Happy New Year!
Welcome to the January 2022 edition of the monthly Meetup Organizer newsletter.
Last year brought many exciting updates and events to the WordPress community, from State of the Word watch parties to the first in-person WordCamp since the pandemic—we have high hopes for 2022 as well. Read on to learn about the latest news and resources from the WordPress community, and share them with your local meetup groups!
Here’s what’s inside this issue:
- Second release candidate for WordPress 5.9
- WCEU 2022: Call for Speakers
- WordPress events
- News from the WordPress community
🚀 WordPress 5.9 is on track to release on January 25, 2022
WordPress 5.9 is nearing its release on January 25, 2022, with the second release candidate now available for testing.
The 5.9 Field Guide has also been published recently. You can find a compilation of all the developer notes regarding 5.9 in this guide. If you’d like more information about the performance improvements in WordPress 5.9, head over to this page.
As always, your support is appreciated. Please help spread the word about WordPress 5.9 by hosting a release-focused meetup or organizing testing sprints.
Share WordPress 5.9 with your meetup group!
Spread your excitement for the latest WordPress release by organizing a WordPress meetup highlighting the release features! Read the talking points for WordPress 5.9 to learn more.
Looking for inspiration? Check out the following WordPress 5.9 events from our community!
Upcoming events:
- Dissecting WordPress 5.9 – WPSyd (English) hosted by WordPress Sydney
- WordPress Cambridge: WordPress 5.9 & Gutenberg Blocks Zoom only, Feb 21st 2022 (English) hosted by WordPress Cambridge Meetup
- 【オンライン開催】[岐阜]Gifu WordPress Meetup #42「WordPress 5.9 の大きな変更点について＆雑談相談会」 (Japanese) hosted by Gifu WordPress Meetup
- What Will WordPress 5.9 Mean for You? (English) hosted by WordPress Hartford, CT
- WordPress “Mega Meetup”: Block Patterns, WordPress 5.9 (English) hosted by WordPress Jacksonville (WPJax)
- WordPress Norwich Meetup – January 2021: “Testing WordPress 5.9” (English) hosted by WordPress Norwich
- What’s coming in WordPress 5.9 (English) hosted by Boulder WordPress Meetup
Previous events:
- Neuerungen in WordPress 5.9 – ONLINE (German) hosted by WordPress Meetup Jena
- 78. WP Meetup Stuttgart – Neuerungen in WordPress 5.9 (German) hosted by WordPress Meetup Stuttgart
📣 WordCamp Europe 2022 needs speakers
With an eye on the rapidly evolving situation with Omicron, WordCamp Europe (WCEU) 2022 is still set to take place in person at Porto, Portugal—with solid safety protocols in place.
WCEU recently announced its call for speakers. Organizers are looking for talks on various topics related to WordPress, such as technology, design, marketing, content, accessibility, and more. Have questions? Watch the Q&A session that took place recently to learn more about being a speaker at WCEU.
If you or someone you know is interested in being a speaker at WCEU 2022, apply now.
📷 Submit your images to the WordPress Photo Directory
The WordPress Photo Directory is a collection of high-quality, CC0-licensed images first introduced by Matt Mullenweg in State of the Word 2021. It’s also the only submission tool for Openverse powered by WordPress.
Although it hasn’t fully launched yet, you can now submit your images to the WordPress Photo Directory. You can also contribute in other ways, as there’s currently a call for volunteers.
🌍🎪 What’s happening with WordPress events
With the rise of Omicron, in-person WordCamps are cautiously scheduled for 2022. We strongly urge you to follow additional safety guidelines if you plan to attend a WordCamp or meetup. As a reminder, if you’re an organizer, learn about the legal protections available to you for in-person events. Don’t miss these helpful resources for organizers from our global sponsors!
Interested in widening your pool of Meetup and WordCamp speakers from underrepresented groups? Join the #diverse-speaker-support channel on the Make WordPress Slack workspace.
WordCamps on the horizon
- 🇺🇸 WordCamp Birmingham, Alabama from February 4 to 5, 2022 (in person)
- 🇨🇭 WordCamp Genève, Switzerland on April 9, 2022 (in-person)
- 🇬🇷WordCamp Athens, Greece between April 9 and 10, 2022 (in person)
- 🇦🇹 WordCamp Vienna, Austria from April 23 to 24, 2022 (in person)
- 🇪🇺 WordCamp Europe in Porto, Portugal from June 2 to 4, 2022 (in person)
📚 Join the Learn WordPress initiative
Help make Learn WordPress the official resource on WordPress! Join in on the fun and share your knowledge with others by organizing a social learning space based on any of the Learn WordPress workshops. Meetup organizers can also use lesson plans on Learn WordPress to organize WordPress meetups.
Attend some upcoming WordPress Social Learning Meetups:
- “Demo: All About Colors with Full Site Editing” on January 14, 2022
- “Advanced Layouts with the Block Editor” on January 17, 2021
- “Discussion: WordPress Best Practices for SEO & Accessibility” on January 19, 2021
- “Intro to Templates and Template Parts (Full Site Editing)” on January 26, 2022
Check out the latest Learn WordPress course, “Simple Site Design with Full Site Editing.”
🗞 News from the WordPress Community
- Gutenberg version 12.3 is out. This release includes three brand new blocks, more customization controls, and a core blocks reference, among other exciting features.
- WordPress 5.8.3 is now available. This security release features four fixes.
- The Polyglots Team announced that WordPress 5.9 is also ready to be translated.
- The Core Team began a discussion on the release dates this year and the possibility of having four major WordPress releases in 2022.
- The December 2021 edition of the Polyglots Monthly Newsletter is out.
- The latest edition of People of WordPress featuring Collins Agbonghama from Nigeria was published recently.
- The Design Team summarized some of the key changes behind the Openverse redesign.
- The following teams announced their team representatives for 2022: Themes, Support, Polyglots, and Community.
- Version 19.0 of WordPress for Android and iOS is available for testing.
Listen to the latest episode of the WP Briefing podcast, “A Carol of Thanks,” with Executive Director Josepha Haden.
That’s all, folks!
If you have any questions, Community Team deputies are here to help. Please email us at [email protected] 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!
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The following people contributed to this edition of the Meetup newsletter: @rmartinezduque @eidolonnight and @harishanker