Back in 2008 when I started to take over and clean up the mess that was the admin side of things of the Dutch WordPress releases, forums and translations, I got to know this one fellow who was helping me out a great deal. Zé and I got to talking —more like slow chatting via Skype & email, but you get the picture 😉
We soon realized that the International WordPress Community and all its assets needed a lot of love to get up to get to the same level as WordPress.org. One of the things we talked about was how beneficial a strong European WordPress Community would be and how we could achieve that. That was the first time we talked about what is about to happen for the very first time: WordCamp Europe. When I met Zé at WordCamp Netherlands, which I co-organised, back in 2009 we sort of started planning what we saw as the European counterpart of WordCamp San Francisco.
In the years to follow as I started attending and speaking at more European WordCamps (WordCamp Köln, WordCamp Portsmouth, WordCamp Sevilla, WordCamp Edinburgh, WordCamp Lisboa, WordCamp Norway, WordCamp Transylvania) I got to know a few more lovely people who shared our vision and a plan started to brew. Fast forward (a few years) to October 2012 at the WordPress Community Summit in Tybee, Georgia, we— a bunch of that group was attending— got the go-ahead from WordCamp Central.
After months of carefully looking for venues, speakers, volunteers, sponsors and everything else imaginable, we set a date in early 2013; 5, 6 & 7 October in the beautiful city of Leiden in the Netherlands. Right now there are only 38 days left to go and that makes me über excited. There’s still a lot we need to do, but the dust is starting to settle and I’m incredibly looking forward to what’s going to be the awesomest WordCamp event I’ve ever been to.
There are going to be a lot of speakers, European & other, that are going to do their best at entertaining and educating you. All designed to leave you to realize there’s a larger European Community out there. One where we’ve got lots to learn from each other and see common ground instead of borders.
All of this will flow back to the project itself and we’ll all come out of this better than we did going in. That’s at least my vision.
If you haven’t signed up yet … why not?! If you have.. please come say hi in 38 days.
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