Rocio Valdivia 10:24 am on December 1, 2020  

Highlighted Posts

Categorize a post as Highlight to add it to this section.

Matteo Enna 12:03 pm on June 5, 2024  

Community Team Meeting Agenda for 6 – June – 2024

The Community Team chat takes place the first Thursday of every month in the #community-team channel on Slack Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/ . The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ . . 

This 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!

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly meeting: Thursday, 6 June 2024 at 12:00 PM UTC
 Americas friendly meeting: Thursday, 6 June 2024 at 21:00 PM UTC

You will find a preliminary agenda for the meeting below. 

If you wish to add points to discuss, comment on this post or reach out to one of the team reps: @peiraisotta , @Shusei , @leo , or @nukaga . It does not need to be a blog post yet, the topic can be discussed during the meeting nevertheless. We use the same agenda for both meetings.

Check-ins: Program and Event Supporters / Contributors

  • 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?

Highlights to Note

Here are a few things everyone should be aware of.

Open Posts

Check out these new and ongoing discussions needing review, feedback, thoughts and comments.

  • Current challenges of WordPress Events. Shaping the future
    • Events program has seen significant challenges in bringing new users and new attendees in recent years due to many factors. To that end, this conversation aims to examine the events program’s current state and explore what changes could attract fresh users to the WordPress Project. Read carefully and share feedback before June 28, 2024.  
  • Recognizing Contributions and Acknowledging Challenges
    • This conversation is posted on the Sustainability blog to address the challenge of recognizing all contributions across the project.
  • Project Health Dashboards
    • Following the discussion about the contribution recognition challenge, the whole community is invited to share ideas and feedback about what tools we can use to create dashboards for the contribution teams. Please join the conversation and leave feedback before June 17.

Announcements / Newsletters

Open Floor

This is your chance to discuss things that weren’t on the meeting agenda. 

We invite you to use this opportunity to share anything that you want with the team. If you currently have a topic you’d like to discuss, add it to the comments of this post and we will try to update the agenda accordingly.

Hope to see you on Thursday, either in the Asia-Pacific / EMEA (12:00 UTC) or Americas-friendly version (21:00 UTC) of the meeting!

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

Laura Adamonis 6:26 pm on June 4, 2024
Tags: ,   

X-post: Training Team Update – June 2024

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/updates : Comment on Training Team Update – June 2024

Rocio Valdivia 2:17 pm on May 31, 2024
Tags: 2024-goals, challenges,   

Current challenges of WordPress Events. Shaping the future

In the Big Picture Goals 2024 post, Josepha called on the WordPress community to focus our energy on attracting new users to WordPress . Historically, our Meetups 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 . , WordCamps, and Flagship WordCamps have been instrumental in bringing in new WordPressers by fostering connections, sharing knowledge, and encouraging them to contribute. However, the Events program has seen significant challenges bringing new users and new attendees in recent years due to many factors. To that end, this conversation aims to examine the events program’s current state and explore what changes attract fresh users to the WordPress Project.

The Current State and Challenges

In recent years, the Community Team has revitalized the events program by encouraging experimentation and fresh event formats through Next Generation WordPress Events . However, the statistics show that while the number of events has increased significantly during our re-engagement project , the number of new attendees has also declined.

WordCamp 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 . /WP Events two thousand and sixteen two thousand and seventeen two thousand and eighteen two thousand and nineteen two thousand and twenty two thousand and twenty-one two thousand and twenty-two two thousand and twenty-three two thousand and twenty-four
Num. Events one hundred and seven one hundred and twenty-six one hundred and forty-four one hundred and forty-four thirty-four nineteen twenty-six seventy 22*
Unique attendees 33,907 38,264 40,936 41,697 32,830 5,582* 11,088 22,637 6,425*
Tickets sold 46,794 53,048 56,234 57,892 40,939 20,930 13,149 26,090 9,821*
First timer N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 4975* 2,576*
*Partial numbers because we started tracking this in the middle of the year, the year has not finished, or due to other technical issues

