Wrapping Up #WCYHM 2015

That’s a wrap!  Thanks so much to all who attended to make the event such a success.

Thank You to…

WPtouch sponsorOur sponsors. We wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without your support: WPtouch, Imagination Plus, Bluehost, WiredTreePlanetHoster, JetPack, Testlauncher, Carbon60 Networks, Hamilton Economic Development, OrbitalDreamHost, WPML, Enterprise Intelligence Inc, Camp Tech, WinningWP, Encompass Design, and Web Solutions.

McMaster Innovation Park. Thank you for all your help in setting up and hosting our event!

Our speakers. Without you, there’d be no reason for anyone to attend.

WordCamp Hamilton 2015 TshirtOur volunteers. You were amazing. From registration, to room hosts, to video recording the two tracks and more, there’s no way we could have run this event without you.

Our attendees. What good is a WordCamp without attendees?

Our caterers and hosts. The Village Green for providing breakfast, lunch, coffee, refreshments, and snacks for the entire day, and Snooty Fox for hosting our speakers’ dinner.

WordCamp SessionOur website and branding. A huge thank you to Eder Saos for our wonderful branding work, and Marlon Lulgjuraj for getting our website up and running!

You’re all awesome!

What Can We Do Better?

Please take a few minutes to complete our feedback survey. Results will be published afterwards.

Presentation Slides

Presentations slides are being published to the site as we receive them from our speakers.

Session Videos

Videos will be submitted to WordPress.tv and shared on our Videos page as soon as we can.

What Next?

Craving more WordPress community goodness? Check out the Hamilton WordPress meetup group!

Until next time…

Brian Hogg, Chad Fullerton, Shanta Nathwani, Nick Tomkin, Adam Wills, Michael Salvatori

Photos by Shanta

Final Details for Attendees

We are looking forward to seeing you Saturday June 6th!  Please note that we are sold out, so there will be no tickets available at the door.

Registration Time

Registration will open at 8am, with our opening remarks shortly after 9am.  While there will be some light snacks and coffee/tea available you’ll probably want to grab some breakfast beforehand.

Bags

We’ll have some swag to give away as will some of our sponsors, so you may want to bring a small bag to carry them around if you won’t have a car to throw the goodies into.

Parking

McMaster Innovation Park has confirmed parking will be free.  So feel free to park in the lot, conference parking, or across the street if both are full.

Seating / Laptops

Seating will be chairs only in rows (no tables), and while you could bring your laptop and use it on your lap there will be no plugs available for powering them.  Most speakers will make their slides available afterwards, and feel free to bring paper/pen to take notes!

Lunch

We have done our best to accommodate all special requests.  If you did not request a special meal during registration, please do not take any of the vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free meals until attendees with special needs have been accommodated, and there is a restaurant just around the corner from the venue if needed.

After-party

The after-party is happening immediately after the last session, in the Atrium of the building directly outside the conference rooms.  Be sure to plan to stick around for a bit!  Drinks and some great snacks including meat & cheese platters, chips & salsa, and even popcorn will be available 🙂

Ticket Updates and After-party

Tickets

Don’t miss out on a full day of quality WordPress talks!  There’s limited capacity in the venue so once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Click here to grab your ticket

Afterparty Event

This year we’ll have an afterparty event straight after the last session of the conference, in the large atrium of the McMaster Innovation Park outside the rooms where the talks are being held.  Some food/snacks will be provided and will be a great chance to relax and connect with the local WordPress community after a day of awesome talks!

Call for Volunteers

We’re always hearing from excited people who want to help out with WordCamp Hamilton but aren’t sure how. Here’s your chance!

We need a team of people who want to help make WordCamp Hamilton 2015 as pleasant as possible. Our volunteers help from everything from ensuring that the registration process runs smoothly to ensuring that we’re capturing video of all of the talks.

Apply to be a Volunteer!

Volunteer Roles

We’re looking for a number of volunteers with a wide variety of skills to help out throughout the day. Here are some of the roles we’ll be looking at filling:

Registration/Greeters

Your role will be to help manage the registration table, ensure that attendees get registered and receive their badges and gifts. We also need people to act as ambassadors in the venue and help lost people find the rooms they are looking for.

