Written by: Atharva Kulkarni

Date: 10/10/2023

So I was invited to a meet-up for WordPress which turned out to be a meeting for Organising WordCamp. To give context I had not attended a WordPress community meet-up for a long time. Always had something or the other to do post-COVID. But this time I didn’t want to say no. Not once not ever. Was my intention to be a part of it, No. Did I want to do it for Aditya bhai, Yes. And that’s how this journey began.

As I attended a few meetings I got to know the team. For every single member I have given them a title from my end as a thank you message from my end. It has been difficult not gonna lie. Managing work is itself a nightmare for me due to the responsibilities I carry plus I do a billion more things to keep myself sane. Thought of saying No came to my mind, there was a fear of Disappointing everyone who had kept faith in me.

I started with the Sponsor team, I made a DB of potential WP sponsors based on past events. Sent a cold message and waited like a moron. Nobody showed interest in our event. The fear of disappointment became even bigger. I had decided to say No this time for sure and I did. I said that Sponsor isn’t the responsibility fit for me. I failed the team who had put a lot of faith in me. Time was running out. But the team thought maybe I could be good for something else. I like Rohit Sharma was offered the Opening and was given the responsibility of Speaker.

The next chapter began. The sheet of speaker, their screening, a plan and everything was created on Day 2. All my anxiety about being an organiser vanished in a moment. I thought I wasn’t contributing anything but a solid plan was ready almost a month ago. But luck doesn’t work like this. Its job is to remove ego, making people humble and snapping back the reality that we live in. My exam clashed with the event. I told Aditya bhai with a heavy heart that my exam was clashing. He said you play your part until then, he didn’t give up on me and surprisingly nor did the team.

We had multiple meet-ups during the planning phase, some good, some bad and some ugly. But you know what the team is resilient. We never gave up on the community, our goal which was the event and not even the people we had disagreements with.

We met a lot of new people. Made friends. We learned a lot from each other. That’s the beauty of life which our team explored and none of us noticed. Our personalities and experiences have rubbed on each other and in a good way.

My mother and I got sick a week before the event. Work had to be done but others took responsibility and played a part I was supposed to. Thank you, Astha and Deepansh for being there. I somehow managed to take the first 2 of my MTech exams and continue further.

A day before the Contributor’s day I was nervous and slept early thinking about the event tomorrow. Fortunately woke up early and arrived on time. As the crowd started showing up I quickly realised that we must have surpassed the number we had imagined. Met the speakers for the first time there, and my playing 11 were there.