My Volunteering Experience of WordCamp Kolhapur 2025

During WordCamp Nagpur 2025, I met Makarand. I wanted some help on running WP-CLI on windows laptop. He guided me on steps to follow. After session, I asked Makarand the status of WordCamp Kolhapur, what specific things they’re doing uniquely.

I had already applied for volunteering for WC Kolhapur. the volunteering Application was still in the process and since, he was leading it, he confirmed status of my volunteering application. It was definately happy moment for me.
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Since this was going to be the debut for WordPress Kolhapur Community, everyone was putting efforts, wanted to try out creative things and everyone married the idea that, we want to make WCK’25 a grand successful event!

I was in the design team, working collaboratively with Rama Khandkar (a Creative Designer). She’s experienced designer, worked with BrainStorm Force (on Astra Theme) and other WordPress products. She had already created a Colour palette & designed a few templates for blog posts in Canva. It saved a lot of time later. 

I have a decent hand-one experience using Canva. I use it for my personal & client projects. For WCK, I used Canva and Figma, depending on design requirements.

We had a Canva template created for speaker posts(Blog Post & Social Media) and other announcement templates. I simply duplicated files and created them for all the speakers.

Suhani was sending Speaker “Confirmation Mail” and asking for Professional photo for post creations. Sometimes, I had to wait for speaker photos. When Suhani got photos from speaker on email, and then would add them to Google Drive.

I used to create templates, export them and add them to Google Drive. Once done, I used to update Google Sheets and ping social media teams on WhatsApp. This was my workflow!

Initially, it seemed hard to me but later on I mastered this workflow like a pro.

Later on we created graphics for sponsors. WordCamp Kolhapur had 4 types of sponsors.

1. Shahu Shenanigans (Gold Package)
2. Saaj Supremes (Silver Package)
3. Panchganga Poise (Bronze Package)
4. Karveer Spice (After Party Package)

Along with graphics for sponsors, we had created social media carousels (Specifically for Instagram & Linkedin). So I created same for-

• Job Board
• Famous Food to Eat
• Famous Places to Visit 
• Things to Buy in Kolhapur
• Special Kudos to First Ticket Buyer

We also created a draft design for LinkedIn Cover Photo, Badges. Before doing so, we wanted to decide color-codes before going ahaed.

We’re always open for feedback from the team and also made certain changes based on the feedback we received. Sometimes, we created WhatsApp Polls to decide on the final design (we were democratic in that way!)

Since WCK planned to conduct Students Workshops & those who attend need Certificates (It’s very important for every student, particularly in Indian Education context). Thus, created a draft and send it over to Rama for final finishing, removing unnecessary clutter and outcome was awsome.

A week before, Vaibhav Singh asked me if I used the Canva Bulk Create feature in the past. I didn’t know back then… I searched YouTube about Canva’s “Bulk Create” feature and laerning this feature turned very fruitful in the end.

I just day before final event, Nilesh send me list students registered for Workshop and I created bulk certificate on the go.

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When there was a limited bandwidth in the team, we took different responsibilities.

I wrote 2 Blogs on “Why Students should join WCKolhapur” and “Why Professionals should join WCKolhapur”.

Prashant asked if I can design banners, flex (event signage). Since Rama had exhausted bandwidth, I had to jump in! At that time, I didn’t have any expertise in this domain. My abilities were limited to Canva & Figma. I took it as a challenge. But there was worse to come.

I got a basic idea on flex dimensions from Prashant & Makarand. I didn’t have much clarity. I was able to design the Event Schedule, Sponsor Standee, Organizers Banner and Volunteer Banner. But I couldn’t design the Sponsors Banner! I was bit panicked… And to avoid last minute rush, I asked Rama a favour, to provide me backup on this project. She agreed to be my saviour, but there was a technical issue in opening a file, and she was travelling too.

Here are some flex I created in Figma!

However in the end, Prashant, Pritam and others went to Print Shop. They had in-house designer to create all flexes, banners and backdrops using Corel Draw or Photoshop.

Lessons Learned and Reflections

I had an amazing experience of volunteering for WordCamp Kolhapur 2025. It was a good learning opportunity for me.

I gained a deeper understanding of-

1. Role of Social Reformer, Shahu Maharaj in shaping society. I got impressed by Kolhapur’s rich history, education & reservation system, culture and cuisines.
2. I learned the importance of collaboration and communication! I worked closely with Rama for Design part and WordCamp organizers, to ensure that our designs strategy aligned with their vision for the event.
3. The importance of visual communication through Social Media & Website Featured Image. Also, the importnace of proof-reading before publishing any content (“Lien Bazar”, a street/locality name in Kolhapur, was spelled incorrectly and we didn’t notice it)
4. How to leverage social media in building a hype and creating a meaningful engagement with content. Many attended appreciated the social presence of WCK-2025!
5. Got to introduced with people-Nilesh, Prashant, Pratap, Elvina, Satya, Pritam, Digvijay, Suhas and others!

I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have contributed to WordCamp Kolhapur 2025. It was a wonderful experience that allowed me to grow both as a designer, and a social media professional and good team player. I look forward to applying these lessons learned to future projects and continuing to explore the intersection of design, technology, and community.

I must say everyone to get involved with WordCamp – it’s an experience you won’t regret!