Continuing our speaking and community outreach

2018 has been a fantastic year for the UK WordPress community so far. We have been fortunate to be able to get involved with events across the UK. Now as we go into the second half of the year it seems a good time to look back at the events we’ve been involved in.

WordUp Brighton

Right at the beginning of the year we joined the folks at WordUp Brighton with Kayleigh giving a talk on Jetpack. Keith also took the trip down. This was the third time members of the team have spoken at WordUp over the last few years and also looking forward to WordCamp Brighton later in the year.

WordPress Cheltenham

Tim and Keith took the trip down to Cheltenham, it was our first visit to this fairly new user group. Even though it was a smaller group than some of those more established it was a lively affair and the post event conversations went long into the night.

WordPress North East

Tim drove up to Newcastle as a last minute stand in for the WordPress North East group and spent the evening talking about WordPress security. For Tim this was his fourth visit over the years to WordPress North East and twinged with a bit of sadness as he found out Campus North (the venue for WordPress North East and many other usergroups) in Newcastle is to close.

WordCamp London

WordCamp London is the biggest UK WordCamp of the year and this year we took the top tier sponsor slot. Our stand drew attention with our retro gaming theme, the WordCamp Conga arcade game going down almost as well as Keith leading an actual conga line around the sponsor area. Kayleigh represented 34SP.com on stage, giving a fantastic lightning talk on x-debug as well as acting as compère on track C for part of the conference.

WordPress Cardiff

Straight after London, Tim went down to Cardiff – another new(er) user group and currently the only group in Wales. This was Tim’s first trip down to the Cardiff group and also fulfilled the a mini achievement that a member of staff has now spoken at an event in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

WordPress Glasgow

Kayleigh took our first trip up to Scotland of the year to visit WordPress Glasgow. This was our second trip up to the Glasgow user group within the last 18 months. The organisers of WordPress Glasgow do a fantastic job and it’s a lovely group to come up and visit.

WordPress Cambridge

Tim and Keith went down to Cambridge, Tim used to live in Cambridge many years ago, so after a brief  tourist bit they headed to WordPress Cambridge’s new home on the science park. This was our second trip down, with Tim and Kayleigh having visited the previous year.

WordUp Pompey

Another first, Tim and Keith took the very long trip down to Portsmouth only a couple of days after Cambridge. WordPress Pompey is one of the new user groups but you couldn’t tell if you were there, and even with the issues of local events and roadworks it was great to meet so many people.

WordCamp Belfast

The second WordCamp of the year was WordCamp Belfast, our MD flew over our Creative Lead Simon and Kayleigh to Belfast to man the stand. Kayleigh gave a hands on workshop on the basics of getting a site up and running.

Manchester WordPress User Group & WordPress Leeds 15th Anniversary meetups

For the WordPress 15th Anniversary colleagues attended both the Manchester and Leeds user groups for their 15th anniversary events. These are our local user groups and  there is normally one or more of us at the events month to month.

WordPress Edinburgh

Tim took our second trip up to Scotland to WordPress Edinburgh in June and back to a familiar place; the venue for the previous years WordCamp Edinburgh. The usergroup had just moved in and so Tim was the first speaker at this new venue.

WordPress Tunbridge Wells

Another first, and on a scorching day Tim and Kay took a long trip down to Tunbridge Wells. Kay gave her Jetpack talk while Tim continued his usual themes on security. It was great to meet a whole new group of faces. Kay was particularly surprised when in a coffee shop she was approached by a client who uses us and spotted her picture from our site!

PHP groups and conferences

In addition to WordPress usergoups Tim has been out and about speaking at PHP usergroups including the East Midlands group and speaking at PHP Yorkshire on the Saturday of WordCamp London which sparked a fun race down to London afterwards.

Up and coming events

We have already done a lot this year, but we are not resting on our laurels. We are looking forward to going over to WordPress Liverpool in August along with trips down to WordPress Bristol and WordCamp Brighton. Beyond August we have a few further trips lined up before WordCamp Manchester and WordCamp Edinburgh in the autumn.

Do you run a usergroup? Did you know that apart from coming to visit, we also sponsor groups? For more information see our WordPress User Group sponsorship page and if you want us to come and visit please get in touch.