 This is the WordCamp experience every month, getting involved in the local community. Oh, you're in the wrong place. How many of you have been to a local meetup in the Atlanta area? Raise your hand. Awesome. How many of you would like to come to a WordPress meetup in the local area? I hope the people that raised their hands earlier raise their hands again. We want you back. Awesome. Cool. This was an idea that Naomi Bush had because we always get so much feedback from WordCamp. This is amazing. It's exciting. It's like, you know what? We kind of do this every month. It may be a little bit smaller, but we do this all the time. So I'm going to let Naomi, if you'll just kind of explain what you had in mind and why you wanted to do this. Well, who here is having an awesome time? And like Brad said, that's what we hear, you know, that WordCamp is awesome. You know, whether it's the topics or meeting up with new friends, we had a meetup last month and there were people that were undecided on WordCamp. And as people that have been to WordCamp just started sharing, they said, well, wow, you have convinced me. And I've seen several of them around here and I say, how's it going? And they're like, wow, this is awesome because whether you are a beginner or whether you are the most advanced developer, the one thing about meetups is that we all get to learn from each other. And so that was the impetus for this because I think meetups are awesome. We get to continue this experience every month. And what I wanted was an opportunity for all of the meetups here in the Atlanta area because what you'll find is that each meetup has their own culture, right? We all do things a little bit differently. We all tailor things to our particular area. And, you know, I just believe that meetups are a great opportunity for you to not only learn but for you to get more involved. There are some people who maybe you want to speak, right? Your local meetup is a great place for the last three months. We have had two more speakers come out of our meetup and for the last two months we've been doing practices, right? So if you want to kind of get your feet wet with speaking and you're not sure about maybe the big stage, meetups are great for that. Another thing that I think meetups are great for is... I lost my train of thought. But, yeah, meetups are awesome and you should get involved. Thank you. Great idea. And she brought it to the organizing team. The organizing team was like, wow, that's a great idea. So we wanted to do a whole session around this. So the format, let me tell you that and I'm just going to facilitate as long as y'all let me. But basically we're going to go around and I want to introduce you to everyone. They're going to introduce themselves, where they meet, the time. And then if there's specifics about that meetup, like what it's geared towards, like there's some that might be a little bit more, you know, hey, we do a lot of dev talks. We do a lot of user talks. We do a lot of design where we do all of it. So we'll talk about that a little bit. We'll go through and then we've got a few questions like how do I become a speaker at a meetup? What does it mean to be a sponsor at a meetup? What does that mean? So we've got some questions and a panel and then we want questions from you. So if you have questions on how you can get involved and what we're doing, then feel free to ask. We've got two folks that will be handing the microphone to the attendees here. And then afterwards, the last part of this, all of us will be around the room. And it's a great opportunity to just do a meet and greet of, hey, you know, I just want to learn a little bit more about the noon and WordPress meetup. And you can talk to Melanie about that and meet her. So that's kind of what we wanted to do with this. So we will start with Mickey. Go ahead. Turn on. Mickey Mellon. I have a meetup called a writer web that I've run for about five years, not actively doing it this year right now just because of busyness of this and other things. But you have done that really aimed at all users, kind of a businessy slant, some of that kind of stuff, not real dev heavy. Yeah, that's kind of where we were. Oh, sorry. Yeah, in Marietta. We'll have it periodically throughout the year in Marietta. Are you sure you're done now? Okay. I'm Jason Nevin. I run a meetup out in Douglasville. So anybody that wants to come out west on meetup.com, is West Georgia WordPress, because I don't want to just be Douglasville. We want all of West Georgia to come. And really anybody else from wherever you are. Our focus is whatever. I'm definitely the newest one here. We started in January, but we have had a pretty good turnout so far, averaging around about 10 people, which I'm super excited about. And we've got a permanent spot now. So come out, check us out. And come to the very cool city of Douglasville. Where in Douglasville? It is in downtown Douglasville. If you're familiar at all with downtown area, where is Douglasville? What you're saying? So you're saying where in Douglasville? Our location, a local agency just moved into a building in downtown Douglasville. And Douglasville is fame. Internet marketing I think is their name. And they're letting us use their basement, which sounds a little creepy, but it's not. It's an old bank. And it's like where the drive-through