Meetups two thousand and sixteen two thousand and seventeen two thousand and eighteen two thousand and nineteen two thousand and twenty two thousand and twenty-one two thousand and twenty-two two thousand and twenty-three two thousand and twenty-four
New groups one hundred and twenty-seven one hundred and eighteen one hundred and thirteen ninety thirty-nine nine thirty-five seventy-two fourteen
New members 136,192 107,455 71,280 36,143 20,019 3,812 5,532 7,299 5,240*
Events hosted 3,703 4,677 5,894 5,961 4,507 3,178 3,123 3,889 1,464*
RSVPs 72,043 103,915 135,524 127,502 116,046 70,853 68,971 77,246 27,824*
*Partial numbers because we started tracking this in the middle of the year, the year has not finished, or due to other technical issues

Adding to this decline in new attendees, the Global Community Team 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. routinely hears the following from event participants:

  • While innovative events, like WordPress School Day and WordPress Web Challenge , have been held, most WordPress events still follow the same “one size fits all” strategy. The pandemic has altered people’s behaviors about in-person events, attendees want clear purpose and distinction in event formats and types that deliver value towards meeting their goals.
  • Organizer burnout has become increasingly prevalent. Organizing large events is an immense and time-consuming challenge. 
  • Sponsorship for events is increasingly challenging to raise, despite an increasing demand . Also, there needs to be clear value or additional benefit to sponsors.

While this may sound worrisome, never fear! WordPress community members still report enjoying the experience of participating in WordPress events, and there is a strong desire to continue having them. However, change is necessary to sustainably support organizers and sponsors, to meet users where they are, and to ensure that participation in events is purposeful and conducive to achieving personal and collective goals.

Let’s Discuss!

Addressing these challenges will require collective effort and input from the entire WordPress community. Our events program has immense, untapped potential to attract attendees and bolster WordPress’ visibility. Here are a few questions to inspire some thoughts, but feel free to share whatever comes to mind!

  1. What motivated you to attend your first WordPress event? What were you hoping to gain or experience?
  2. If you’ve organized an event in the past couple of years, what relevant feedback have you heard from new to WordPress attendees?
  3. What unique value or benefit do you find at other non-WordPress events that you think could bring value to our WordPress events? (for attendees, organizers, and sponsors)
  4. What type of new event or content do you think would be great for attracting and keeping new WordPress users (of any level) to WordPress events?

We encourage you to discuss and share your thoughts, ideas, and experiences in the comments below before June 28, 2024 . Your feedback will be invaluable as we work together to shape a bright future of WordPress events for our global community.

Thanks to @ chanthaboune @ angelasjin @ nao @ juliarosia @ devinmaeztri @ courtneypk @ sarahglenn @ harmonyromo @ peiraisotta @ kcristiano @ monchomad @ unintended8 @ samsuresh @ nukaga @ chaion07 @ mpc @ patricia70 for helping with this post

# 2024-goals , # challenges , # discussion

Julia Golomb 11:00 am on May 30, 2024
Tags: , WP21   

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: May 2024

Want to organize a WordPress meetup 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 . group in your community? Contact the WordPress Global Community Team 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. at support@wordcamp.org or in # community-events on Making WordPress Slack .

Welcome to the May 2024 edition of the WordPress Meetup Organizer Newsletter!

We have a wealth of exciting updates and resources to share with you this month. From the launch of the Learning Pathway for Beginner WordPress Users, to actionable tips for attracting first-time attendees, we’re here to support you in growing and nurturing your local WordPress communities. Plus, read valuable advice about hosting engaging hybrid events (with some attendees in-person, and some attendees online), discover how you can harness WordCamp 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 . Europe 2024 sessions for your Meetup group, and join us in welcoming our newest WordPress Meetup groups from around the globe.

We hope that within this newsletter you will find inspiration and practical tools to make your meetups 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 . even more impactful. Thank you for your continued dedication to the WordPress community. Let’s keep learning and growing together!

