WPYVR

The best way to learn a skill, to improve a skill, or to per­fect a skill, is to put it to use and share it with others.

The first ever Theme Week­end will put this to prac­tice. Twenty design­ers, devel­op­ers, and Word­Press enthu­si­asts will gather at The Net­work Hub in down­town Van­cou­ver for a two-day week­end event on June 30^th and July 1^st, 2012 to col­lab­o­rate and build Word­Press themes.

THE PREMISE

Theme Week­end grew out of requests from mem­bers of the Van­cou­ver Word­Press Meetup Group for a more hands-on workshop-type event where every­one can learn more about build­ing Word­Press themes. This event com­bines skills, col­lab­o­ra­tion, team build­ing, and a bit of good old-fashioned com­pe­ti­tion to pro­duce a learn­ing envi­ron­ment and some great free Word­Press themes.

Sat­ur­day kicks off with a pitch ses­sion of theme ideas which are voted on, the most pop­u­lar of which will move on to the next stage. Teams con­sist­ing of design­ers and devel­op­ers and those in between will then be formed. Over the course of the two days, each team will design and build their cho­sen theme and make it avail­able via GitHub.

THE GOAL

Theme Week­end has three main goals:

• Pro­vide a col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ment for Van­cou­ver Word­Press enthusiasts
• Cre­ate a learn­ing envi­ron­ment for all participants
• Cre­ate some cool Word­Press themes to share with the world

THE PLAYERS

To achieve these goals, we are look­ing for Word­Press enthu­si­asts of all lev­els to par­tic­i­pate. Prior to sign­ing up, please con­sider the skill level which best matches your abil­i­ties. Please be hon­est, as we will orga­nize teams based on this infor­ma­tion. To keep the event as engag­ing as pos­si­ble and a pos­i­tive learn­ing expe­ri­ence for every­one, we ask that you do not sign up if you don’t hon­estly feel you fit into one of these 4 lev­els. We will def­i­nitely have other events that are open to all levels.

• PRO DEVELOPER: You reg­u­larly build Word­Press themes and/or plu­g­ins from scratch. High level of PHP, HTML, CSS and jQuery knowledge.
• DEVELOPER: You have a strong under­stand­ing of PHP, HTML, CSS, and/or jQuery. You are not nec­es­sar­ily a Word­Press specialist.
• NOVICE: You Know how to use Word­Press. You under­stand HTML, CSS and some basic PHP. You’ve edited your theme’s functions.php file on sev­eral occasions.
• DESIGNER: You are pri­mar­ily a visual or user expe­ri­ence designer. Some expe­ri­ence with design for the web.

There are a total of 20 spots available.

THE SKINNY

Theme Week­end is a not-for-profit project ini­ti­ated by Pink & Yel­low NFP Soci­ety and the Van­cou­ver Word­Press Com­mu­nity. The Net­work Hub is spon­sor­ing us with the space to host the event and we have also received spon­sor­ship from the Word­Press Foun­da­tion to help foot the bill.

Tick­ets are set at $15, the funds of which will go towards lunches and refresh­ments for both days, as well as sup­plies to run the event.

By sign­ing up, you are com­mit­ting to par­tic­i­pate for the dura­tion of the two-day event and help build the theme picked by your team.

All the code from the themes will be hosted on GitHub for easy col­lab­o­ra­tion. A short primer to GitHub will be pro­vided at the begin­ning of Day One for any­one not famil­iar with the system.

You must bring your own com­puter equip­ment, soft­ware and nec­es­sary power adapters. Please come prepared.

At set points on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, each team will be asked to do a short pre­sen­ta­tion of their work up to that point and ask help for any issues they have run into. This will allow the teams to crowd­source everyone’s knowl­edge at the event for ideas, solu­tions, and suggestions.

Teams are allowed to swap mem­bers and bor­row mem­bers at any time.

This is an open source event by the com­mu­nity, for the com­mu­nity. If you have ideas, let us know and we’ll try to incor­po­rate them.

SIGN UP Right Now!

Sign up for Theme Week­end on the reg­is­tra­tion page.