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Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) Agenda | Wed, Oct 13, 2021

The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) meets the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month at 5-6pm UTC. The next meeting is tomorrow — Wednesday, October 13, 2021. It takes place in the #community-team 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.

We welcome new and curious volunteers! All are welcome.

Agenda

  1. Report – how group members doing on items they’re working on for us?
  2. Translations
  3. Update on September 2021 workshops
  4. Chatting about upcoming events:
    1. Upcoming: October 28 Allyship accountability
    2. Upcoming: November 6 Empowering Women in Latin America
    3. Upcoming: November Allyship workshop (cohort 2!) — figuring out the date
    4. Upcoming: November 27 speaker workshop Southeast to Southern Asia
    5. Upcoming: December Allyship coaching and accountability — figuring out the date
    6. Upcoming: December speaker workshop Americas and Europe — figuring out the date
  5. Update on #diverse-speaker-support channel
  6. Jill away Oct 17 – 26, 2021
  7. Open discussion (if time)

The Future of Tuesday Trainings

We hope that you have been enjoying the Tuesday Trainings series, and that you have learned some new things along the way!

Tuesday Trainings has been a great and informative series, but it has been brought up recently that the weekly cadence might be too much for the team, at least at this point in time while our resources are a bit low.

There are a couple of options for changing the cadence:

  • Change the cadence to monthly
  • Pause Tuesday Trainings for now and revisit in 2022

Which option do you think would work best? Or are there other options that we could consider? Please comment below with your thoughts.

In addition, we are seeking a volunteer to take over the management of the Tuesday Training series. Managing the series includes writing posts, recruiting other community members to write posts, and maintaining the editorial calendar (which is essentially a spreadsheet to track the topics and posts). If you’re interested in helping out, please let us know!

#community-team, #tuesdaytrainings

Community Team Rep Nominations for 2022

It is time to start the process to select new Community Team reps for 2022 to replace @kcristiano and myself.

The Role

In the WordPress 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. project, each team has one or two (or more!) representatives, abbreviated as “reps”. On the Community team, we have historically had two reps who are asked to commit to the role for a full calendar year.

Team reps are responsible for communicating on behalf of the group to the other contributor groups via weekly updates, as well as occasional chats. 

As a reminder, it is not called “team lead” for a reason. While the people elected as team reps will generally come from the pool of folks that people think of as experienced leaders, the 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. role is designed to change hands regularly.

This role does have a time commitment attached to it, at least one hour a week. The main tasks include:

  • Writing the agenda for the Community Team meetings
  • Run the chat
  • Write the recap and post it in
  • Keep an eye on the moving parts of the team and provide reports for quarterly updates.

Over the year, the team can decide to add one or two people to help, depending on how much work there is. For now, let’s get us two new reps!

How Community Team Rep elections work

Following our election process last year, the Community team is planning on these key steps: 

  1. Call for Nominations: Anyone can nominate a Community team rep! The deadline is 2021-10-29.
  2. Voting for Team Reps: We will open a poll for voting on 2021-11-03. The poll will stay open for three weeks, and close on 2021-11-24. We will then be able to announce our new team reps before the end of 2021! 

Call for Community Team Rep nominations!

Please nominate people for Community team rep in the comments of this post by 2021-10-29. Self-nominations are welcome.

If you would like to nominate someone in private, please reach out to @sippis, @kcristiano or @_dorsvenabili.

If you get nominated, you do not have to say yes! We will only add people who respond positively to a nomination to the poll, so feel free to decline a nomination if you don’t feel like this is the right fit for any reason.

Finally, if you have any questions, please also feel free to ask in the comments.

#team-reps

Legal protections for organizers

As the WordPress Community begins to transition to in-person events, organizers are wondering what legal protections are available to them related to COVID-19. Here are a couple of solutions!

