Photo by @glueckpress.
After a week of posting on social media, sorting through photos, and wrapping up admin stuff, I finally found the time to post this recap! 🙂
Organizing WordCamp Harare has been a labor of love for me. It has never been without its challenges, but it has always been worthwhile. I went into it thinking it would be easier than last year, and in many ways it was. However, due to the cash crisis in Zimbabwe, I actually ended up working just as hard as last year, if not harder. Having said that, if I had to do it all over again, I would… in a heartbeat. I do what I do because I love what I do.
WordCamps now have a two-year rotation for every lead organizer, and this was my second year. So I’m not sure who will be the lead organizer next year, but if the 2018 organizing team will have me, I will continue to help organize this WordCamp which means a lot to me.
Challenges
As mentioned above, Zimbabwe is experiencing a cash crisis. Even though we use the US dollar, the foreign currency is hard to find and we have resorted to using what we call “bond notes”. Unfortunately, the banks have stopped allowing online payments outside the country because of the shortage of US dollars. That means most people can not use PayPal!
So I had no choice but to register attendees using my PayPal account in exchange for cash. During the last couple of weeks before WordCamp, I would meet people in town on a daily basis in order to register them online. This worked out very well and made sure the cash sales went directly to WordPress Community Support.
The other major challenge was getting vendors paid. We knew from our experience last year that it was best to avoid trying to pay vendors from the WordPress Community bank account. There was a bank that rejected payments from U.S. banks last year and other payments were extremely slow to process.
This year we were prepared for that and we elected to pay vendors from the WooCommerce bank account in Cape Town. My mentor, Hugh Lashbrooke, had to submit invoices to their accountant who then sent them to their bank to be processed. Like we found out last year, this proved to be the easiest way for us to pay our vendors. Thank you so much, Hugh and Dom, for your help and your patience!
Organizing Team
This year, we pretty much had the same team we had last year, except for one replacement. Our team was made up of 7 people (including myself). The lessons we learned from last year helped us do a much better job this year and the team made my job much easier. It also didn’t hurt to have a member of the organizing team who actually works at the venue that was donated to us 🙂 That made venue logistics so much easier.
My experience at WordCamp Europe 2017 helped me to bring a few new things to the table this year. We actually posted a formal “Call for Volunteers” this time, and even had specific jobs assigned (unlike last year). We added a new role, the Timekeeper, which greatly improved our time management. We also added an Emcee role, so that I didn’t have to do all the talking (which turned out just as well since I ended up having a sore throat that weekend :-().
All of our volunteers were first-time WordCamp attendees (isn’t that super awesome!) and they did an amazing job. Everyone went out of their way and did more than what was asked of them. As a lead organizer, I was so impressed with how little I had to manage on the day of the event and the initiative that the volunteers took. I am extremely grateful for this team. We couldn’t have done it without them!
Sponsors
We closed the budget completely with the help of old and new partners. Our Global Community Sponsors from last year: Jetpack, WooCommerce, GoDaddy, Bluehost and WPML.org.
This year, we were excited to have 3 new sponsors and a venue sponsor! Yoast was the first to apply to sponsor us. Then we were stoked to have our very first local sponsor, ZOL Zimbabwe. There were 2 other local companies who applied to sponsor us but we believe that the cash crisis hindered them from being able to make their payments. But, not to worry, we couldn’t believe it when Human Made managed to sponsor us at the last minute! Since it was at short notice, we regret that we were unable to fulfill all their sponsor benefits, but we sincerely hope that they give us the opportunity to recognize them properly next year.
Last but not least, we are extremely grateful to Hellenic Academy for giving us a place to host WordCamp Harare 2017. WordCamp Harare would not have been the same without them!
I want to thank the organizing team, volunteers, speakers and sponsors who made this happen. It was a pleasure and honor to work with all of you. But more importantly, I want to thank all the attendees for “showing up”. There is no WordCamp without all of you.
Hope to see you next year! 🙂
I leave you with a few photos taken by our photographer, Joshua Kumunda. The complete photo album is coming soon!
Thank you Mr T Tswana
Thank you, Trinos, for volunteering! It was a team effort and we had the best team ever 🙂