WordCamp Manchester 2016 Videos

If you missed out on any talks at WordCamp Manchester 2016, then here’s some good news.

All the speaker talks from WordCamp Manchester were recorded and will be available on WordPress TV. Some of the videos went online today and the others will go live over the next few weeks. So if you missed any of the morning talks from the General Track or enjoyed them so much that you’d like to see them again, head over to WordCamp Manchester 2016 Videos on WordPress TV and catch up.

Pass the popcorn.

 

 

 

 

Call for Organisers 2017

2016 was a success, but we need your help to make 2017 even better

I’m Tom J Nowell, and I’m the lead organiser for WordCamp Manchester 2017!

But a bigger, better conference means more organisers, and fresh blood. Our goal is to finalise the organising team ready for an application to WordCamp Central, and an initial meeting on January 16th 2017.

With that in mind, I’m looking for people to help fill and support the following organising roles responsible for:

  • Speakers
    We need people to help run the call for speakers, make sure they have the support they need before and during the conference, and be their general point of contact
  • Volunteers
    Volunteers give their time on the conference week, and need guidance. We need people to wrangle a call for volunteers, assign duties and make sure that the day itself runs smoothly
  • Sponsors
    We need someone to take care of all things sponsors. A dedicated person or people to look after sponsors, and make sure all their questions are answered. They’ll also be responsible for sponsor needs on the day of the conference, and being a point of contact
  • Communications
    Siobhan will be leading communications, but she needs help! Twitter, Facebook, mailing lists, blog posts, these all need planning and writing are a big part of this role, as well as the marketing side of things. If you feel you can contribute in this area, this is the role for you
  • Design and Printing
    2016 gave us a fabulous logo and website design to build branding on, but 2017 will need lanyard badges, slides, posters, volunteer t-shirts
  • Website
    This website may be pretty but we need somebody to maintain and QA the website, if you’re good at web admin and know how to write CSS, this is the role for you.
  • Swag
    This year we had stickers and umbrellas, but wrangling those took a lot of time, enough that we’d like somebody to spearhead 2017 swag
  • Venue and Catering
    We want somebody to be the point of call for the venue on the day. If something goes missing, or something is needed they’ll be the point of call. This person will work with the multiple venues and catering in the run up to the conference, wrangling food and rooms, and leading the Happiness bar
  • Internal Docs and Coms
    I’m planning for weekly slack meetings, but these will need somebody to help run them, write up summaries, and make sure important things and processes are written down for the future.
  • Finances
    Hugo will be leading finances this year, but he needs help! You’ll also be helping find hidden expenses and making sure people stick to the budget
  • Contributor Day
    We need a contributor day team, they’ll be responsible for finding people to lead individual categories and teaching people how to contribute. We’re also interested in helping people set up beforehand via MWUG and the clinics they run

If you think you can fill a role, if you’re interested in shadowing an organiser to train up for the future, or if you can take a minor role in a sub-team, let us know in the form below! We don’t have an upper limit on how many people can take these roles, but each one will have a single lead position responsible for delegating.

Remember, all meetings will be open to the public, if you’re interested in expressing an opinion without a role you’ll be able to do this and ask questions on Slack. If you have any questions about the roles listed and what’s involved, don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact form, twitter, slack, or in person.

Experience?

While prior experience is a bonus, it isn’t required to apply. We expect that some organisers will be trained up to help with 2018, and we all have differences in skills and experiences. What matters is that you’re making a commitment and can help

Volunteers

We understand volunteers have shown a big interest, 2016 had so many volunteers approach before we put our call for volunteers out that we had everybody we needed. We have plans for a wider range of volunteer roles to help out on the week of the conference, but the call for volunteers will be next year once we have the 2017 website and approval from Central.

If you want to be keep in touch, watch the Slack channel, attend MWUG, and follow our twitter account.

Weekly Slack Meetings

Starting from Monday January 16th, we’ll be holding a weekly chat in Slack on Mondays at 6PM. The first order of topic will be future timing for all involved. We’ll be using the public #wordcamp-manchester channel.

