By Ani – organizer of WordPress Weekly Coffee Klatch, WordPress Meetup SWFL
I am calling this one a big success!
We had our first ever WordPress Weekly Coffee Klatch (From the German, Kaffeeklatsch.), on Wednesday, July 6 th 2016 at 11 am. This was the first of what we are hoping to put on every week. Incidentally, it was almost two years ago, to the date, that I first logged into WordPress.com to get a blog started. In September of 2015 I started a self-hosted site/blog, and today I hosted a WordPress Meetup KaffeeKlatsch. Not because I’m an expert by any means, because I surely am not. Simply due to the fact that I have a desire for learning and I’m guessing it’s something all members of the WordPress Meetup SWFL share.
I have attended several of the monthly evening events and one of the things I’ve always longed for at those, was mingling, so we could get to know one another more, make connections with WordPress users to troubleshoot problems, ask advice and things of that nature. Also, for me, while the monthly meetings are soooo informative, and I encouraged the daytime folks to attend this month’s 6-8 pm meeting, my brain is so tired at that time of night. I had been kicking around this late morning coffee shop thing for several months.
It was a pretty fine turnout.
Only under a week notice and we had five people including me. Three out of five brought laptops and I took notes, old school, on paper too. I think all who attended agreed that it was a very productive meeting and we discussed a plethora of topics. We had people from different backgrounds with knowledge of the internet in many forms. I raised several subjects, one of them being, Child Themes which several of the attendees were unfamiliar. Those of us that had been attending Birgit’s monthly 6 pm meetings were acquainted with this term.
Grab the resources at shared on this meetup How to modify Themes? From “Edit CSS” to Creating Child Themes
Hoping to encourage participation.
I decided it would be a nice idea to have some kind of a prize given at the end to whoever was the most helpful to other participants. I was hoping this would be a nice incentive for more advanced users to attend. We decided that James was the winner of that title, but he wasn’t able to take the prize home, (homemade organic pizza crust, made by yours truly) so I made it a gift to Larry, the owner of the coffee house. Incidentally, Larry was also my contact person in reserving their private meeting room. He seemed most appreciative and anxious to try it out!
Our most gracious host.
We all felt that The Grind was absolutely spectacular! The private meeting room was marvelous and we were able to close the doors. Most of us purchased a fruit smoothie which was very refreshing since it’s been really hot the last few days. They also serve lunch so next time some of us may order that as well.
All in all, I believe that it was a huge win! I did forget to take that selfie of our group that Birgit wanted so we’ll have to try for next week. I would really like our members to make an effort to attend in the next month if schedules allow. Having a strong start can make or break these kinds of functions. Hoping to see more of you there next Wednesday and in the weeks to come. Remember to get your RSVP’s in and update if plans change as space is limited to only 10 people at this venue. Thanks again to those of you who attended.