Happy Birthday, WordPress!
On May 27th, 2023, WordPress turned 20 years old! So we decided to celebrate this milestone.
As WordPress’s 20th anniversary was around the corner, we also decided to conduct our organization’s town hall meeting named Town Hall 2.0, which is a quarterly gathering for all the team members of the WPoets.
It had been quite some time since the WPoets team had an official get-together since its first Townhall 1.0 in September 2022.
What better day and way to celebrate WordPress’s 20th birthday and our team’s achievements together?
Let us dive into the “behind the scenes” of the successful planning and execution of the awesome WP20 celebrations.
Pre-planning
Almost one month before the date, HR announced to the entire WPoets team in the weekly meeting that we are celebrating big this year. She asked the team members to volunteer for the event preparations.
The organizing team was decided, and HR, along with a few senior team members, started to plan the flow for the event.
Hashtag competition
With the trending era of hashtags on social media, we decided to craft a hashtag for our event too. We circulated among the team that there would be a hashtag competition. Whoever comes up with the best hashtag will be used for the event.
The team started to contemplate various combinations of hashtags and gradually started submitting their word fusions to HR. The organizing team decided to announce the winner a couple of weeks before the event. So that everyone would start trending the hashtag on social media.
WordPress milestones gallery
Team brainstorming ideas for the event
As it was going to be the 20th anniversary of WordPress, we decided to showcase the evolution of WordPress over these 20 years in the form of a gallery. We have also been using WordPress since the inception of WPoets, so we also planned to show how WPoets has evolved over that period of time.
What energizing brainstorming days we spent sharing ideas with each other! As you can see in the picture above, the time and dedication spent on preparing the event to make it successful were quite distinguished.
After a lot of discussions and meetings, images and storylines for the journey of WordPress and WPoets were finalized.
All set to celebrate the 20th anniversary of WordPress
Awards design
After the milestones gallery was finalized, the event management team moved on to the next step, which was to plan an award ceremony.
We decided to give four awards, namely;
- Instant Helping hand: The one who is always ready to help— The Madadkaari Award
- Most social in the team: The one who is an extrovert and ready to interact with everyone — The Ghulmil Award
- A good communicator: The one who can communicate and leaves you with no doubts — The Clear-Head Award
- Always ready to teach something: The one who is curious and ready to share knowledge at all times— The Gyaanvardhi Award
We had asked the whole team to submit the names to HR of whoever fits into the above award categories. Everyone relished the idea and within the given time frame names were knocking at the door.
Once the names were sorted into their respective categories, a nomination was held among the maximum number of voters. It was a tough competition. The winners were kept secret until the time of the event.
Parallelly, our design team was working on the look and feel of the award. Below, you can see the efforts made by them in one go, which came out to be just perfect.
The final design of the awards
Awesome trophies
WPoets journey documentary
Just like the milestones gallery and awards section were funneled, the team moved forward with yet another captivating addition to the event; The Documentary. It was decided to create a documentary that would highlight the most important events and cover the journey of WPoets so far.
Our journey was one big adventure, which was showcased in the documentary in a way that struck a chord with everyone.
HR, along with some senior members of the team, sat down to collect all the photographs from the archives to create the documentary. The photos depicted all the events that took place and that WPoets was a part of and had organized.
Be it a formal event or an informal team gathering, we had it all. The idiosyncrasy of capturing photos left us with so many memories, which shall continue ahead as well and compel us more to do so.
After a lot of going back and forth in time through the photos, Aashish had finally planned the flow of the documentary.
Awesome WP20 cake
Since it was WordPress’s 20th anniversary, how can one forget to celebrate without a cake? The team brainstormed a few ideas and designs of the cake before ordering the yummy cake, which you see in the picture below.
Delicious WP20 cake
WP20 Birthday celebrations & WPoets Townhall 2.0
Now you all know the setup that we went through before our event. In the fullness of time, the most anticipated day for the WPoets team was at the door. So let us take you all on a trip to our big day, which was the WP20 celebrations and Townhall 2.0.
Everyone arrived at the venue with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. Looking at each other’s vibrant faces and energies, the atmosphere was completely kindled.
