we’ll be happy to help you there!

#contributors

Sjoerd Blom 7:53 pm on October 6, 2022
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Idea: Freescout for WordCamp organising teams

When organising a 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., the organisers have to handle a large number of emails. Large is actually an understatement. For the past years, WordCamp Europe has been using email addresses in the domain wp-europe.org, every team had their own mailbox: sponsors@wp-europe.org, content@wp-europe.org, and so on. Somehow this is ideal, as it allows to structure mailboxes across the teams, but it does not allow teams to see each other’s emails, nor an easy email handover from one team to another.

WordCamps have its own email address in the wordcamp.org domain by default: berlin@wordcamp.org, madrid@wordcamp.org, europe@wordcamp.org, and so on. And since October 2020 WordCamps are given Google Workspace because of the non-profit status of the Foundation (https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer/first-steps/web-presence/g-suite-for-wordcamps/). 

For the past editions, the WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. organisers have been pleased with Freescout as it is right now: it’s mature, it’s stable and allowed us to handle large numbers of emails. Freescout started as an 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. clone of Helpscout. We discovered that it has a very powerful search engine for emails. 

Advantages of Freescout over Google Mail

  • no need to share the credentials of Google Mail with 40+ organisers
  • Google Mail credentials are only known to Freescout, not to the users of Freescout
  • grant individual access in Freescout to the general inbox
  • keep track of which user did what in Freescout (replied to customers, moved/deleted emails)
  • assigning emails to users (handlers)
  • adding internal notes to emails
  • smart tagging and structuring of incoming emails
  • quickly handing over emails from one team to another
  • notify 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/. about new emails
  • keeping track of previous conversations for a particular email address
  • email is still received in the Google Mail
  • email is still sent out via Google Mail

The only disadvantage of Freescout is that it needs a web server to offer its service. Since WCEU 2021 we’re using a small Digital Ocean VPS to host our Freescout instance.
I’ve had a couple of talks with the organisers of WordCamp Asia and WordCamp US, they both have a similar setup. We have come to the conclusion that we’re reinventing the wheel here and that it would make sense if Freescout would be part of the default stack for WordCamp organising teams. Especially the larger WordCamps would benefit from Freescout, as they have to handle very large quantities of correspondence with sponsors, speakers, volunteers and other external parties (WCEU 2022 had over 3,000 emails to process!)

Let me know what you think.

#wordcamps

Oneal Rosero 6:40 pm on October 6, 2022
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Recap of APAC WPDiversity Network Building – 10th meeting (Sept 29, 2022)

Thursday, Sep 29, 2022

https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1664420421262379

Host: Oneal Rosero @onealtr

Participants: Devin Maeztri @devinmaeztri

Agenda:

  1. Check-ins (everyone)
  2. First time here
  3. Volunteer needed to take notes!
  4. WPDiversity at WordPress events
    1. 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. Nepal, November 5-6, 2022
    2. WordCamp Gresik, Indonesia, November 9-10, 2022
    3. WordCamp Nagpur, India, November 12, 2022
    4. WordCamp Kolkata, West Bengal, India, December 2022
    5. WordCamp Asia 2023, Bangkok, February 17-19, 2023
  5. Outreach to get more participants in our meeting
  6. Updates, comments, questions, ideas  (anyone)
  7. A reminder of next meeting and facilitator (anyone)

Notes: 

  • Devin tagged some organizers of the WordCamps listed above in case they were available to join the meeting and share some updates regarding their Camps and if they have diversity-specific questions. Asynchronous responses were also welcome!
  • Devin added some Calls that are still open for WC Asia 2023.
  • Oneal suggested to bring Devin’s question regarding finding a way to get WP APAC community leaders to support the APAC Diversity Initiative to WordCamps and 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.. 
  • Devin’s share #WPBriefing archives: Josepha on the importance of diversity in #WordPress. https://bit.ly/3zd5895

#community-team, #wpdiversity

Megan 12:00 pm on October 5, 2022
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Community Team Meeting Agenda for Oct 6, 2022

The Community Team chat takes place on the first Thursday of every month. This regular 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! 🤝 We’re always happy to have new folks join!

