Hey there, WordPress Meetup organizers,
Welcome to the November 2021 edition of our monthly Meetup Organizer newsletter.
It’s hard to believe we’re almost approaching 2022. But, although we’re nearing the end of the year, we still have some exciting events coming your way. So, keep reading to learn more about the latest updates and resources from the WordPress community for your local MeetUp groups!
Here’s what we covered in this edition:
- Call for suggestions: 2022 Global Community Team Goals
- WordPress events
- News from the WordPress community
- Tuesday Training
💡💭 Share your input on Global Community Team goals for 2022!
Every year, we’ve gathered and narrowed down goals for the Global Community Team. With 2022 around the corner, we’d love to hear your thoughts on what we should focus on next year.
There’s currently an open call for suggestions—please drop your ideas by December 6, 2021, following which we’ll schedule brainstorming sessions to zoom in on the high-impact goals.
🌍🎪 What’s happening with WordPress events?
Socializing post-pandemic might involve a learning curve, but we’re glad to see some in-person WordCamps scheduled for 2022, and we hope to see you all organize many more!
Many of you may be looking forward to finally meeting face to face again. Still, we strongly encourage you to practice caution and follow these safety guidelines as you plan/attend your WordPress Meetup events. Moreover, the Community Team has shared how to host hassle-free WordCamps in person and protect yourself legally.
With that in mind, let’s move on to the fun stuff.
WordCamps on the horizon
- 🇧🇷 WordCamp São Paulo on November 27, 2021 (online)
- 🇹🇼 WordCamp Taiwan from December 11 to 12, 2021 (online)
- 🇪🇸 WordCamp Sevilla on December 12, 2021 (in-person)
- 🇺🇸 WordCamp Birmingham, Alabama from February 4 to 5, 2022 (in-person)
- 🇪🇺 WordCamp Europe in Porto, Portugal from June 2 to 4, 2022 (in-person)
Past WordCamps
🇪🇸 WordCamp Spain 2021 and 🇮🇹 WordCamp Italia 2021 took place recently, and they were both fantastic!
Spain kicked things up a notch with an excellent late-night show, which was a highlight of the event. Italy also had a successful event with multiple platinum, gold, and supporter sponsors, 23 speakers, and 12 organizations.
🗣️ Diverse speaker training
#WPDiversity sessions continue into November 2021, with workshops for underrepresented communities and WordPress organizers—we’d love for you to join!
- Allyship for WordPress event organizers AMER/EMEA, a two-hour interactive watch party where you can learn to create diverse, welcoming WordPress events for your community. This training session will be held on Wednesday, November 17, 2021.
- “How to Own Your Expertise & Start Speaking at WordPress Events Southeast to Southern Asia,” a watch party aimed to help those from marginalized and underrepresented groups speak at a meetup or WordCamp in South Asian countries like the Philippines, India, and Indonesia, among others. This session will take place on Saturday, November 27, 2021.
📚 Join the Learn WordPress initiative
We wanted to remind you about the Learn WordPress initiative, where meetup organizers can use content from the learning repository of learn.wordpress.org to lead a social learning space. New workshops, lesson plans, and courses are added to Learn WordPress frequently, so keep an eye out on the platform to stay updated on the latest content.
View the full list of Learn WordPress workshops, and check out the upcoming WordPress social learning Meetups:
- “What is the difference between WordPress .Com and .Org” on November 16, 2021
- “Live Beginner Workshop: Managing Site Comments” on November 17, 2021
- “Welcome to the Customizer” on November 23, 2021
- “Live Beginner Workshop: Keeping Sites Secure” on November 23, 2021
Wait, there’s more! Do you love WordPress? Host a social learning space and share your passion for WordPress with like-minded folks!
🗞 News from the WordPress Community
- WordPress 5.8.2 is now available. This security and maintenance release features two bug fixes, and one security fix.
- Go/no-go for WordPress 5.9 features was announced in mid-October. All the proposed features will likely make it into the release.
- Gutenberg 11.8 was released as well.
- The 2021 WordPress Annual Survey is live! Please take a few moments to respond, so your WordPress experience is reflected in the results.
- Many teams, such as Core, Community, Themes, Accessibility, Support, Training, and Hosting, opened their call for team representatives last month, and more are coming soon. Please submit your votes for Community Team reps!
- The Community Team is close to finalizing the Global Sponsorship Program for 2022, which will be announced shortly.
- Version 18.5 of WordPress for iOS and Android is available for testing.
- The Accessibility Team would like feedback on a new Gutenberg Pull request that announces formatting changes or screen readers.
Check out the latest episode of the WP Briefing podcast with Executive Director Josepha Haden on the “Economics of WordPress.”
🛠 Tuesday Training
As you know, Tuesday Training is where the Community Team covers different topics in-depth to support organizers and interested community members.
We’ve had two sessions since the last newsletter:
- “How to run a successful Help Desk meetup”
- “Why is diversity important — To WordPress and YOUR local community?”
Would you like to suggest future topics, or are there any questions you’d like answered? Let us know at [email protected] with the subject line “Tuesday Trainings”! Please note that Tuesday Training sessions will be paused until 2022.
And that’s a wrap!
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 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: @anjanavasan, @rmartinezduque, @eidolonnight, and @harishanker.