Learning Pathway for Beginner WordPress Users Now Available on Learn. WordPress.org WordPress.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/

Blue banner with a photo of a person sitting at a laptop while holding a cup of coffee, the words "Beginner WordPress User", and the WordPress logo

We’re excited to announce that the Learning Pathway for Beginner WordPress Users is now live on Learn.WordPress.org ! This comprehensive learning pathway will help Meetup organizers support community members who are new to WordPress. Leveraging our events to attract and nurture new WordPress users aligns perfectly with the WordPress project’s Big Picture Goals for 2024 .

To get started, all you need is a WordPress.org account. If you don’t have one yet, you’ll be prompted to create it. We welcome your feedback — simply click the “Let us know” button in the right column, or even better, create a Learn GitHub GitHub 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/ issue using the Feedback template .

The Make WordPress Training Team is dedicated to creating learning pathways for all skill levels, from beginner through expert, and for users, developers, and designers alike. You can learn more about this initiative in this post .

Reaching First-Time Attendees to Grow the WordPress Community

As WordPress Meetup organizers, one of our key goals is to attract and engage first-time attendees. Reaching new users is crucial for the growth and sustainability of the WordPress project, aligning with the Big Picture Goals for 2024 .

To effectively attract first-time attendees, consider implementing the following strategies. First, share engaging content during outreach that highlights the benefits of attending meetups, such as learning opportunities, networking, and community support. Additionally, collaborate with local tech groups, universities, and co-working spaces to reach potential new users who may not yet be familiar with WordPress. Offering beginner-level content can also help newcomers feel more comfortable and engaged ( refer to the article above for helpful resources! ).

Finally, ensure that your events are welcoming and inclusive to all attendees, so that they are excited to return. Create a friendly atmosphere by having dedicated greeters, clear signage, and detailed event descriptions that help attendees understand what to expect. Encourage existing members to bring friends and colleagues, and consider hosting special “Introduction to WordPress” sessions for beginners. By focusing on these actionable tips, you can effectively attract and retain new attendees, helping to grow the WordPress community and ensuring its continued success.

Mastering Hybrid Meetups: Creating Psychological Togetherness

As WordPress Meetup organizers, many of us are navigating the complexities of hybrid events. How can we ensure that both in-person and virtual attendees feel equally engaged? In Priya Parker’s article “ The Future of Work is Creating Psychological Togetherness ,” discover actionable strategies to bridge the gap between physical and virtual spaces. Learn how to treat Zoom participants as honored guests, ask “magical questions” to create shared context, and build feedback loops that connect everyone. These insights will help you elevate your next hybrid meetup event.

Harness WordCamp Europe 2024 Sessions for Your Meetup Group

Explore the WordCamp Europe 2024 schedule and speaker lineup to find sessions that may interest your meetup members. All WordCamp Europe talks will be live-streamed and recorded, allowing you to bring your Meetup group together to watch and discuss the sessions, whether live or at a later date. It’s the next best thing to being there and allows your group to come together to learn about the very latest in WordPress!

Happy 21st Birthday, WordPress!

WordPress celebrated its 21st birthday on May 27, and many meetup groups hosted festivities. We invite you to share your photos of the celebrations using the hashtag # WP21 .

Cake decorated with the WordPress logo and the words "21st Anniversary, WordPress Varanasi Meetup #WP21"
WordPress Varanasi Meetup cake
Cake decorated with the WordPress logo and the words "WordPress 21st Anniversary, Ahmedabad WordPress Meetup"
WordPress Ahmedabad Meetup cake
Cake with the WordPress logo and the words "21st Anniversary Fatehpur WordPress Meetup #WP21"
WordPress Fatehpur cake
Six people stand behind a cake, with blue balloons in the background. One person feeds a piece of cake to another.
WordPress Fatehpur organizers sharing cake
Four people holding a small potted plant
WordPress Hisar community planting 21 trees to celebrate # WP21

Introducing our newest WordPress Meetup groups

Let’s welcome the new Meetup groups recently added to our chapter! Do support them in organizing both local (in-person) and global (online) meetup events, and let’s learn from their experiences and experiments along the way.

  1. Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  2. Bordeaux, France
  3. Heredia, Costa Rica
  4. Metairie, Louisiana, USA

Meetups of the Month

This month, we celebrate the WordPress Meetup groups of Bhopal (India), Baguio (Philippines), and Fatehpur (India) WordPress meetup.