This meeting will be held in the #community-events channel in the Making 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/. at the following times:

Both meeting times use the same agenda.

You will find a preliminary agenda for the meeting below. If there’s anything you’d like to discuss, please comment on this post or reach out to one of the team reps: @megabyterose or @samsuresh. It does not need to have a corresponding blog post to be discussed in this meeting!

❔ DeputyDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook./MentorMentor 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. Check-Ins

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?

Mentor Check-in October 2022

✨ Highlights

Thank you to everyone who worked on the WordPress Community at the WCUS 2022 Contributor Day! If it was your first time contributing with our team, we hope to see you in Slack and at future team meetings/events. 😄

We recently hosted another WordPress Events Organizer Training. A recap post about our discussions is on the way.

By 15 October – Please complete the Annual Meetup Survey and share widely!

📌 Posts

2023 Global Sponsorship Working Group

Proposal: CampTix Attendee to Google Sheets integration

Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on September 14, 2022

Celebrating APAC WPDiversity Network Building: Update on Our 10th Meeting

📣 Announcements/Newsletters

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: September 2022

🗣️ Open Floor

Here is your chance to bring things into discussions that weren’t on the meeting agenda. You can also use this opportunity to share anything that you want with the team. If you have a topic in mind before the meeting, please add it to the comments of this post, we will update the agenda accordingly.

Hope to see you tomorrow, either in the Asia-Pacific/EMEA or Americas-friendly version of the meeting!

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

Rocio Valdivia 10:49 am on October 4, 2022  

WordCamp Mentors’ October check-in!

Hello mentorsMentor 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.!
Are you currently mentoring a 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. and you want to share how the team is doing and any other insights or interesting ideas and/or innovations they’re planning?

Leave a comment on this post and share your update, thanks! 🙂

Cate DeRosia 9:45 pm on September 30, 2022
Tags: ContributorDay, ,   

Help Improve the Make/Community Contributor Day Onboarding

Look familiar? You’re right; this is similar to the other post!

However, the goal of this one is to focus on onboarding experiences had at or around Contributor Days.

As we grow, it’s important to reflect on where we can make our processes smoother for everyone. So this post is gathering feedback specifically related to 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/..

  • Any blockers you’ve found to participating in a Contributor Day
  • Any blockers you’ve found to helping others participate in a Contributor Day
  • Anything you think it would be useful to share

That’s it. Short and sweet. Please leave feedback in the comments.

#feedback #ContributorDay #onboarding

Cate DeRosia 9:41 pm on September 30, 2022
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Help Improve the Overall Make/Community Onboarding

Hello, all. In an effort to make our content more engaging and more useful for everyone, I have been working on updates to our Make/Community site and the pages within.

You may have noticed updates to the Welcome Box, the Team Projects page, the Community Team Handbook, and have recently started on the Meetup Organizers Handbook.

About the Project

The goal is to fill in any missing knowledge and make our information easier to find.

The project impacts two sets of people:

  1. organizers who are trying to find information to host an event
  2. new contributors to the community team, such as deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. and mentorsMentor 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.

My approach so far has been to update and simplify information while moving frequently used links to more accessible locations.

How you can help!

Please comment here with insights into:

  • frequently used information that you struggle to find
  • blockers you have hit that make it difficult to contribute, or to help others contribute
  • information that is confusing or outdated
  • processes that are confusing or outdated
  • frustrations you’ve faced when planning an event or assisting others to do so
  • anything else that could help improve the experience for event organizers and contributors

Thank you in advance for your help.

Hat tip to @juliarosia for editing assistance.

#feedback #onboarding

jillbinder 7:28 pm on September 29, 2022
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Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on September 28, 2022

Attending: @juliarosia, @katiejrichards, @kcrockett, @onealtr, @santanainniss

Attended by proxy: @jillbinder

Facilitator: @santanainniss

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1664384439597139

Summary

1 Attendance and check-ins (everyone)
2 First time here
3 Comments, questions, ideas (anyone)
4 Workshops (Speaker & Inclusion) (@jillbinder)

Great speaker workshop for women in India over the weekend. We had about 20 attend, and we are pretty certain that at least 3 are going to start speaking. 