people, where they just have like your drive-through window and stuff there. But it's right across from the region's bank building on the main corner there in Douglasville. Did you say the time? Oh, it is. We are trying to meet the third Thursday of every month because with all the others, it's just an open slot. And we are a lunchtime one from 11.30 to 1. Cool. Hi, my name is Kevin Roberts. And I'm the lead organizer for the Southwest Gwinnett WordPress user group. And we're a meet-up that meets 7 to 9 p.m. the third Tuesday of every month. And we meet in the P Street Corners, North Cross area. We meet in the Atlanta Tech Park is the name of the facility. It's like a co-working space. Incubator. Incubator. That's the word I'm looking for. And really nice facility. And good Wi-Fi and everything. So we're very, very blessed. Cool. Thank you. Hey. Excuse me. My name is A. A. Ron. And I lead the Atlanta meet-up. I inherited it from Judy Knight. So it's been around since, I think it's 2008 or so. And we meet, we used to meet off of a street called Ponce. And now we're off of Piedmont. You guys are familiar with those. Sorry. I had to act at the Douglasville thing. Anyway, we're meeting in Buckhead at Rome second Tuesday at 7 o'clock. And there is not one this month because of this. And I'm somewhat lazy. But our topics are from, you know, comparing page builders and form builders to A.B. testing. I mean, just about any type of topic. And if you feel like you need to talk, I'm looking for speakers all the way. Thank you. So I found my train of thought. So I am the lead organizer of WordPress Quenette. And it got started after I attended my first word camp in 2012. And I said, wow, this is awesome. I want to do this some more. And so I added it to meet up. And we got our first sponsor who said, hey, do you need a space? And so we have been there ever since. And our co-organizer, Micah, is here. I think that we have some WordPress Quenette members that are here as well. Do you hear our WordPress Quenette? Yeah, there you guys go. WordPress Quenette. Oh, I'm Naomi. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm Naomi. And we actually have several different meetups. So our main meetup is in Lawrenceville, downtown Lawrenceville. It's the third Thursday of every month. We've also just expanded. We now have a meetup the first Tuesday. Sorry, first Tuesday of every month in Snailville. Micah is the leader of that. We also have, I'm sorry. So downtown Lawrenceville is at 6.30. Snailville is at 7 p.m. We also have our developer meetup. The developer meetup is the third Thursday in Lawrenceville at 7.45. And then we have our hack day meetups, which are in Swanee. And those are at noon on Sundays. And we're expanding. So our goal is to be in every city in Quenette because basically our general user meetup is a help session. So we do a free help session every month, just like you have the happiness bar here. We do that every month. And I love that meetup. It is our most attended meetup. And it's just really awesome getting to see what people are doing in the community and getting to help them meet their goals for free. So we don't sell anything. And sometimes some people, they don't understand that. They're like, surely you must be selling something, but no, we don't sell a single thing. We don't allow anyone to come in and sell anything to our members. So if you're interested in getting involved, you can go to wpguenette.com. You can join there on our website. That's how we communicate with our members. I'm losing my train of thought again. We'll come back when you find it. Yes, speakers. Yes, if you are interested in speaking, yes, we want you. You can fill out our contact form. If there is a particular meetup that you want to see, we want to hear about that as well. Coming down from WordCamp Central is meetups. It can be as few as two or three people meeting in a cafe, or it can be a whole room like this. So if there are just two people that want to get together and perhaps Barbara, she wants to do a meetup for beauty professionals. Beauty professionals who use WordPress. So I said, yes, we're going to do that. So that is WordPress Guenette. Thank you. So those are our hack days. And what we find is that really, we only get an hour in our developer meetings. And sometimes you want to dive into a topic a little bit more. We want to learn something together. Maybe it's React. And so that's what our hack days are for. In Swanee, right across from town center, there's a building there. And one of our sponsors this year, no. But Physique Refinements, it's a training studio. Okay, cool. You can hang on to that. We got another one over here. Wow. One thing to think about. There's a lot going on in Guenette. It's a lot of time. It sounds like a full-time job. There's a lot going on. But remember, this is all volunteer. It's all volunteer. And so, yes. So, and that's something else. Just like we have organizing teams here, we have co-coordinators for meetups. So if you want to be a participant and help out, that's open to you. And also, as we kind of go around, you think about a map of Atlanta and where these meetups are. There are some places that are not represented. So if you want to start a meetup in your area, that's also something that you can do. And anyone up here can help you start that process. Yep. And Angela is here from the community. And she can help you with that as well. And Kathy is also part of that. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. So I'm Brad. I run the North Fulton WordPress Meetup. Anyone from Alpharetta, Roswell, Johns Creek coming north, straight north of Atlanta. Anyone from that area here? Excellent. Good. So yeah. So we've been meeting for three and a half years now. And it's been one of the most fulfilling things I've been a part of. It is just, it's a lot of fun. We meet in the evenings. Yes. Yeah. So the best thing would be it's make.wordpress.org that's going to have the details, the community section of that site. Am I correct in that? So online, make.wordpress.org is going to have the process and the application form that you can fill out. And then someone will be in contact with you from the WordPress community. And you'll talk to them through that process. So yep, yep. So my meetup is the third Wednesday of every month. We meet at Tech Alpharetta. It's near Avalon. So it's a pretty easy location to get to. We started again three and a half years ago with five people. We've had some meetings where we get 40 plus. We probably average 10 to 25. But it's an evening meeting. It's a social meeting. We like to go around and tell people why are you, you know, what's your interest in WordPress? What's your name? Is there something we can help you with? It is a very social interactive meeting. So I'd love to see you there. We have talks that range from, you know, we don't do it. Naomi mentioned, and this is unique to the area. They have a developer focused meetup. We've had a couple, and most of the people up here, the talks we've had, we may fit a developer session in. That's unique to the area, is having a sole meeting focused on developers. Ours, we will have a couple of years that are developer focused, but usually it's geared towards WordPress professionals 50% of the attendance and then the other 50% are WordPress users. So people that use WordPress and want to be able to use it better. So learn about plugins and themes and then professionals, how do you do this professionally and grow your business? So that's it. So Tech Alpharetta, yes. Third Wednesday of every month at 6.30 p.m. And we are, everyone up here is looking for speakers. So if you've got something that you want to talk about and we will talk about that. Okay, so go to Aaron's first. Susan. Good afternoon. Here's how you get over your fear of public speaking. You come back to lunch and get thrown up on the stage. My name is Susan Van Hammert, and I am co-organizer of Kennesaw WordPress Meetup. We meet in downtown Kennesaw. Second Wednesday, 11.30. And we are based in desktop co-working location at Giles in North Maine. We have had visitors come from as far away as Douglasville and Grant Park. We have a great meeting. And at my meetings, it's been noted that people stay longer after the meeting. Maybe it's because there's a coffee bar dropped in the building. And this is the third weekend in a row that we've actually participated in an event that has to do with WordPress. Two weeks ago, we had a pro-search at our meetup on a Saturday. Had a great turnout. It ended up being more of a brainstorming session. This was an effort to support freelancers in the community who work with or want to plug into WordPress projects. And then last Saturday, we had our first happiness bar. And that was an absolute blast. It was so much fun. Everybody had walked away a little wiser, I believe. So, again, my co-organizer is Marion Owen. He was here yesterday. Some of you met him. We've been doing this just over a year, having a great time doing it. We love it again. So, Kenesaw, Second Wednesdays, 11.30. Free coffee. Come see us. Bribing people, I like it. Hi, my name is Robin Mulder. I manage the Gainesville WordPress group. Gainesville, Hall County, Athens, Flowery Branch. Pretty much all of Northeast Georgia, because I don't think that there's another one in that Northeast Georgia area other than ours. We've been a little bit over a year, so we've had some great people come in and spend time. We've had a few speakers. Most of our people that come are users, small businesses in the area, trying to manage their own WordPress. Some larger businesses having their employees come out. Some people just trying to start a blog and learn about WordPress at all. And then some developers have been a part of it as well. We are the second Thursday of every month at 12 at the Gainesville Burnal Business Incubator. It's right off 129 and 985. There's a restaurant there called Hux. They let us come in, and you're welcome to grab a bite to eat and where we meet is in the back of the room. There's a projector and speakers. So we can have some detailed meetings or we can just sit around and help each other out. Some meetings, they're really just laid back. Sometimes it's just, hey, what does anybody have a problem with? What can we do to help? I think that's about it. Okay, thank you. Hi, I'm April Weir. I run the Woodstock WordPress Meetup. We meet at The Circuit, which is a co-working space business incubator. And it looks like a gem because that's what it used to be. It used to be the gem at Chattahoochee Tech in Woodstock. And we meet the first and third Wednesdays at 11.30 to 1. You can make a full day of it. You can come to my Meetup on the third Wednesday, 11.30. Then you can go to Brad. