Hello, Pascal. Which team are you a part of, and what is your role?

I am the team lead for the IT & Website team, a newly formed team this year.

Where are you from?

Originally from Belgium, but living in Italy for a good number of years.

When did you first get involved with the WordPress project, and have you contributed to the project previously?

The initial touch was in 2013 where I was asked to help the parents association of my daughter’s school with their website. I found something called WordPress running on good old PHP that I remembered from when I was studying and I dived in it immediately.

As we had to serve 3 languages, I ended up into the international polyglots team where I still act as a mentor.

I have also been a WordPress TV team rep for some time and not to forget the few plugins and scripts I created.

Is this your first time organising WordCamp Europe, or have you been an organiser/volunteer previously?

I started in Paris in 2017 as a volunteer and loved the spirit of everybody there. Since then I’m a fifth time WCEU organiser (skipping some years for different reasons).

Which team are you on, and what is the team responsible for?

Last year for the first time an IT team was created and for this year a full IT & Website team was formed.

As the name says, the team is making sure that on the IT side, organisers get access and support to anything they need, and attendees will get internet/Wi-Fi access as needed.

For the website part there are now some dedicated people dealing with Patterns and CSS in close collaboration with the Design team. The team is really a horizontal team serving all the other WCEU teams.

This year is all about documentation and setting up a default roadmap. 

What are you and your team working on at the moment?

Revamping the website is our top 1 priority at the moment. Based on the great work of the Design Team, it is now our task to put that into practice.

For the IT part, the initial accesses have all been granted so we are currently busy with Production Pool and the Lingotto supplier for the internet access.

Documentation is key for all of this to help the teams in the future to not have to start from zero.

What are you excited about for WordCamp Europe?

Personally I love the networking part. Talking on slack and having Zoom meetings is great and does the job, but being surrounded by over 3000 WordPress enthusiasts, meeting them in person, laughing and having fun… Priceless!

And as an extra for this year: I don’t even need to take a plane 🙂

What would you say to people thinking of applying as an organiser or volunteer for WordCamp Europe?

“What are you waiting for? Apply!” It is sufficient to have a few hours a week that you can spend on the organisation of this great event.

If you have been on the organising team for previous WCEU’s, what are one or two things you learned from the experience?

Where possible, volunteer first. Although the 9-10 months of organising are not fully representing the work you do on the days of the event, you can get a good taste of what has been done.

Talk to the organisers, ask them how it is and then go for it.