This year I helped organize WordCamp Sacramento as the Volunteer Wrangler. It was fun and a little stressful. A little stressful only because there was one track I had forgotten about. In total we had three tracks and the second day I had forgotten to set up one of the tracks with somebody to record or introduce.

You could imagine what that was like.

Throughout the entire event I made an attempt to go to every room and make sure all the volunteers were doing good. If they needed something to eat, something to drink, or just needed a break.

There is a reason for that. I wanted to take care of them because they were taking time out of their lives to not only help me but help with the event as well. 

Now, the fun part was getting to see all those people learning and sharing their stories and experiences.

Before the event I had been contemplating on whether or not I wanted to be the lead organizer for next year. The more time went on and the closer we got to the event, the more certain I became I wanted to be the lead for the next year.

I want WordCamp Sacramento to continue for our community.

One of the things about WordCamps is that they are affordable. At $20 per day, you can’t really beat that. Depending on which one you attend, it will vary. Some offer shirts, some offer lunch on both days, some will offer some amazing dance after party. I’m sure all those organizer also had lofty goals in mind when they planned their event; the main thing is that they all offer opportunities for the attendees.

Opportunities to learn, share, and network. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on posts which attendees have written to get a better idea of how to plan for the next year. So if you have a post about WordCamp Sacramento, please do share it with me. I’d love to hear about it.

I’m sort of looking for things that can be addressed and things that can’t.

The cool part is that we have some of the pre-planning already started:

  • We have a theme in mind
  • We have possible slogans
  • We have a possible location
  • We have ideas to make next year’s better

I’m not going to lie when I say that I’m scared to be the lead for next year. When I told a few of this, they were more than ecstatic for me and said I would be a good lead. It really caught me off-guard. A lot of that is because I still don’t see myself in a lead role.

There are a few things I’m looking forward to though. The first being the experience. I’ve never really organized something like this. The closest would probably have to be our local Meetup group or my son’s birthday party but those are much, much smaller. It is a bit out of my comfort zone so that’s the biggest reason I’m looking forward to it too.

This will be a lot of fun for me and very scary. I can’t wait.