The WordPress Community in Rome has concluded from we can say it: it was a success!!!
Let’s start by saying that attendance was high: we had 34 people in attendance, 33 of them Meetup organisers or future organisers; representing 15 meetups scattered around Italy:
- Meetup Ancona
- Meetup Bari
- Meetup Brescia
- Meetup Cagliari
- Meetup Cesena
- Meetup Lecce
- Meetup Milan
- Meetup Naples
- Meetup Pisa
- Meetup Rome
- Meetup Teramo
- Meetup Terni
- Meetup Turin
- Meetup Verona
- Meetup Vicenza
The WordPress Community Day turned out to be a scalable and easily repeatable event, with the possibility of changing the programme even during the event on the basis of the needs that emerged during the previous sessions; the event can be of different sizes both on the basis of the space available and the size of the programme according to the needs of the Community.
For the event in Rome, the sessions allowed for round tables that gave all participants the opportunity to speak in order to get everyone’s views on the topics.
During the event, the short sessions in common followed by the opening remarks gave the opportunity to inform the organisers about this year’s Community Summit and to listen to the introduction of Laura Sacco, lead of the WordCamp Europe Local Team, to encourage the organisers in providing constant information to the meetup participants about the Call for Volunteers and the opening of ticket sales.
Durante i Closing Remarks, Dennis Ploetner, organizer del Meetup WordPress di Milano, ha evidenziato l’intenzione di organizzare il nuovo WordPress Community Day a Milano(application effettuata pochi giorni dopo l’evento), mentre Stefano Cassone ha fatto application per un nuovo format di evento NextGen che verrà sviluppato nei prossimi mesi.
Objectives achieved
Reviewing the objectives we had set ourselves, the main purpose of the event, to help the meetups restart their activities, was largely surpassed: we gave support to the organisers and reasoned about the problems faced by the various meetups and provided shared solutions.
Francesco Di Candia è stato impegnato al mattino con le sessioni di orientamento per i nuovi organizer e i nuovi meetup:
- The first session saw the orientation of four new organisers for the launch of new meetups in Avezzano, Bergamo and Zagarolo;
- The second orientation session was attended by Vincenzo Arena, Andrea Fercia and Enrico Battocchi, who will become organisers of the meetups in Rome (the first two) and Pisa.
In track 1 in the afternoon, Francesco dealt with two sessions, concerning Sponsors and NextGen Events:
SPONSORS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
The discussion centred on how to find companies that can sponsor the volunteer activities that each of us does on a daily basis in the community. We discussed how to network at various events to get in touch with companies, potential sponsors, who have an interest in the Five for the Future program and how these activities are very important for the growth and evolution of the WordPress community.
THE NEXTGEN EVENTS
In Rome, the WordCamp Community Day 2023 was one of the first NextGen Events organised by the Italian WordPress community. And it was a great event that showed the community’s ability to evolve. During this round table we talked about how, from now on, we decided to go beyond the WordCamp – Meetup schemes, trying to go further, organising events that are smarter (one-day events without food and incidental expenses), dedicated to precise categories (community, developers, translators) and able to capture the attention of new WordPress users (days dedicated to high school and/or university students).
Also in track 1, Isotta Peira, in her morning sessions, organised round tables The Future of WordPress Meetups and Meetup Venue: Tips and Resources. Since the participating meetups had no venue problems, we extended the first session and touched on the following topics:
- Identified recurring problems common to most meetups (the difficulty of finding co-organisers and speakers)
- Discussed possible alternative formats to overcome the problem of lack of speakers (contribution sessions, do_action still unknown in Italy)
- Explored possibilities for collaboration between meetups: shared calendar and speakers
We closed the session with a practical exercise to identify the personal goals of each organiser and the members of each meetup, so that an annual programme could be created that would involve people and enable the group to achieve their personal and team goals.
In track 2 run by Margherita Pelonara and Simona Simionato, the focus of the speeches was on DEIB – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, given the growing debate around the crucial issues:
- the representativeness of underrepresented groups among speakers at WordPress events and in the leadership of contributing groups;
- equity of access to resources for disadvantaged groups.
During the morning, Margherita Pelonara led a panel discussion among three experts:
- Andrea Fercia, web content accessibility specialist, WordPress Core committer since 2015;
- Laura Sacco, GTE and Leader of the Local Team of WordCamp Europe 2024
- Elena Panciera, expert in inclusive and accessible communication and languages.
In the panel discussion, the following topics were addressed:
- the advantages of growing a community and/or organising a diverse and inclusive event;
- the challenges to be faced in spreading a culture of acceptance and coexistence of diversity among the people who attend the community;
- recommendations and best practices to make events more diverse, accessible and inclusive, in all aspects: from the choice of venue, to how to make slides accessible to all, to the choice of language to be used.
Due to force majeure, the panel started very late, so the programme for Track 2 was modified in the course of the workshop, extending the time dedicated to the panel to make it a time for constructive discussion between speakers and participants, and also expanding the discussion to other aspects that were part of the agenda of the subsequent Workshop “Organising more diverse and inclusive events”. This Workshop was postponed to a future occasion, also online, since many of the topics discussed during the workshop had already been addressed with interest and dialectic during the panel.
In the afternoon in room 2, Simona Simionato led a shortened version of the WP Diversity speaker workshop. The topics covered were:
- fears and false myths of public speaking
- different types of talks
- why speak at a WordPress event
- finding your areas of expertise
- how to find a topic
- defining and presenting a talk
The aim was not only for participants but to teach meetup managers how to engage people in the field.
In the afternoon, in room 3, Cristiano Zanca, Lidia Pellizzaro and Stefano Cassone held a session with the aim of displaying all the collaborative tools used within the Italian WordPress Community, so as to obtain a list for publication on Rosetta. The planned duration of the session was insufficient, so it was decided to complete it during one of the meetings of the Italian Community channel in video call mode.
Some topics in fact prompted questions and attempts at concrete answers on how to facilitate certain activities, such as the translation of HelpHub documentation or how to participate in solving or testing a WordPress bug. These will all be valid points to take back to the various Italian teams to have material produced to make it easier for new contributors to join.