23 people stand together for a photo, with one person holding a pennant that says 'WordPress'.
Bhopal, India WordPress Meetup
17 people sit and stand in front of a screen that says "Welcome to our WordPress Meetup Baguio"
T he first Baguio WordPress meetup event in five years!  
8 people stand behind a table, with blue balloons around them
Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, India WordPress Meetup

Meetup Organizers, we want to feature you!

We’d love to publish pictures from Meetups 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: Bluehost , GoDaddy , Automattic , WPBeginner , and Woo !

If you have any questions, Community Team deputies Program 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: @ hellosatya , @ juliarosia , @ bjmcsherry , @ courtneypk

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

Hari Shanker R 6:58 am on May 29, 2024
Tags: , , , , , ,   

Recap of the Contributor Working Group’s Mentorship Chat on May 23rd 2024

Agenda:   https://make.wordpress.org/community/2024/05/16/contributor-working-group-chat-agenda-may-23rd-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/

Meeting links ( Slack Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/ . The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ . ): APAC/EMEA , AMER

Host (EMEA): @ harishanker
Host (AMER): @ peiraisotta
Notes: @ harishanker

In Attendance:
APAC/EMEA @ harishanker (host) + @ coachbirgit @ coachbirgit @ devmuhib @ hellosatya @ javiercasares @ josepmoran @ KafleG @ kirasong @ lighthouse79 @ lumiblog @ matteoenna @ meher @ nao @ nilovelez @ oglekler @ oneal @ patricia70 @ poena @ rcreators @ sumitsingh @ unintended8 @ yoga1103 + async @ tobifjellner @ josepmoran @ estelaris @ nhrrob @ courane01

AMER: @ peiraisotta (host) + @ adityakane @ chaion07 @ colorful-tones @ courane01 @ gusaus @ matteoenna @ nhrrob @ rogermedia @ tobifjellner @ tekNorah

Notes

Brainstorming/Planning Cohort #3 of the Mentorship Program

We spent some time planning the third cohort of the WordPress contributor mentorship program. Participants agreed to maintain the six-week duration but also suggested extending it to seven weeks, dedicating the first week for introductions and onboarding. There was a consensus to keep the cohort size at 40 mentees paired with 20 mentors Event 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. , but with a backup list of mentors to handle emergencies or increased applications. Clear and visible documentation for mentors was emphasized, as current public resources on mentorship are lacking. Ideas like integrating mentees into multiple teams to showcase cross-team collaboration, creating a dedicated onboarding channel in Slack, and organizing an online WordCamp 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 . for mentorship were discussed. Leveraging existing programs like do_action hackathons and bridging with the Training Guide program for onboarding new contributors were also brought up in this discussion.

We decided to focus on enhancing clarity, structure, and support for both mentors and mentees. Participants stressed the importance of setting clear individual project goals and maintaining general program goals to measure success. Improving mentor Event 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 communication and avoiding the initial loss of momentum were highlighted as key areas for refinement. Additionally, ideas for integrating initiatives like Hacktoberfest and WP Translation Day to enhance contributions were explored. Overall, the discussions aimed at creating a more effective and engaging mentorship experience, ensuring sustainable mentor participation, and providing a comprehensive support system for new contributors.

Based on the discussion, we arrived at a broad set of dates for the next cohort which are as follows:

  • June – July 2024: We finalize the structure for the next cohort
  • August – September 2024: Call for mentees/mentors goes out, we select mentors + mentees, and announce them.
  • October-November 2024: Mentorship Program.

It was highlighted that the mentorship program should avoid coinciding with major events like WCUS WCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. to ensure that mentors are not overly occupied. Adjustments may be needed to align with the WordPress 6.7 release cycle, aiming to start the program after major events to maximize participation and focus. For further details, refer to the 2024 Major Release Timing Proposal .

We also asked our group members informally on whether anyone would like to join the next cohort as facilitators. @ rcreators @ nilovelez @ javiercasares @ patricia70 @ kirasong @ estelaris and @ josepmoran have volunteered to join the next cohort.