Organizing Diverse & Inclusive WordPress Events
Thursday, October 13 at 5pm-7:30pm UTC
Please share: https://twitter.com/jillbinder/status/1574899555455610880

Talked about the workshop’s call to action.

5 APAC WPDiversity Network Building (@onealtr)

We are already in discussions to bring a similar workshop as India’s to other countries and possibly other languages.

List of upcoming WordCamps in Asia.

6 Diverse Speaker Support channel (@kcrockett, @juliarosia, @jillbinder)

The channel is doing well and continuing to grow.
Do folks have any feedback that would help improve your experience of the group and the value that it offers you and the community?
Additionally, if you have any suggestions for our weekly Fun Discussion Topics please send them to @kcrockett!

7 Marketing (@santanainniss)

We shared posts on September 15/16th and September 23 about the India Women’s speaker workshop to push last minute registrations.

Coming up next:

  • Promotion of the upcoming October training (diverse & inclusive WP events workshop)
  • Promotion of LATAM women’s speaker training (in-person)
  • Promotion of WP Diversity APAC meeting, celebrating its 10th meeting

Please help us promote the October 13 Inclusion workshop. Social going out on Thursday (today)!

8 Daylight savings — changing the meeting time in November? (@jillbinder)

Thinking about making our meetings 5pm UTC during Daylight savings and 6pm UTC when Daylight savings ends. This would keep it at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern all of the time. Everyone in the meeting agreed.

9 Other Updates + Next meeting facilitator (anyone)

@juliarosia will facilitate the next meeting.

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1664387534721449

#wpdiversity

Julia Golomb 6:49 pm on September 29, 2022
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Update: Global Meetup Reactivation Project

The WordPress 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. Reactivation Project is well underway. Read on for an update!

Is your meetup currently active? Tell the world by posting a photo on social media with the hashtag #WordPressMeetup

Background

Why meetup reactivation?

Many WordPress 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. around the world have been dormant due to the COVID-19 pandemic and organizer burnout. Yet thriving meetups are crucial for the health of the global WordPress community!

How does meetup reactivation work?

In July, the 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. published a Call for Supporters and launched the Meetup Reactivation Project. Since then, Meetup Reactivation Supporters started directly reaching out to the organizers of every dormant WordPress meetup to:

  • Check on the status of the meetup
  • Encourage reactivation
  • Ask how we can best support the organizers
  • Identify whether new organizers are needed

We define a dormant meetup as one that has not held an event in the past six months (virtual or in-person). There were more than 400 dormant WordPress meetups at the launch of this project — which means there is significant opportunity to reactivate our global community!

The numbers (so far)!

There are currently 764 WordPress chapter meetups in 112 countries, with 494,736 members. Yet at the start of the reactivation project, we identified that 416 of these groups were dormant.

The project currently has 39 meetup reactivation supporters globally. These amazing volunteers are reaching out directly to the organizers of each dormant meetup group. 

As a result of their efforts:

  • 117 meetup groups have reactivated or plan to reactivate in 2022 (🎉)!
  • 14 dormant meetups were removed from the WordPress meetup chapter program, because the previous organizers were not available to reactivate the group and no member came forward to serve as organizer.

Next Steps

In the months ahead, Supporters will continue to reach out to organizers of dormant groups, share resources to help them reactivate, and help find new organizers when needed. We will continue to share updates here on the Community Team blog.

Thank you to our wonderful meetup reactivation supporters, the hundreds of meetup organizers who are reactivating their groups, and the energetic new organizers who have come forward to lead meetups!

Want to reactivate your local meetup group or form a new meetup?

Contact the Community Team at support@wordcamp.org. We’re here to help!

Relevant posts:

#meetups, #outreach, #reactivation

Julia Golomb 11:40 pm on September 27, 2022
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By 15 October – Please complete the Annual Meetup Survey and share widely!

The 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 will remain open until 15 October.

If you already completed and shared the survey, thank you! If you haven’t, read on!

Meetup group members: Please complete the Annual Meetup Program Survey, even if you haven’t participated in a meetup recently.

Meetup organizers: Please complete the Annual Meetup Organizer Survey. Then, share the Meetup Program Survey with your group via discussion boards, email, social media, and announce it at your next Meetup event.