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I just go take a nap instead. So we mostly are business focused. So we do a lot of SEO. We do a lot of content planning. Really our focus is how to take WordPress and make it work for your business and how to make it just more powerful and bringing leads and conversions for your business. Although we do have resources available for users of all levels. And so if you come early or stay late, there's always somebody who's willing to help. Hello, I'm Melanie Adcock. I started the noonen, Georgia WordPress Meetup back in December. We've had a couple meetups so far. It's proven that finding a place after hours is a little difficult in noonen because everything closes. So it looks like we're going to be doing it at lunchtime on the fourth Tuesday of every month. And we didn't have one last month extenuating circumstances. So we will meet at the end of this month. Last Tuesday, lunchtime, just make sure that you join the noonen group on meetup.com and you will get information. And that's a good reminder. Meetup.com, if you join each of these groups, you'll get notified. You'll get an email on who the next speaker is and when the next meeting is. So what I would do, Atlanta WordPress Meetup within 50 miles, 30 miles, and follow all of them so that you'll get notified and hey, there's a good talk that's coming up. This is something I'd be interested in. So, Kathy. I'm Kathy Druin and I have been facilitating the Marietta WordPress Meetup since 2011, which is a long time. It's also how I know the names of all these people. We meet the second Thursday of each month. I'm sorry, I used to meet on Thursday. Second Tuesday of each month. And Marietta Square from 1130 to 1. You don't have to write all that down on our WordPress Meetup, our Camp Atlanta website. We have all these Meetups listed. Yeah, it's easy to find. And they link to our Meetup page. So, second Tuesday in Marietta, off the Square, Ignite HQ, 1130 to 1, we talk about lots of different things. The focus of the group for me is always on the community of WordPress. If you've ever met me, you know that I am all about the people, and that is you. So, sometimes our talks are business-related for those of us in the business. Sometimes the talks are how-to. Once a quarter, we have a help desk, our happiness bar. Without fail, every single quarter, there is hands-on. Our next meeting is March the 14th. May. May the 14th. Can y'all tell I am chalked out? The brain disengaged about noon. So, thank you for reminding me of who and what I am. Our topic is Overwhelmed by Word Camp. How to put at least one item take-away into action. Very good. Cool. All right. So now, let's... Good. So, we have some questions here that we can ask each other, but it's more fun if you have questions to ask us. So, if you have a question, we have a microphone coming over here and over here. So, just raise your hand. And if you want to direct it to one individual, that's fine. If you want to just say, here's a question, then we can pass the mic around and figure out who can answer it. Hello. Hello. My name is Lisa. I come from Northwest Florida. After a couple of meet-up, or a couple of word camps, I started the meet-up group in our local area. We had a ton of people at first, and then we had almost no volunteers. So, everybody got really tired of hearing what I had to say. And we don't have good turnout. We have, like, 600 members. How do we get speakers? Anybody want to visit Dustin, Florida? Yes. Seriously, I'll speak. We have 600 members, so if anybody wants to come and speak, will you see me, please? I'll speak September through December. Do you have any suggestions for me? I'm frustrated because I want them to come, but I obviously don't want to listen to me, so... Okay, April. I got this one. So, booking speakers is my superpower, as anybody who has known me for any amount of time will hear me say it at least five times, because I like to talk about myself a lot. Anyway, so I would say what's really important is for the people in your community to see what's possible. So even if you do have to bring people in from out of town, and this community is incredibly generous and we like to travel and we love road trips, and so I'm going to be going up to Charlotte, and I'm going to be speaking at their meetup pretty soon. And you know what? All she had to do was ask me, and I'm like, yeah, right? So ask some people, there's lots of people here who would love to get out and just go and do something, and then your people get to see that people are actually traveling to do this, and it makes it more appealing to them, and so it kind of gives them a model. They have to visualize it first. Okay, so the question is, how do you get your meetup involved, because you can't just have, you know, bring guests in all the time, right? So I think the biggest issue I've seen is people don't understand the value that they bring to the community, and they feel because they don't understand the entirety of WordPress that they don't have anything to offer. And it's really important to continue to encourage your members because as the meetup organizer, your job is to help push them forward. So like at camps, you know, making sure that you're introducing them to people because when you are