Divi Meetup Network Community Update: November 2020

Seasons greetings, Divi Nation!

We hope you just ended a wonderful November and are ready to attack December. The end of 2020 is nigh. 😲

Checkpoint: Are you where you planned to be?

At some point this year, reassessments were made and new goals were set in light of this unprecedented time. We sure hope you hit all of your goals (or are on track to). Our meetup community had to reassess our goals this year as well, but we are very pleased with the growth of our community. ☺️

So check out our current stats and community updates.

The Divi Nation Meetup Network by the Numbers

• Total Members: 9,673
• Total Groups: 67
• Total Events Hosted: 756
• Total RSVPs: 6,197
• New Members (Last 90 Days): 1,084
• New Groups (Last 60 Days): 1

If you have a passion to build your local Divi community, locate a group near you here or use the button below to apply to become a local organizer.

APPLY TO BECOME A DIVI MEETUP ORGANIZER TODAY

Let’s Welcome Our New Meetup Leaders

Please give a warm welcome to our new hosts! November brought us nine, new Meetup organizers! 😅 We’re so thrilled they took up the torch to serve their respective communities! Now let us introduce you to our new hosts.

See below for introductions (in the host’s own words) and info on their next Meetups.

Divi New York City, New York, USA

Mickey of Divi NYC

Meet the host, Mickey Diener:

Retired IT manager and Health Care computing project manager. Do part-time work as a web designer and implementer, working with non-profits and NGOs.

I am committed to Divi as a product and have found that an incredible community exists around Divi. The amount of innovation, help others, and general kindness has made me want to give back to the community.

Mickey is joining Patty & Jeanine in organizing Divi NYC!

Go to Divi New York

Divi Lima, Peru

Paul of Divi Lima

Meet the host, Paul Tumialan:

I have a graphic designer bachelor, however, after work in a digital agency, I was delighted with web design, I learned some front-end developer skills, and a colleague introduces me to the WordPress world, then when I was trying to find the best builder I find out Divi 3 and I loved it. Now I work as a freelance building web sites for small business (in Divi obviously)

I want more people [to] know Divi as a robust option to build sites… [and I would like] to lead a group to develop personal soft skills and learn more about that experience.

Sebastian of Divi Lima

Meet the host, Sebastian Dañino:

…I began working for Shared-X making a Wix website. I had issues with the interface and flexibility to design. I began looking for different builders to jump into the next website stage which was a complete design and content revamp, I ended up choosing DIVI, and with that, made my first successful DIVI website. Shared-X began to grow, and I built each website for the business group. We currently have 5 DIVI websites in the company, besides I’m currently working in a freelance job making an E-Commerce powered by WooCommerce, built with DIVI, and I’m also working on a personal project with my girlfriend for online language classes and courses, built with DIVI. YES, DIVI changed my life completely for the best 😊.

[I desire] to help Elegant Themes. If it wasn’t, of course, for the marketing team I work with, my boss who trusted me with my current job, and DIVI, I wouldn’t be where I am. I’m a big fan of the product, of what it does, and I’m pretty thankful for the doors it has opened me.

Divi Lima has long been without a leader so we’re ecstatic to finally have Paul & Sebastian!

Go to Divi Lima

Divi Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Phil of Divi Milwaukee

Meet the host, Phil Reinhardt:

[I’m a] Webdesigner and Digital Marketing Company Owner

[I] have been co-hosting the Milwaukee Divi Group for almost 2 years, [and I] would like to make it official [finally.]

Phil is joining Tracy in leading Divi Milwaukee, go team!

Go to Divi Milwaukee

Divi Lagos, Nigeria

Itohan of Divi Lagos

Meet the host, Itohan Kukoyi:

I currently work as Lead Consultant at Sotaria Agency, where I am in charge of [the] day-to-day running of new and continuing client projects.
Since building with Divi, it has become my go-to for WordPress websites. Using Divi saves me a lot of time and it’s incredibly flexible. The support is super amazing and there are loads of resources on this theme. Another plus is that it is easy to teach my clients who need to manage their blogs or upload products themselves.
I see this as an awesome opportunity to give back to the community that has given me so much

Ayodeji of Divi Lagos

Meet the host, Ayodeji Ayorinde:

Ayodeji Ayorinde is the Chief Executive Officer at Rivasult Creative and loves helping people plan, optimize, and launch new websites. He has spent the majority of his career in the Information Technology industry, gaining experiences in areas such as UI. UX, Full-stack Development, and Digital Marketing. While website project management is his primary job function by day, Ayodeji also enjoys Spending with family and making new friends while on tour.

You’ll find that I am a dedicated and conscientious team player who is accustomed to a supervisory role. I’m excited by all the challenges inherent in the position and look forward to the opportunities it presents.

I have always wanted to lead and I believe becoming a lead at Divi Meetup group will give me a boost and head-start.