The surveys are available in 14 different languages, listed below.

Surveys

Why complete the survey?

This is an important opportunity to share your feedback on WordPress 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 2021 and 2022 (thus far). Even if you did not attend meetup events in 2021-2022, your input is valuable! The survey takes less than 5 minutes, and the results will help strengthen WordPress meetups in the years to come. Our goal is to achieve a 100% response rate among meetup organizers around the world, and as high a response rate as possible among members.

What’s Next?

Complete the survey by 15 October!

Share the Annual Meetup Program Survey with your local meetup community, in whichever languages are relevant to your region.

#meetups, #annual-survey

Oneal Rosero 8:02 pm on September 27, 2022
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Celebrating APAC WPDiversity Network Building: Update on Our 10th Meeting

#WPDiversity team

Since 2017, the #WPDiversity team has been encouraging people from underrepresented and marginalized groups in WordPress to participate and speak at WordCamps and WP 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 their local community and the ever-expanding global WP community. 

Most of the activities of the #WPDiversity team have been scheduled in the North American (AMER) time zones, sometimes in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) as well. While there have been a few workshops held in India, Indonesia, Africa, and the Philippines, the regular meeting makes it difficult for those in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region to participate. 

Demand for WordPress Group Activities Grows Steadily in the APAC Region

WordPress has been present in the APAC region for many years now. Over the last two years alone, there has been a sharp increase in the demand for WordPress events. For example, in 2019, there were already 127 WordPress 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. groups with 73,000 members in 23 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. During the pandemic that started in 2020, this number has only gone up.

In 2022, the number of Meetup groups in APAC has grown to 141, an 11% increase. What’s more, total Meetup membership and countries represented also increased to 120,000 members across 25 countries– an increase of 64% and 8% respectively. This is a significant increase even if most of their activities in the past 2 years have been primarily online, these meetup groups are now starting to hold face-to-face activities like meetups and even WordCamps.

This is timely, as the flagship event WordPress in Asia, 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. Asia 2023 is fast approaching.

APAC #WPDiversity Network Building

To help meet the growing demand for in-person and online WordPress events in APAC, the APAC #WPDiversity Network Building meeting was started. Volunteers around the Asia-Pacific region voted on the most convenient schedule and we have held 9 meetings since May.

The main intention of this meeting for APAC is that we want to walk the talk. We want to make the WordPress community as diverse and inclusive as possible and we need you to be part of the journey!

The APAC region is host to some of the most diverse selection of WordPress users in the world, with differences in culture, language, life experiences, and knowledge. By encouraging more underrepresented individuals who are usually not as engaged in the tech community to participate in our meetings, we can help foster growth and collaboration among groups of people, who would not normally have the opportunity to work with one another if not for the global WordPress community. 

During these meetings, we report on activities that are relevant to the APAC region and encourage discussion about other concerns affecting the WordPress community. We also promote events like WordCamps in the region. Especially Call-for-Speakers, Call-for-Sponsors, and when tickets go on sale. This is another way for you to get people to see what is happening in your WordPress community and help get more people to participate. 

We also need your help to spread the word so more community members can join the meeting and so we can learn from each other about making the WordPress community in our region more diverse and inclusive.

Ideas on how to grow our APAC WPDiversity Network?

We would be honored if you would join us. 

This is for you if:

  1. You are based in Asia-Pacific
  2. You care about diversity and inclusion in WordPress, particularly in Asia-Pacific
  3. You are able to join most of the meetings (2 hours a month – 1 hour each meeting)

If you would like to participate in the activities held by the #WPDiversity team, please comment on this post with your 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/. name to indicate that you are interested in joining the meetings with us. 

Meeting Schedule

This meeting happens on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month at 0300H-0400H UTC. We have a related meeting for AMER with a different agenda on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month at 0500H-0600H UTC. 

Changes in the schedule are posted on the Community-team P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. blog and in the Slack channel. 

If you don’t have a WordPress Slack account yet, here is how to get set up: https://bit.ly/setupwp2slack

Thank you to @devinmaeztri, @onealtr, @jillbinder

#WPDiversity

#community-management, #community-team