Welcoming the team
WordPress 20-Year Milestones and WPoets Journey gallery on display
The first thing that the team members noticed while entering the venue was the WordPress milestones and WPoets journey gallery. They were surprised and keen to have a look at both galleries.
We wrote a detailed blog on WordPress 20-year milestones; you can read it here.
Our design team put a lot of effort into creating the galleries. You can see in the pictures below their creativity, which did not miss to apprise everyone who took a glance at the gallery.
Gallery showing 20 years of WordPress journey through milestones
WPoets Journey Gallery
Screening the documentary
Once everyone was gathered and settled, our hosts began the event. They set the environment with a warm welcome and by starting off “The Documentary.”
Team members enjoy the WPoets documentary
All the eyes were completely hooked to the screen, and they could not stop praising the brief journey that they had just experienced. How could we not thank the director of this documentary, Mr. Aashish Ladhwe, for giving us such an unforgettable memory. The efforts made by him to illustrate all the milestones were truly admirable.
Speech by the CEO
After the screening of the documentary, the team was addressed by our CEO, Mr Amit Singh. He shared his vision and the forthcoming plans that he has set for the organization.
Mr. Amit Singh shares his ambitious plans for WPoets
Quizmania
After the CEO’s speech was completed, everyone thought we would be moving for the cake-cutting. Who knew what surprises the organizing team had planned for everyone?
Our hosts announced the quiz competition “Quizmania”, spontaneously to engage everyone and make the event more entertaining. To the team’s surprise, everyone became excited.
We asked our project managers to pick up the chits one by one to build their teams to play in the competition. Four teams were created. The quiz revolved around questions about WordPress and the shortcode-based low-code framework, Awesome Enterprise.
Quiz competition in progress
The quiz session continued for about an hour. The team was relishing the time, along with some munchies and cocktails. While one of the hosts was keeping a record of the score for all four teams. You can see in the above gallery what a pleasant atmosphere it had become. Though it was a tough competition, everyone in the team enjoyed it.
Prize distribution
After the quiz was over, we asked the team to wait for the results. Then the hosts announced the winning team of the quiz competition. You can see the happy faces of the winning team in the picture below.
Quiz competition winners
After that, the hosts announced the winner of the hashtag competition.
Hashtag competition winner
Awards Ceremony
Next up in the event was the awards ceremony. With no more delay, the host finally started announcing the four awards, The Madakari Award, The Clear Head Award, The Gyanvardhi Award, and The Ghulmil Award.
There was a tie for The Madakari Award, so we decided to give both contenders the award.
Awards ceremony
The winners stood as an example for the rest of the team members. They encouraged others to compete in the next award ceremony by improving themselves and ingraining the qualities that helped them win the awards.
Cake Cutting
The long-awaited moment that had everyone on the edge of their seats was finally pounding their hearts. Now that we had conducted all the segments of the event successfully as per plan, it was time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of WordPress. The mouth-watering cake was cut by Abhijeet and Sandip.
WP20 birthday celebrations
Vote of Thanks
With so many efforts and plans made by the organizing team to carry out the whole event as it was supposed to be executed without any deviations, it couldn’t stop our business head, Mrs. Savita Soni, from showing gratitude to all of them.
Vote of thanks by Mrs. Savita Soni
Last but not least, to motivate the WPoets team, she recited the following poem,
“Koshish Kar Hal Niklega” – written by Anand Param
Dance and Lunch
Last but not least, everyone moved to the buffet to savor the lunch and show a good time to their tummies and taste buds. Some of them could not stop their feet from rushing towards the dance floor to groove to the music of the DJ.
Dance and lunch
It’s lunchtime
Wrapping it up
That’s how it was at the WP20 celebrations and WPoets Townhall 2.0. It was a fun-filled day with a variety of events.
A special thanks to everyone who participated in making this event a hit.
Hope you all enjoyed reading this blog. We promise to bring you more such events and their blogs. So stay tuned, and don’t forget to follow our LinkedIn company page, WPoets – WordPress Website Experts.
Happy Birthday, WordPress, once again.
