We hereby announce 2012 as a Year of a WordPress Meetup. You’ll wish to get in on this action.
meet·up mēt-əp noun
A meeting, especially a regular meeting of people who share a particular interest and have connected with each other through a social-networking Web site: a meetup for new moms in the neighborhood; a meetup to plan the trip; a meetup for WordPress users.1
So what is a WordPress Meetup? Basically, it’s people in a village removing together — assembly adult — who share an seductiveness in WordPress, either they be bloggers, business users, developers, consultants, or any other difficulty of chairman means to say, “I use WordPress in some approach and we like it, and we wish to accommodate other people who can contend a same.” Meetups come in opposite shapes and sizes, though they all lift a advantage of joining we with intensity collaborators and friends, and assisting we learn some-more about what we can do with WordPress. Here are some of a common forms of WordPress meetups:
- Hang out and work on your WordPress sites together
- Social/happy hour form gatherings
- Mini-lectures/presentations
- Developer hacking meetups
- Show tell of how organisation members are regulating WordPress
- Formal instruction on how to use WordPress
- Lecture array (possibly with visiting speakers)
- Genius bar/help desk
There’s no prescribed format, as any internal organisation can confirm for itself what they wish to do. Some groups brew it adult from month to month, while others have mixed events any month to prove a needs of their community.
The tough part? Running a renouned organisation takes time and money. Just as we worked final year to mislay a financial weight for WordCamp organizers and yield logistical support so they could concentration some-more on their eventuality calm and experience, we wish to start fluctuating that kind of support to meetup groups as well. We don’t wish it to cost anything for someone to run a WordPress meetup, or to attend one — building internal communities should be as giveaway as WordPress itself!
Since there are so many some-more meetups than there are WordCamps, we’re going to start with a cost that is a same for any group: meetup.com organizer dues. We’re environment adult an central WordPress comment on Meetup.com right now, and over a subsequent integrate of weeks will be operative with existent meetup organisation organizers, people who wish to start a new meetup group, and a useful folks during Meetup.com to put this module in place. WordPress meetup groups that select to have their organisation turn partial of a WordPress comment will no longer compensate organizer impost for that group, as a WordPress Foundation will be balance a bill.
This is sparkling for several reasons. First, it means internal organizers who are giving something behind to a plan by approach of their time won’t also have bombard out $12-19/month for a privilege. That alone is a large step. Second, it will open a doorway to some-more events and leaders within a community, given care and eventuality formulation won’t need to be tied to “owning” a meetup group. Third, some-more active meetup groups means some-more WordCamps, yay!
In further to a financial aspects, we’ll be operative on ways to urge amicable approval of meetup activity by incorporating feeds from a central meetup groups into a WordPress.org site, and including meetup organisation appearance in a activity tide on your WordPress.org profile.2 I’m also anticipating we can do something around providing video apparatus to meetup groups (like we already do for WordCamps) to record presentations and tutorials that can be posted to WordPress.tv, assisting meetup groups offer WordPress classes in their community, and removing concerned with mentoring WordPress clubs during internal schools and universities. Oh, and we’ll send out some WordPress buttons and stickers to a groups that join in, since everybody loves buttons and stickers.
We’re also putting together some cold resources for people who wish to start a new meetup group. There will be a margin beam to removing started and some reserve to assistance we get your organisation going, and a forum for organizers to speak to and learn from any other.
Over time, we’ll be articulate to organizers and looking during what other losses we can catch and what other support we can yield to internal groups. For now, we’re starting with a organizer dues. If we now run a WordPress meetup organisation (whether we are regulating Meetup.com or not) or would like to start a WordPress meetup organisation in your area, greatfully fill out a WordPress Meetup Groups survey. Filling in a consult doesn’t want we to join a central group, it only gives us a starting indicate to a) find out what groups are around/interested, and b) get some information on existent groups and their losses and needs. Meetup.com will hit a organisation organizers who’ve pronounced they’d like to join a new program, and will travel them by a logistics of a change and answer questions before assisting them to opt-in officially.
So, if we now run a WordPress meetup group, or we would like to start one, greatfully fill out our WordPress Meetup Groups survey. we can’t wait to see some-more meetups!
1 – Adapted from “meetup” clarification during dictionary.com.
2 – Didn’t know about profiles? Check out http://profiles.wordpress.org/users/yourwordpressdotorgusernamehere (put in a username we use in a WordPress.org forums) to see yours!
Article source: http://wordpress.org/news/2012/01/year-of-the-meetup/



