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Organizing a WordPress Meetup group or WordCamp can be a lot of work! If you want to grow and develop your local WordPress community, you will need others around you to help. But how do you find the right people to join your organizing team?
Meetup Organizers
As stated in the Five Good Faith Rules, WordPress chapter meetup groups allow events to be organized by any reliable and trusted member of their community. Reliable and trusted community members:
- Actively participate in meetup events
- Help without being asked
- Are team players — they are constantly around and dependable
- May be the first to arrive and the last to leave an event
- May be interested in organizing meetup events around their area of interest and/or expertise in WordPress
Potential quality team members may not always be the loudest, most outgoing person. Keep an eye out for the quiet achievers who are loyal and regular attendees of your meetup events — they could be quietly encouraged to take on an organizing role!
It is expected that all Meetup co-organizers agree with the principles in the same Five Good Faith Rules that you also agreed to when you became an organizer.
WordCamp Organizers
Your WordCamp organizing team should consist of people from your immediate area who want to promote WordPress and help grow the local community. Members of a WordCamp organizing team can come from:
- Your meetup group’s co-organizers
- Active members of your local meetup group
- Businesses that are built on working with WordPress
- Local bloggers using WordPress
But of course, it is not limited to the above! The most important things to remember while forming your organizing team: Recruit from your local community, and distribute the organizing responsibilities. Too few people handling too many things leads to things getting missed, and/or people getting burned out!
It is expected that all WordCamp organizing team members and volunteers agree with the principles in the Agreement among WordCamp Organizers, Speakers, Sponsors, and Volunteers.
Representing WordPress
Remember that organizers are representing WordPress in an official capacity. When representing WordPress, one is expected to uphold the principles of the WordPress open source project, including the GPL. This helps protect the user/attendee, who might not realize that by using a non-GPL plugin or theme, they are giving away the rights that WordPress provides them.
Want to learn more?
Here is some recommended reading:
- From a previous Tuesday Training: The Power of Working as a Team
- From the WordCamp Organizer Handbook: The Organizing Team
Questions?
Contact the Community Team, or come join the conversation in the #community-events channel in the Making WP Slack!
Are you a Meetup or WordCamp organizer and have more tips for recruiting an organizing team? Please share your ideas in the comments!