How can we make WPCPT meetup #3 rock?

[Nur Ahmad Furlong]

HI all, this is the latest post on http://wpcapetown.wordpress.com

How can we make WPCPT meetup #3 rock?

To those who attended the last event we'd like to start by thanking you for your involvement and would like to announce that planning for the next event will be starting soon and those who would like to be involved are encouraged to sign up by commenting on this post, with a little detail about how you'd like to be involved.

Feedback from session 2

We are also encouraging feedback as to how we could improve the event and what you'd like to see at WPCPT3.

Venues

I've started thinking about venues and hope we might be able to reserve the Bandwidth Barn again, though we might want to sort a venue which provides a little bit more atmosphere.

I know the owner of a coffee spot just off the M5 going out of Town in an interiors office park which could be a good venue as the owner is keen to get some events going there. If anyone can think of a nice alcohol free venue let me know so we have a few to choose from.

Topics

I think based on feedback from the first & second meet we need to focus on topics to be discussed before hand. It would be good to have one or 2 workshop/tutorial style sessions, a few presentations and a few open discussions. Those interested in attending session 3, please have a think about what might interest you and make a wish list. We'll also appreciate it if anyone could refer us to WP gurus who may be able to attend and speak about specific aspects of wordpress. I'll be very interested in any sessions which include using wordpress for social networking and using wordpress as a full on CMS.

Sponsors

We're looking for some light sponsorship for the next event to allow us to do a few more things like possibly printing some T-shirts. If anyone could sponsor hosting and domain registration we could register a proper domain for our group and get a much better site going. I've also been in discussion with a local wordpress pro about joining us here in CT, we might need to sponsor his flight but he'll have some real good value to offer us should we manage to get him down here for the meet. I'm not saying who!

Writers

We're looking for anyone who can write about wordpress

• Tutorials
• How to make a plugin
• Interesting uses of wordpress
• Technical details
• Extending wordpress etc

We would like to get a proper online community going around the meetups which could possibly feed our meets with content and inspiration.

We're also interested in building a gallery of great uses of wordpress, specifically locally and then for somemore advanced usage of the platform we could look internationally. I have a copy of Small Potato's wordpress gallery theme which we could use for now to run this area of the site.

Wordpress Gurus

Something which was mentioned at the previous session was the need to have experts presenting on specific areas of wordpress. I've been in touch with someone recently who might be getting involved at the next session but don't wanna spill the beans too early. If anyone thinks a specific wordpress pro migth be interested in speaking, sharing, teaching then send them our way, we'll also appreciate you listing those you know who might be interested so we can spam them about this meetup :).

Wordpress Projects

One of the other ideas coming out of some discussions is to get a few projects started, kind of like a collaborative initiative where those interested can get together and start something beneficial whether it's knowledge sharing, for an NGO or whatever you might be interested in. Hopefully we can push the boundaries a bit and  develop some really cool uses of wordpress. If you have great ideas about new and exciting ways of using wordpress and would like to explore some of these with other wordpress enthusiasts, we're excited to talk to you about what lies ahead for the WPCTP meetups.

Wordpress Marketplace

Callum got us talking about networking and affering our expertise in the wordpress arena or related products and services. I think we could get something really good going by setting up a directory of service providers or if we have any products be they themes, plugins, sites we want to sell, business ideas connected to wordpress etc.

That's it for now, please add to the conversation, post your comments and if ur really interested and think you could add some good value to the process join the planning team.

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nomad-one - Nur Ahmad Furlong
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