If you were like me, you spent quite a bit of your weekend watching the WordCamp Europe live stream. Not being able to easily visit other WordCamp’s outside of South Africa, I really appreciate the Europe and US live streams as I get to catch a glimpse of what the rest of the world is up to.
One of the talks that stood out to me was Jenny Wong’s lighting talk on her experiences in planning WordCamp London and how they handled diversity by focusing on accessibility. What struck me was that the organising team found that by making their planning and descion making process publicly accessible they were able to understand the needs and requirements of their attendees better. They also found that they were able to make use of the community’s individual strengths and skills to help plan and execute a successful event.
The WordCamp Cape Town organising team has been meeting and planning WordCamp since around March this year, but it has all been mostly privately in Slack or on a P2. We’ve decided that in order to make the next WordCamp more inclusive, diverse and accessible we are going to open up the planning process to anyone who would like to offer their suggestions or support.
So, if you would like to take part in planning a bigger, better WordCamp Cape Town this year, please consider joining the discussion.
We meet every Friday at 10am in the WPSA Slack in the #wcct2017 channel (lurkers are welcome) and all our agendas and meeting discussions are posted on the WCCT2017 P2.