There are details here on how to join the UK Community slack, but if you’re having trouble track us down at MWUG or any other local user group and someone will get you up and running.

2017 and the Future

As the lead organiser for 2017 I’m hoping to see a larger conference and a better experience for all. My hope is to be the counterweight in the north to a successful WordCamp London that I can hand over to our 2018 lead Hugo. As great as 2016 was, I feel that there’s a lot of polish to be done and I want to leave WordCamp Manchester with solid, thorough foundations.

I’m hoping to hold a conference of ~300 attendees in October 2017. We’ll be holding public weekly meetings in the UK Community slack in the #wordcamp-manchester channel, and we’d like involvement from across the north of England. We’re also moving to a .com P2 for internal communication, and writing a handbook.

I don’t want to say too much right now, but if you’ve any suggestions, or things you want to see in 2017, let us know in the comments or in the usual contact channels.

Thanks to everybody who attended 2016 and helped make this possible, and I’ll see you next year!

Thank You from the WordCamp Manchester Team

We would like to say a massive thank you to everybody that joined us for WordCamp Manchester this weekend.

This year we had some fantastic speakers who both educated and entertained us with their knowledge and expertise and we would like to thank each and every one of them. With the exception of the lightning talks, all of our sessions have been recorded and will be made available on WordPress TV in the near future, so you will be able to catch up on any talks that you missed.

WordCamp Manchester would not be able to take place without all of our amazing sponsors and we would like to thank them for their continued support of the WordPress community. This year WordCamp Manchester had two amazing venue sponsors and we would like to thank Manchester Metropolitan University for hosting our Conference Day at their state of the art Business School and Autotrader for making us so welcome at their fantastic offices during our Contributor Day.

We would like to say thank you to all of our attendees for turning up and making WordCamp Manchester 2016 such a fantastic event. For some, it was a place to meet up with old friends from the many WordCamp’s you have been to and for others, it was your very first WordCamp. No matter how many you have been to in the past, we hope that you enjoyed yourself and that we made you made you feel welcome.

Although WordCamp Manchester only takes place annually, the Manchester WordPress User Group (MWUG) takes place at MadLab every month. MWUG is a great place to learn more about WordPress, get help with your sites and meet people within the local WordPress community.

To help us with our planning for the future we would like to gather your feedback and would really appreciate it if you would complete this online survey https://central.wordcamp.org/wordcamp-attendee-survey/

Thank you again to everybody that joined us this weekend and helped to make WordCamp Manchester 2016 such a fantastic event.

Thanks to our Silver Sponsors – WPML, Make Do & Seravo

Today we thank all our Silver Sponsors!

wpml-webWPML.org

WPML turns WordPress websites multilingual. It works with caching, SEO and E-Commerce plugins, and allows the building of complete multilingual sites. WPML powers simple blogs as well as corporate and enterprise sites.

WPML allows users to translate everything in the site, including content, menus, widgets and even theme and plugin texts. WPML powers over 500,000 commercial websites from all over the world.

More information about going multilingual can be found at WPML.org

We are looking for talent. If you are a smart programmer you are welcome to contact us here: http://wpml.org/home/were-hiring/.

Make-Do-2015-largeMake Do

Make Do are a full-stack design, development and support agency that have been building for the web since the 90’s. Specialising in WordPress development we’re not shy about sharing our love for the best CMS there is! Get in touch to drive your projects forward with our ever-growing WordPress team of experts.

seravo-x855Seravo.com

Seravo.com offers premium hosting and professional upkeep for WordPress sites.

We take care of performance, updates and security so you can build your site and your business easily, flexibly and safely.

Seravo.com is brought to you by Seravo, a Finnish company focused on providing open source software and services for companies. Our WordPress service has been a success in Finland and is now available for international customers too.

Read more at Seravo.com, follow @Seravocom on Twitter or come and meet us during WordCamp Manchester!

Thanks to our Community Sponsor – Bluehost!