Disclaimer on 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. Ticket Purchases

We will be adding a disclaimer to the WordCamp ticket purchase page, which will protect organizers against claims related to COVID-19. The disclaimer text will read:

An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. COVID-19 is an extremely contagious disease that can lead to severe illness and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, senior citizens and guests with underlying medical conditions are especially vulnerable.

By attending WordCamp {city} {year}, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and waive any claims against the event organizers; volunteers; sponsors; the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org.; WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is 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., PBC; and their respective affiliates.

This disclaimer will appear on the ticket purchase page for the ticket purchaser to agree to. Agreement is given by checking a box next to the disclaimer (similar to agreeing to the Code of ConductCode of Conduct “A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia), before completing their ticket purchase.

We are aiming to roll this update out to WordCamp sites on Wednesday, 13 October 2021.

Insurance Policy

This year, WPCSWordPress Coding Standards A collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to validate code developed for WordPress. It ensures code quality and adherence to coding conventions, especially the official standards for WordPress Core. added a “communicable disease liability coverage” policy to our event insurance. This policy provides coverage to help defer any legal fees and costs related to lawsuits claiming damages due to:

  • Actual or alleged transmission of a communicable disease
  • An act, error, or omission by or on behalf of WPFWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org./WPCS in:
    • The supervision of any person who transmits, is infected with, and/or alleged to be infected with a communicable disease
    • Testing for a communicable disease
    • Actual or alleged failure to prevent the spread of a communicable disease
    • Actual or alleged failure to report a communicable disease to the authorities

This policy is currently in effect and covers all official WordCamps and WordPress Chapter 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..

Summary

These legal protections should hopefully ease the minds of organizers concerned about planning in-person WordCamps and WordPress Meetups. Please leave a comment below if you have any concerns or questions!

#policy, #wordcamps

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our 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., 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. organizers, 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. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in 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/. and ask for help!

Proposal: 2022 Global Community Sponsorship program

tl;dr: Due to the unpredictability in what events are happening and where, the global sponsorship program proposal for 2022 is similar to the pared-down 2021 program, with a single package. Sponsorship of WordCamps will be offered as an add-on, billed quarterly.

Below you will find a proposal draft for the Global Community Sponsorship program for 2022, with one package being offered as an annual commitment.

As the WordPress Community transitions to holding in-person WordCamps, the question arises of how the Global Sponsorship program will accommodate those events. Until we have more predictability in what events are happening and where, we will offer 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. sponsorship per event, billed at the end of each quarter.

Questions? Feedback?

If you have any questions, observations, or critical feedback about this proposal or the program in general, please comment on this post, no later than 15 October 2021. We hope to finalize the program details by 28 October 2021, to allow sponsors time to sign up by the end of the year.

Thanks so much for the hard work, input, and feedback by @angelasjin, @kcristiano, @_dorsvenabili, @sippis, and @courtneypk, with help crunching the numbers from @harmonyromo.

Now onto the proposal!

Continue reading

#global-sponsorship, #proposal, #sponsorship

Community Team Meeting Agenda for 2021-10-07

The last Community Team bi-weekly meeting is happening tomorrow. The 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: 2021-10-07 12:00
Americas friendly meeting:
2021-10-07 21:00

Below is a preliminary agenda for the meeting. If you wish to add things you’d like bring to into discussion, comment below or reach out to team reps @sippis or @kcristiano. 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.

New meeting times

As per the decision made some weeks ago, this is the last Community Team bi-weekly meeting. After this meeting the Community Team will have three monthly meetings:

  • Community Team meeting, on the first Thursday of each month
  • Comunity Local Organiser meeting, on the second week of each month
  • 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. and 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. chat, on the third week of each month

The exact weekday and time for the two last meetings are still being voted. Please read the full announcement and vote for meeting times!

Deputy / Mentor / Contributor check-ins

What have you been doing and how is it going? What you got accomplished after the last meeting? Are there any blockers? Can other team members help you in some way?