investing in them, they become incredibly loyal and want to serve you back. And so making sure that they understand, no matter where they are on their journey, they have something to contribute. Way back in 2000, I think it was 2012 when I did my first WordCamp, I promised myself that within a year I would do a presentation. So I'm going to challenge everybody out there to promise yourself that next year you're going to do either a meetup or a WordCamp presentation. There's going to be one thing that you learn this year that somebody else needs to know. You don't need to be an expert. You just need to be knowledgeable in one thing that you can share. And if you promise yourself that you're going to do that, then start doing the meetups. And because you can do, you can practice. I mean, look at all the practice locations you have now that you can do the same talk over and over again until you've got it nailed for WordCamp next year. Aaron. If you could do a meetup on June 2nd, 3rd or 4th, I'll speak. I can't. I know that's narrowing it down. You're going to be indested then. I'm just saying. So my first talk that I gave, Mickey caught me at WordCamp U.S. and he said, you're going to come and talk at my meetup when we get back. And I was like, okay. And I haven't shut up since, but like sometimes you really have to just grab somebody and say, you on this day, yes or no? Yeah. Okay. One of the other ways to get your community involved doesn't have to be speaking. You can ask somebody who is attending to take attendance. Yeah. You can give them small tasks. Yes. So that they begin to feel like their presence is honored and welcome, invited. The trick is to make people feel like they belong there. Yes. And it's not a trick because they do belong there. It's been my experience that a lot of times meetup groups fail to thrive either because we become very clickish among ourselves and we don't see the new people walking in the room. That is my superpower. I see new people walking in the room and it's very easy for me. I know it's hard for some people. Let's say hello to the person that's sitting on your left. Look up from your laptop and meet each other. And then you begin to get connected. There is a list that I could send you of suggestions of how to get people involved. I think it is a good question. Can I add something to that? Sure. So for a long time I was a lurker and eventually showed up at my first WordPress meetup and I just kept going to meetups and just kind of meeting people eventually because I was pretty shy. And then I remember going to meetup and Brett, this is the Atlanta meetup when it was over at General Assembly. Brett was like, hey, I know you guys are probably tired of seeing me talk, but I want to open it up. If you guys want to talk about anything then put your name on the list. We got topics... I think you had a list of already topics that you wanted to hear about and maybe people wouldn't want to hear. So I signed up and it was February and I signed up for June and I'm like, I will have the cojones by then to get up on stage and do it. And then as it got closer, I got scared of being in prop class. And that's another story. But it was because of that because Brett asked I was like, okay and it's like I've been able... I've had the good fortune of speaking at many of the different meetups in town and at work camp. So just asking for help, right? I was able to jump in and help and it's been wonderful experience to meet so many people in the WordPress community. Not just here but everywhere. Awesome. Right, yeah. Susan? Do you have something to add there? Something that Marion and I have done is reached out to the freelancers in your community because the designers and the artists and the videographers people that people who are doing WordPress development need for projects need these people. You need each other. And when we did that the response was very, very good and they are happy to come talk to you about incorporating photography into your site. In fact, Marion was able to do it without that and it gives them the stage for a bit. It also connects them to people who may actually need them on projects. So reach out if you have not set up a Facebook page for your group you can do that because then other people can see you what you're doing even though they're not necessarily plugged into it. Let's go ahead and get questions and go ahead. We'll try to keep this probably to one response because I know you've got questions and we can all talk a long time on this. Go ahead, what's your question? My question isn't for anyone in particular but just about the happiness bar and do all of your meetups have happiness bars? Raise your hand if your meetup has a happiness bar at every meeting. Every meeting you have a time for... Well every month after the presenter talks we always have a happiness bar session where if you have an issue you can come and we'll... and that's what we do when we go around the room we're trying to match people up. I'm here, my interest in WordPress is this because I can't get this form to work or I can't get this and then they can help you. We do that every meeting. If you do yours once a month, raise your hand. A happiness bar once a month. Gwynette once a quarter you have a happiness bar. Noonan, Marietta, Gainesville, Kennesaw. Is that helpful? Cool. What else? Are