We are going to start working on building the next cohort as per this plan, and will try to create an MVP Minimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia plan for the next cohort with the goal of creating a strong foundation and structure for the program as early as possible.

On-demand Mentorship

In our last chat , @ tobifjellner shared an excellent idea around “on-demand mentorship”, where we create a pool of mentors who are available to support new contributors, so that new contributors coming in can get mentorship whenever they want. We discussed this idea quite a bit in this month’s chat.

@ tobifjellner elaborated on this idea in the discussion. Essentially, the idea involves creating a dedicated Slack channel for onboarding, supplemented by an email sequence to help new contributors become familiar with the WordPress project. This channel could serve as a general onboarding space, with specific teams building on this process for their own needs. Additionally, the idea of mentorship content living on Learn WordPress, coupled with available time slots for Q&A sessions, was proposed to offer flexible support. The goal is to bridge the periodic cohorts with continuous, ongoing mentorship, ensuring new contributors receive guidance whenever needed.

Participants also discussed having a structured approach where mentors can support mentees asynchronously and provide guidance while encouraging them to connect with their primary mentors. This would ensure mentees receive timely assistance without undermining their mentor-mentee relationships. Creating a pool of available mentors and setting up w eekly sessions for bug scrubs were suggested to maintain engagement and address specific questions. Furthermore, integrating the on-demand mentorship with existing programs like do_action hackathons and leveraging university partnerships for project-based contributions were considered valuable for expanding outreach and sustaining the mentorship program. We also pointed to discussions on different forms of mentorship in the WordPress Contributor Working Group Tracker .

On-demand mentorship was identified as an idea with great potential – and our group will continue to discuss the idea with hopes of creating a structure and launching it after the next mentorship cohort concludes.

Five for the Future Documentation Updates and Discussions

Additionally, in our chat, we highlighted a set of important ongoing discussions related to Five for the Future and the WordPress Contributor Experience.

Open Floor

# wpcontributors , # contributor-working-group , # meeting-notes , # mentorship-chat , # mentorship-chat-recap , # mentorship-program , # sustainability

Shusei Toda 12:54 pm on May 23, 2024
Tags: , ,   

WCEU 2024 Contributor Day: What to do?

WordCamp 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 . Europe 2024 is one month ahead and the Community Team would love to have as many contributors joining as possible. WCEU WCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. is one of the flagship events held in a year along with WordCamp Asia and WordCamp US. During this time, we would love to welcome team members to get together, contribute, collaborate, onboard new members, and maybe come up with new ideas for the future. Several members including some of the Community Team Reps will be present at the event and we will have few facilitators to get through the day. 

Let’s all enjoy WCEU 2024 Contributor Day Contributor 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/ . together and make the most of our time to work on the team’s goals.

Here are some topics that could be discussed during the day.

Topic Examples

  • What would you like to see the community team accomplish at WCEU this year?
  • What topics do you think we should focus on?
  • What goals would be impactful to our day spent collaborating together?
  • How can we improve the Handbook for the Community Team?
  • New Meetup 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 . /WP Event Orientations / Vetting
  • WP Event budget reviews
  • Training for Meetup/WordCamp Organizers
  • Training for current Event/Program Supporters

Can’t attend in person?

Join the conversations that happen all year long in the Make Community Slack Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/ . The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ . . It’s simple to join and allows you to connect to all of the Make WordPress contributor teams!

We will try our best to have the # community-team channel running during the day, but we highly recommend you to comment in this post or in the channel about any specific topics we should look into during WCEU.

Your Feedback is Invaluable

The Community Team thrives because of its diverse perspectives and rich discussions. Don’t stop now. Please comment on your ideas below before May 31st , after that, we’ll close the comments, consolidate all ideas and we’ll publish another post with the final plans on June 7th . 

Thank you!

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

Julia Golomb 2:52 am on May 21, 2024  

Proposal to Update Our Event Venue Policy

The WordPress community’s commitment to creating welcoming, inclusive, and accessible events is unwavering. By periodically revisiting our policies and adapting to the evolving needs of our community, we can ensure the continued vibrancy and success of the WordPress events program. In this spirit, I propose we revisit our venue selection policy, specifically regarding the use of venues with religious affiliations.

