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A few weeks ago at WordCamp Europe we announced free sites for local WordPress meetup groups. This initiative aims to support the WordPress community by providing free world-class hosting to promote your local meetups.

Today we’re bringing you a set of easy-to-use templates, along with some ideas on how to customize your community site. Let’s dive in! 

Building a WordPress community website

WordPress.com offers a huge variety of themes, but if you’re looking for a place to start, you can’t go wrong with Twenty Twenty-Four. It’s a community project, comes with a professional, polished look, and offers plenty of built-in patterns that make site building a breeze. It also lends itself beautifully to customization.

Twenty Twenty-Four already has a lot going for it, but we decided to take it a step further and offer a couple of custom, community-focused page layouts to go along with it. Our stylish homepage and events page templates will seamlessly integrate with your site. 

The homepage layout includes a welcome message, stats section, upcoming events, a blog, and a call for speakers. All of these are optional and can be removed or re-arranged as needed. Plus, you can supplement them with other patterns from the catalog, like social icons to promote your local group’s social media presence.

Let’s have a look!

Getting started with templates

First, you’ll want to activate the Twenty Twenty-Four theme on your site. Next, follow these steps to set up your homepage:

1. Create a static page.
2. In the “Add a page” modal select the “Events” category on the left, and pick the desired layout, following these steps. 
3. Set the page template to “Page No Title.”
4. Set your custom page as the homepage in the Settings → Reading section following these steps.

Repeat as necessary for the Events page, and any other page that you might want to add to your site, like About, Contact, or Blog.

The above page layouts can also be found in our pattern library in the Events category.

Customization options

Once you’ve applied a template, it’s time to make it your own. Customizing your site to match your group’s vision is easy. Don’t forget to grab official WordPress logos and other visual assets.

Change fonts and colors

Experiment with fonts and colors to make your design unique. Twenty Twenty-Four theme comes with six style variations that include different colors and fonts, and can be further adjusted as needed.

Swap template parts

Use the power of Site Editor to change the header and footer of your site. Twenty Twenty-Four comes with a selection of built-in options for the site headers and footers, so take your pick!

Add links to social media profiles

Use the Social Icons block to display logos that link to your social media profiles anywhere on your site.

Update your Meetup.com group page

Once your local community website is ready, don’t forget to add the link to your group description and the “Find us” section on your official Meetup.com page.

Over to you

We are committed to providing the best tools and resources for the WordPress community. What other patterns or templates would be useful for your meetup site? Share your thoughts and suggestions with us—we’re here to help you succeed!