there questions? Yes, Jason. Staying on the topic of speakers what do you consider speaker etiquette and what are some requirements that you're looking for in terms of speakers? Good question. Name? Oh, Mickey. Have somebody sort of ask that. In terms of etiquette just the one thing I think we've already sort of said this is you're there to help each other not to sell. I had one speaker who I'm pretty sure isn't here that had like eight slides at the end when they were done like all about how great they are and their company, why should you hire them and I think that can be implied a little bit if you speak, people are going to know you and maybe hire you but it should be implied at best. You're really there to serve the people and help them out. Anyone else want to talk about that for a minute because I think that's an important one. How many of you would like to talk at a word trust me to? Good. For us, Namely, do you want to address that at all? Do you have to put you on the spot? No, Erin, anyone? Kathy, yeah. For every meetup and for every event at a meetup there are five good faith practices and I cannot quote them off the top of my head but the concept behind it is what you are presenting is for the good of the community. It's the motivation and then of course being kind and inclusive and caring and helpful. The topic is not really the critical issue when I decide to choose a speaker. I want to know that you are engaged and motivated by being a member of the word press community and that is first and foremost in your agenda however you might present that. Do you remember the five things? Angela knows. Angela, have you looked them up? Can you talk about the five items, Angela? My name is Angela and I am a member of the word press community support team and so we support work camps and meetups around the world. So what Kathy is referring to with the five good faith rules is if you are a meetup that's a part of the word press chapter meetup program we do a number of things to support your meetup. If you are not a part of the chapter program that's totally fine but being a part of the chapter program means that you have heard about and you agree to the five good faith rules. So in quick summary the five good faith rules are first and foremost as Kathy said they are for the good of the community not for any specific businesses or people. Number two, oh boy I'm sorry. I thought you might have looked it up while I was yacking. Okay, so meetups are inclusive and available to everyone so one benefit of all chapter meetup programs is that they are free to attend. For meetups in the chapter program they adhere to all the public license. So it's specifically for speakers and organizers and all volunteers they do need to adhere to the GPL the general public license and respect the trademark of the word press logo as well. Fourth is that anybody can organize so even if you are you can be anybody as long as you agree to the five good faith rules so even if you are not an expert if you don't think you are an expert but you want to build your local word press community do it. Get involved in your local community if there is one already if there isn't you can start one and the last is that word press communities are very inclusive. They should be racist, homophobic, bigoted inappropriate behavior should be passed immediately. Did I get all five? I think I got all five. It's usually a 30 to 40 minute presentation that we are looking for and there is usually some structure behind it. Sometimes we sit around and have a discussion but it's helpful to have slides very similar to what everyone is doing here and then you have a Q&A so know what you are going to talk about but it doesn't have to be a presentation just something that stimulates discussion and that's something that is different among these as well. Remember that a lunchtime meetup the 1130 to 1 o'clock you are trying to be respectful of people's time they are taking their lunch hour to come to the meetup so it's kind of to the point usually it may not be quite as discussion oriented although some are but some are very laid back where you are just kind of talking and it's a little bit different. Diana up in front of people and talking a good way to get started is to find a partner who will talk with you and or put together a small panel of people to discuss something specific so all of it is not on you. That's a great way to do a first time talk as a panel. Kevin? One thing that also it's sort of been assumed I think by a lot of people here but just so that you do know is if you are a member of the WordPress chapter program they are paying the fees for meetup. You're basically on their account so then you don't have to pony up the money for the monthly fee to meetup. So it's a nice little perk. Andy give me a button. Alright we've got a question here. Yeah. Next. Next Sheila. Then a question and I just wanted to say for people who are starting meetups for the first time that when someone comes to your page and visits your page meetups incorporated or .com whatever considers them a member and so I sent I started a meetup for Keto for nutritional ketosis and I had lots of people that just visited and so I sent them all a welcome letter and everything and luckily one of the people got back to me and let me know she also has a meetup and she let me know that