Currently, our policy restricts the use of venues with any religious affiliation , a guideline initially set with the best intentions to ensure WordPress events are inclusive and welcoming for all attendees — a principle of unequivocal importance. However, this policy inadvertently limits event organizers’ access to various affordable and accessible venues. This challenge is particularly pronounced in regions where the costs associated with venue rentals have surged in recent years. Notably, many universities that could serve as ideal venues are off-limits due to their religious affiliations, despite being open and welcoming to all individuals, events, and groups.

Proposed Policy Update

I propose that we refine our venue selection policy to permit the use of venues owned by institutions with religious affiliations, provided these venues are not used for religious worship and maintain a policy of openness to hosting events for all, without discrimination. This adjustment aims to broaden the pool of potential venues available to organizers, thereby strengthening our community by ensuring our events remain accessible and inclusive, without compromising our core Core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. values.

What Do You Think?

Your feedback is invaluable. Please share your thoughts in the comments below, considering the following questions:

  • Based on your experience, how do you perceive this change will impact the WordPress events program?
  • Are there additional considerations we should be mindful of?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below by Monday, 3 June .

Next Steps

After 3 June, the Community Team will carefully review and synthesize your collective feedback to guide us in making an informed decision about the proposed policy update.

Thanks to @ _dorsvenabili @ kcristiano and @ courtneypk for their review and feedback on this post.

Hari Shanker R 5:06 am on May 16, 2024
Tags: , , , ,   

Contributor Working Group Chat Agenda | May 23rd 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)

It is time to host the next Monthly chat of the WordPress Contributor Working Group. We’re meeting on the Next Thursday (May 23rd) to continue our work on improving the contribution experience of WordPress and to continue our work on mentorship programs. For more information on the working group and its plans, check out our launch post and past chats .

Note: The Contributor Working Group typically meets on the Third Thursday of the Month, but for this month alone (May), we are moving our chat to the Fourth Thursday of the month.

Meeting times

We will hold these chats in multiple time zones to accommodate as many participants all over the world as possible. These chats will continue to be held on the Third Thursday of every month.

The chat will be held on the #community-team channel of the Make/WordPress Slack . Here’s the link to a handy `.ics` file containing calendar entries for our upcoming chat so you won’t miss it. These chats have also been added to the Make/Meetings calendar . Everyone interested in improving the contributor experience in WordPress and building future mentorship programs is welcome to attend!

Pinging some of our active working group members:

@ adityakane , @ aion11 , @ alexcu21 , @ alexdeborba , @ angelasjin , @ askdesign , @ casiepa , @ coachbirgit , @ courane01 , @ devmuhib , @ foosantos , @ gusa , @ harishanker , @ hellosatya , @ javiercasares , @ josepmoran , @ juliarosia , @ kafleg , @ kirasong , @ leogopal , @ leonnugraha , @ lighthouse79 , @ lumiblog , @ maheshpatel , @ matteoenna , @ meher , @ milana_cap , @ mrinal013 , @ mysweetcate , @ nao , @ ninianepress , @ nilovelez , @ ndiego , @ nomadskateboarding , @ oglekler , @ onealtr , @ onemaggie , @ patricia70 , @ peiraisotta , @ pooja1210 , @ ratneshsonar , @ rcreators , @ realloc , @ sancastiza , @ sereedmedia , @ st810amaze , @ sumitsingh , @ thehopemonger , @ thewebprincess , @ tobifjellner , @ topher1kenobe , @ unintended8 , @ voboghure , @ webtechpooja , @ yoga1103

Agenda

1. Welcome, introductions, and check-ins
 How is everyone doing? New members joining the group can also introduce themselves. Do we also have any volunteers for notetaking, next agenda drafting, or next meeting host?

2. Brainstorming/Planning Cohort #3 of the Mentorship Program and Call for Interest
 Now that Cohort #2 is over, and since we received a lot of interest and excitement from community members on hosting Cohort #3, let us start making an initial plan on how Cohort 3 is going to look like. We are also going to use this opportunity to bring in new facilitators for the group for Cohort 3, so this will be a chance to do so.