Proposals

Tuesday Trainings:

Announcements, Invites, and Workshops

Open floor

Opportunity to bring things into discussions that weren’t on the meeting agenda and if anyone has something they would like to share with the team. If you have a topic in mind before the meeting, please add it into the comments of this post.

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

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

Tuesday Training: How mentors and deputies are chosen

Earlier in the Tuesday Trainings series, Angela has told everything about Community Deputies and Courtney has explained what the WordCamp Mentorship program is about. This week I thought to share how 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. and 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. are chosen.

It’s actually a lot easier than you might think! Like all other roles in the Community Team, becoming a 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. or 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. is not an invitation-based thing. It’s usually a natural part of someone climbing the leadership ladders of the Community Team from connecting and understanding to engaging.

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. Mentors

If you have experience in organising WordCamps, you are most probably a good fit to be a WordCamp mentor and can apply for that role!

Mentors are not some super WordCamp organisers, they are just like almost everyone else in the WordPress community – individuals who have gained some experience and want to share it and help others. At the same time, the mentors are also themselves WordCamp organisers learning and evolving.

When someone applies to be a WordCamp mentor, the main thing we look for is how involved they have been in organising WordCamps. You don’t have to have multiple years of being a lead organiser in your belt – few years with experience in the team and usually at least one year being a lead organiser is enough. What matters most, is how active you have been in WordCamps and how diverse your knowledge is.

Do you have experience in WordCamp organising and want to help other WordCamp organisers? Take the WordCamp Mentor Self training to get started and then submit an application!

Community 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.

Like mentors, Community Deputies are fundamentally like any other community members – 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. attendees, event organisers and WordPress enthusiasts themselves. There’s no requirement that you should be a community professional.

If you have experience in WordPress event organising, you are active in your local community and you find yourself being a people-oriented person, there’s a good possibility that you would be a good fit in the group of deputies!

Deputies tend to have a little deeper knowledge of the WordPress community, but it’s not necessary to know all aspects of it or the Community Team. The most valuable skill of every deputy, that the team is looking for, is to be very keen on helping community contributors. Other things the team is looking for are passion to develop Community Teams various event programs and to be good in different situations as well as with people. A deputy role is something where everyone grows while carrying out the responsibilities, there’s no set skillset that is required – the most important thing is the mindset and that’s what we are looking for.

If you have a passion for not just helping other WordCamp organisers, but all local communities, apply to become a Community Deputy!


After submitting a WordCamp Mentor or 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. application, few existing deputies will review it. If they find you would be a good fit, they’ll send you an email with a request to have an orientation to tell the essential details before starting to help the community. Sometimes they might ask to take a self-training to exercise your skills a little further before the orientation.

In case your application is rejected, that does not mean that you couldn’t apply again after gaining some more experience in the WordPress community!

Have some questions about becoming a WordCamp Mentor or Community Deputy? Not quite sure if you should or can apply? Do you want to prepare before applying? Come and join us in the #community-team 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!

#community-deputies, #community-mentors, #mentors, #tuesdaytrainings

Proposal: Sunsetting Weekly Updates

Community Team blog has automated “Weekly Updates” posts starting from around 2016. The idea behind those posts is that every Community Team member, event organiser, 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. and 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., could share with others in the comments section what they have done during the last week.

The posts have never gained popularity. Most of the posts have only one to three comments and around half of those posts do not have any comments. At the same time with these posts, the team has a tradition to share at the beginning of each meeting what the attendees have done after the last meeting.

So basically there has been two opportunities to share updates with the rest of the team, and the latter one has been widely more used.

That’s why I’m proposing that we sunset (eg. remove all future) automated Weekly Updates posts. As a replacement, in every meeting attendees could take an extra minute or two to post their update into the comments section of the agenda post. Those team members who can’t join the meeting can also share their updates in the comments.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts before 2021-10-21.

#weekly-update

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our 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., 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. organizers, 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. wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!

Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in 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/. and ask for help!