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!

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!

 

Conference Day Tickets Sold Out

We’ve ran out of tickets for the conference day! A big thank you to everybody coming and all our sponsors, but if you don’t have a ticket, fear not

Contributor Day

A big part of WordCamp is meeting people and making friends, so join us on our contributor day! Help contribute to the community, be it with code, documentation, or testing. There are still tickets available.

Spare Tickets

Sometimes people can’t make WordCamp despite their best intentions. If you have a ticket but can’t make it, help us out and give the ticket to someone who can use it. We can return it to the pool of available tickets. Let us know via the contact form.

Call for Speakers

WordCamp Manchester is currently looking for speakers!

WordCamp Manchester, like all WordCamps, is an event run by the local community to share all things WordPress. We bring together bloggers, designers, developers, small business owners and entrepreneurs who are passionate about the web and digital, and we want you to share your knowledge with our community.

Format

  • Full length sessions will be approximately 25 minutes long, with 10 minutes afterward for audience questions.
  • We will also be running lightning talks, which are 10 minutes long, and are designed to get one quick point across. This will be done in a unconference style, with a board outside the venue.

What We Are After

We’re interested in the following areas:-

  • Running a WordPress site. Cool things you can do with WordPress themes and plugins.
  • Development. Coding talks aimed at new to medium developers to help improve their skills.
  • UX and Design. Building sites with striking designs, accessibility and improving user experience.
  • Workflows. and tips and tricks to become more productive.
  • Business Talks. Stories of things you’ve learned in your WordPress journey.

This is not an exhaustive list, if you have an idea that isn’t mentioned above, we would still love to hear from you, contact us if you wish to discuss your talk beforehand.

Remember, you don’t have to be an expert to talk at a WordCamp. We want to hear thoughts from all areas of the WordPress community, so we would be keen to hear from you even if you’ve never spoke before.

Talk Submission

  • Please fill in the form below to submit your talk idea.
  • Feel free to submit more than one talk, but please fill in separate forms for each talk.
  • All talks will be recorded for wordpress.tv, and all successful speakers will be required to sign an A/V release form.
  • The closing dates for submission will be 15th August at 4.00pm GMT.
  • Slides will need to be submitted to the WordCamp Manchester team before 1st October.
  • As a non-profit event, we are unable to pay for travel & accommodation.

Call for speakers has closed! Thankyou for the submissions