3. On-demand Mentorship
In our last chat , @ tobifjellner shared an excellent idea around “on-demand mentorship”, where we create a pool of mentors Event 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. who are available to support new contributors, so that new contributors coming in can get mentorship whenever they want. We will briefly explore this idea and think of a framework to build such a program.

4. Five for the Future Documentation Updates
In our last chat, we mentioned that in addition to our work on mentorship, this group will additionally start focusing on bolstering the broader contributor experience of WordPress. As part of that work, we started focusing a bit on creating documentation for self-sponsored and sponsored contributors for Five for the Future . We have already received excellent feedback on the same from community members on work done so far, and we will use this opportunity to discuss this.

5. Questions, thoughts, and open floor!
 If we still have time after all that intense discussion, we’ll open up the floor to discuss WordPress Contribution broadly and our program!

Looking forward to seeing you at the chat!

# contributor-working-group # mentorship-program # wpcontributors # mentorship-chat # agenda

harmonyromo 1:56 pm on May 15, 2024  

WordPress Community Support Financial Health Update

The WordPress events program is back in full force and the community is eagerly awaiting what the rest of 2024 has in store. As of May 14th, a total of 21 events have been organized by the passionate community at large, and there are already a total of 21 events on the schedule for the remainder of the year, with many more in pre-planning.

The 2023 audit is almost complete, and although it is best to wait until that process concludes before sharing exact totals, there are certain figures that can be shared to assist with planning as 2024 rolls on.

In 2023, the total amount of Global Sponsorship funds collected to support all local events (excluding flagships) was $665,000 USD. Of this total, $307,595 were approved as grants for events, and actual grants expensed on local events for the year totaled approximately $342,484. 

Overhead expenses of WordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation, created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. ( Meetup 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 . fees, Meetup venue reimbursements, insurance, bank fees, audit services, dues & subscriptions for things like Zoom, etc.) totaled $404,691. Taking into account community grants, overhead expenses, and funds needed to cover gaps in funding for flagship events and the Community Summit, WPCS WPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook . closed the year at a loss of approximately ($148,718). The organization does have surplus funds from prior years to cover this loss, but continued losses of this magnitude are not sustainable year after year .

These figures were discussed when planning for the 2024 Global Sponsorship program, and ultimately, the total Global Sponsorship Funds to be received for the year is $725,000. So far this year, a total of $208,201 in community grants have been approved. It is anticipated that WPCS overhead expenses will again be approximately $400,000, which leaves an estimated $116,799 to be used for community grants throughout the remainder of 2024. Community grants for local events are not limited to that amount, but it is a figure that will be monitored throughout the year. This is something to consider as discussions begin around the 2025 Global Sponsorship program.

Global Funds in Relation to Approved Grants and Overhead

Total Global Funds Approved Community Grants Actual Community Grants Overhead Variance
two thousand and twenty-three $665,000 $307,595 $342,484 $404,691 -$148,718**
2024 (as of Q2) $725,000 $208,201 $400,000(projected) $117,000
**Losses generated in 2023 include flagship gap funding and were following a year where several events contributed to a surplus that covered this loss.

As many who have organized events can confirm, ticket sales, sponsorships, and sometimes expenses are not exactly the amounts budgeted, so on occasion, events can end with a surplus. These surpluses go back into the bucket for application to future events. The opposite holds true for events who experience losses. Those losses, in most cases, are covered by WPCS. 

All of this information is being shared to provide insight into the financial health of the organization, how the Global Sponsorship funds are utilized, and how important it is that the community consider the impact of every dollar spent when organizing events. 

Some highly successful recent events, particularly in attracting first-time attendees and achieving high satisfaction rates, have been conducted on a modest budget. I hope this post inspires organizers to be creative and plan strategically to make the most of the financial resources entrusted to us by our Global Sponsors .

Courtney Robertson 1:18 pm on May 14, 2024
Tags: make.wordpress.org/sustainability,   

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