just by nature and visiting that they are assigned to be a member. So don't get discouraged if you have like 50 members and then no one shows up for our SVPs or something because sometimes that's meetups not you. Sheila. Hi everybody my name is Sheila and I'm from Seattle. I put on wordcap there twice and I lead a monthly meetup that's for freelancers and first of all I want to applaud that you have so many people and this is a great idea we're going to steal it for our wordcap I mean you guys are awesome and I love what Kathy had to say about community that's kind of my way too is it's all about building the community and I have so many different things I could say I don't want to hog this but what I stood up to say was that since getting speakers is such a challenge and we hear that in Seattle still and we have a lot of meetup groups that are very successful and once we get to meetup I run monthly we don't have speakers in fact after three years we just had our first speaker we sit in a circle and introduce ourselves and we have the either the end of the year or the beginning of the year we do what's called lean coffee but it's just a brainstorming technique for topics and then we set our topics for the year and we announce our topics but the group has a lot of wisdom within it and we first do our introductions and we have an agenda that's consistent throughout all our meetups the conduct and the five principles and stuff and then we talk about the topic and everybody shares resources and for this particular meetup we say it's not about plugins and themes it's about people who are making their living using WordPress it's very targeted and it's also interesting to hear I guess I don't know the geography here it's my first time in Georgia but I guess you're really really spread out to have all these different geographic meetups so in greater Seattle our meetups aren't so geographic they're specific so we have a do it yourself meetup for bloggers and people who just do their own website they're not professionals and then we have this freelancer one and then we have a help desk one we have specialized meetups as opposed to specialized geography that I'm just in awe of what you guys are doing so thank you all for volunteering and building this community yes awesome cool so to address your question earlier even if you don't have a happiness bar at your meetups how often do you have not official support but if somebody comes with a question somebody is going to leave with an answer I would think always at every meeting excellent and that's something we all encourage if you've got something bring it that's the perfect time and maybe not an answer but at least a resource so they can find the answer so I run the Houston meetups and yeah I'm with you and so I'm just curious I know that you guys and how many of you have run your own meetups we have one a month and I'm wondering certain number of groups people come in they're kind of mixed I'm wondering if it would be good to kind of have the idea of splitting it off so I have one a month we have two others one a month so three a month different locations but I've thought about having another meetup just for either just beginners or just developers you have two right April we do two a month but it's the same meetup oh it's the same meetup I'm just curious if any of you all do more than one a month for different bodies what's the most distributed you do multiple multiple a month so Gwinnett it's the second largest county here in Georgia so we do have a pretty wide area and we also have it where some people can only make some days aren't good for them some times aren't good for them so that's why we started branching out we started with the developer meetup and we said okay we want to help out those that are beginners so we built up a core of developers first that could then run our help sessions that we do every month and then our help session became so popular that now we do multiple help sessions each month at different times on different days because some people just couldn't make one of the days and then from there from our developer meetup we got people that we had things wow this topic is really good and so I said well look does anybody want to start practicing this stuff come together and work and that's how our hack days got started and so it just really just came out of need and because we do have and then traffic traffic is just a bear and so that's why it's like okay now let's try to meet people where they are and we can go to the different cities and just try to help people as much as we can that's our goal awesome cool so we have 10 minutes left and I want you to have time to talk to the different meetup organizers so they're getting situated and I'll let you know where they are but move, talk to them if you've got additional questions ask those questions but thank you for attending this so alright so Kathy, Kathy raise your hand this is Marietta right here Robin raise your hand Gainesville April right here is Woodstock down front Melanie is Noonan over here Susan is Kennesaw over here Jason is Douglasville raise your hand Kevin is Southwest Gwinnett North Cross Peach Tree Corners Aaron is Atlanta Naomi is Gwinnett right here and I'm Alfreda up here please, yes Angela is in the middle and she is the WordPress community so please meet an organizer