Registration Manager

For this role, we are looking for someone to help us make sure the registration table runs smoothly during the day. For that we’re looking for someone who is not interested in attending sessions (or not more than one) and can be at the registration table most of the day.

Room Host

Your role is to help keep speakers on time, get water or supplies they need, assist with any questions they may have, and let us know if there are problems in the room, such as A/V equipment failure. This is one of the plum positions as you get to watch the sessions while doing your task.

Video Gurus

We need a pair of video gurus for each of our two session rooms. This position is a full day position so we can keep the video quality high and consistent from one session to the next throughout the day. Having a pair of video gurus in each room will provide built-in backup when one needs a quick break. The video equipment is provided.

Video Coordinator

You’ll be in charge of ensuring the equipment is set up at the beginning of the day, provide assistance to the video gurus if there are any issues during the day and getting all of the video together in one place at the end of the day.

General Helpers

You may not have a specific role at the start of the day, but there’s always things to do. Whether it’s helping to fill swag bags, helping people find the room they’re looking for and anything else that might pop up throughout the day, you’ll be there to lend a hand.

If you’re interested in volunteering, please fill in the Volunteer Signup Form and we’ll be reviewing them on a FIFO (first-in-first-out) basis.

Apply to be a Volunteer!

** We’ll be accepting submission until late May. Get your application in soon!**

Calling all Speakers for WordCamp Hamilton

Speaker presentingWordCamp Hamilton 2015’s call for speakers is now open! #WCYHM is June 6, 2015, but we intend to lock our speaker schedule in early!

Do you have something to share about WordPress that will benefit the community? Are you a dynamic and organized speaker who can engage an audience and deliver great value? We’d like to hear your idea for a 45 minute talk to be delivered as part of this event.

Submit a Speaker Application

This Year’s Tracks

We will be offering two tracks this year, one for beginners and bloggers, and another on more advanced design or development topics.

We’re looking for a wide range of interesting and informative content for diverse audience with a lot of converging WordPress related interests. So fill out a speaker application!

Topic suggestions

The topics, tracks and schedule this year will be entirely dictated by you, the Speakers, based on what you are offering to present. That being said, if you are eager to present, but are looking for inspiration, here are some ideas to get you started:

A11y

  • AODA Accessibility compliance
  • Building accessible WordPress themes
  • How to perform an accessibility audit
  • Finding an accessible WordPress theme
  • Accessible web forms
  • WAI-ARIA and JavaScript best practices
  • A11y issues from the disabled perspective

Coding

  • Theme development best practices
  • Leveraging the WordPress plugin architecture
  • WordPress Multisite best practices
  • Leveraging the Transients API
  • Development environment set-up and best practices
  • How to code with unit testing
  • Introduction to Backbone.js and WordPress

Content

  • Blog writing 101
  • Using the new Media Galleries introduced in 3.8
  • Working with video
  • Creating and maintaining a bilingual website with WordPress
  • Enhanced comments with third party services
  • SEO best practices and plugins
  • WordPress basics

Community

  • Women in WordPress / Girl Geeks
  • WordPress-related Open Source projects looking for contributors
  • Getting involved and contributing to WordPress

Business

  • Pricing WordPress-based projects
  • WordPress project lifecycle
  • The business of WordPress plugin/theme development

See something you’d like to talk about? AWESOME!

Don’t see your topic on this list? AWESOME!

Either way, if you’ve got an idea, please fill in the Speaker Submission Form, and we’ll be reviewing them on a FIFO (first-in first-out) basis.

Submit a Speaker Application

** We’ll be accepting submissions until late April. Get yours in soon! **

Welcome to WordCamp Hamilton

We’re happy to announce that WordCamp Hamilton is officially on the calendar!  WordCamps are conferences that focus on everything WordPress. They’re informal and community organized, and are a great way to learn new skills and connect with others in the community.

WordCamp Hamilton will be Saturday June 6th at the McMaster Innovation Park.

Subscribe using the form in the sidebar to stay up to date on the most recent news, view the schedule of the sessions we’ll be having during the conference, and grab your ticket!