Bluehost has been a WordPress partner since 2005 and powers over 1 million WordPress sites worldwide. Their objective is to help customers, whether novice or pro, create a thriving online presence at an affordable price. With a team of in-house tech experts available 24/7, Bluehost dedicates time and resources to providing the best support and services in the industry. Join millions of other site owners and see what Bluehost can do for you and your online presence.

Food and Drink

With less than 2 weeks to go, we thought we’d share our plans for food and drink.

Conference Coffee & Drinks

We listened to last years feedback and our happy to announce there will be coffee at registration. Each break will have coffee and tea available for all attendees

Conference Food

MMU will be catering for the lunch and breaks, and we’ve decided to use a variation of last years lunch menu, consisting of a finger buffet with:

  • Sandwiches and Wraps
  • Cake selection
  • Indian snack selection
  • Tikka skewer
  • 3 cheese pizza

After Party

Black Dog Ballroom NWSThis year we’ll be heading straight to the afterparty after the closing remarks. The after party is being hosted at Blackdog Ballroom NWS which is 5 minutes walk from the conference venue. Some of you remember this as the party venue for WordCamp Manchester 2014.

There’ll be food at the after party on offer including:

  • Selection of Pizza
  • Mixed Fries
  • Pulled Pork Sliders
  • Classic Nachos

We’ll also be handing out drinks tokens. A token will get you one of the following:

  • San Miguel, Carlsberg and Somersby draughts
  • Corona and Estrella Bottles
  • A single  house spirit/mixers
  • A large glass of house wine

Allergies

As mentioned via the tickets, we’ll be taking into account allergies and providing alternate food where necessary for those unable to eat what’s on offer. All our catering providers have been instructed to provide gluten free options, but if you’re concerned or have questions about what’s available please contact us. Nobody should have to feel left out.

We hope you like the food and drinks, and stay tuned for details on the Contributor Day food!

 

Thanking our Community Sponsor – GoDaddy

GoDaddy’s mission is to radically shift the global economy toward small businesses by empowering people to easily start, confidently grow and successfully run their own ventures. With more than 12 million customers worldwide and 57 million domain names under management,GoDaddy gives small business owners the tools to name their idea, build a beautiful online presence, attract customers and manage their business.

Thanking our Gold Sponsor – ChannelUnity!

channelunityToday we thank another one of our sponsors, ChannelUnity!

ChannelUnity is a Manchester based ecommerce and marketplace agency. We exist to make multichannel online selling easy for small and medium sized retailers. We give customers a single tool to integrate their Amazon and eBay accounts all over the world with their WooCommerce store – ensuring that stock levels are automatically updated across all marketplaces every time a sale is made, importing marketplace orders directly into WooCommerce and a wealth of other feature added over 7 years helping customers with multichannel retail. What’s more, we have an exciting new product to launch which we’ll be unveiling at WordCamp.

Thanking our Gold Sponsor – Your Inspiration!

yithAs we are under a month until WordCamp Manchester, it’s time again to thank one of our sponsors – Your Inspiration Themes!

We develop innovative WordPress themes and plugins for WooCommerce based sites. For years our philosophy has been based on simplicity, beauty and 100% effectiveness.

Our crown jewel, that makes us proud, is our high-quality support, through which we take care of our customers day-by-day.

More information can be found at yithemes.com.

Announcing Our Final Batch of Speakers

We’re nearly all set for WordCamp Manchester, so here are our final batch of speakers.

Mark Wilkinson

Mark is the Lead developer and Co-founder of Highrise Digital, a specialist WordPress agency focusing on custom development that is built to last. Mark has been using WordPress since late 2005, all the way back to version 2.0. He is the co-organiser of a small WordPress meet-up in Kendal, Cumbria which happens on a monthly basis and is an active member of the UK WordPress community.

James Morrison

I’m a Senior WordPress Developer and Head of Support at Pragmatic (https://www.pragmatic-web.co.uk/). I’ve been building websites for 15 years and working with WordPress for the last 10.

Heather Burns

I help web designers, developers, business owners, and digital professionals get to grips with the laws and regulations which impact our work.

A big thank you to all our speakers! To see when they are speaking, be sure to view our schedule.