Olusegun of Divi Lagos

Meet the host, Olusegun Oye:

An entrepreneur, father, and someone who wants to help small businesses grow and meet their goals.
… [I desire] to go online with a Quality brand like Divi (WordPress theme) and reach a wider audience

Divi Lagos has also long been without a leader and we’re over-the-top excited to have this power team of three step up to the plate!

Go to Divi Lagos

Divi Pune, India

Santosh of Divi Pune

Meet the host, Santosh Patil:

As a passionate product designer with empathy, design, and professional facilitation skills, I ideate and build world-class product features within a week. Some of my key skills include Product Design, Design Sprints, Information Design, Prototyping, User flows, User Stories, expressing Product Backlogs, Impact Mapping, Product Vision, Strategy, Product Roadmap, and negotiate scope. I am a passionate Sketch & Tableau Evangelist, C-level Presenter, Key Note Speaker with an entrepreneurial mindset.
[I desired to] meet fellow Divi fans and learn together with them. Also when you have like-minded people you can form a brilliant team to create some incredible solutions.

Santi has graciously taken up the role of lead organizer for Divi Pune and we’re so grateful!

Go to Divi Pune

Divi Los Angeles, California, USA

Julius of Divi Los Angeles

Meet the host, Julius Lopez:

I’ve spent the past twenty-plus years as a Systems Administrator working for the BBC, Intuit, and UCLA. Prior to that, I was an AV Manager for the Hotel Queen Mary and Spruce Goose Entertainment Complex and the Coast Community College District after a stint as a production assistant at my local cable company.

The first site I built was an eCommerce site for a friend, hand-coding HTML and tables. The shopping cart was created with CGI scripts. That was back in 1996.

Fast forward to 2011, my daughter’s elementary school was seeking help with the PTO website. My wife volunteered me to step up and I did. I had a week to suss out how I was going to approach it. After exhaustive research and testing local copies of WordPress and themes, I came across Elegant Themes. The Corporation theme seemed to fit the bill. The site was built over a weekend and I’ve never looked back. I convinced my wife that I could purchase a Lifetime license, hang up a sign, and start a business. I’ve never regretted my decision. When Divi launched, it changed the paradigm. And now with ACF/CPTUI, Dynamic Data, and Divi Theme Builder, I am building more complex sites faster, in a lot less time.

Part of my work as a Systems Administrator is to research tools to streamline workflows. I’ve tested just about every theme builder out there. I have yet to find anything as easy as Divi for turnkey sites.

Firstly, to share what I know about Divi with others and learn from their experiences.

And now with the pandemic, there are folks stranded without work looking at starting a business. Hosting a Divi Meetup allows me to provide a way to help get their site up, answer their questions, and encourage them to grow.

Finally, taking this role pushes me out of my comfort zone. With a few public speaking engagements under my belt, I feel this would be a great opportunity to personally grow, make new friends, and help a community love something as much as I do.

Julius has graciously stepped up after our former Divi LA organizer moved across the country. 😃

Go to Divi Los Angeles

Updates from Existing Groups

Last week, several of our American-based meetups decided to collaborate and plan a mega meetup! It was a wonderful time! Appropriately titled, “Black Friday Bonanza,” they provided a virtual window shopping experience of Black Friday sales and events by Divi-based companies. The meetup was Lightning Round style and was very entertaining!

There were guest presenters including Cory Jenkins of WP Zone and Tim Strifler of Divi Life. As well, Nathan B. Weller and I were able to attend and represent Elegant Themes. 🙌🏼

Divi Meetup Collaboration “Black Friday Bonanza”

Nathan gave everybody a sneak peak at our first pressing of Divi pins

We were incredibly impressed to see our Divi Meetup Network of leaders take initiative. This is the stuff great communities are made of. Our Divi Meetup Organizers knock our socks off and we’re looking forward to the upward trajectory of community building and growth!

Check out our other wonderful November community updates below!

Divi Bogotá, Colombia

Divi Bogotá

From the Host, Jaime Eduardo Gómez:

Attendees: 18

Retomando nuestras reuniones virtuales, en esta ocasión conocimos los conceptos básicos para aumentar la velocidad de carga de un sitio web creado en DIVI. Seguimos abriendo las puertas para personas de la comunidad DIVI no solo en Colombia sino también para paises de latinoamérica, creciendo como una comunidad sólida.

Make this South American Divi Meetup proud and check out their virtual meetups!

Go to Divi Bogotá

Divi Brampton, Ontario, Canada

Divi Brampton

From the Host, Christina Gwira:

Attendees: 10

This month’s meetup was created to be a safe space for web designers, programmers, and content writers to share their ups and downs of the business of design. We spoke about ways to garner leads for our various businesses (and had a deep discussion as to why/how cold email may/may not work in Canada!), how to create complete website templates with Divi as well as other backup plugins. We also spoke about project management tools, customer relationship managers, and more. As web designers, the needs that we have in respect to Divi and the business of design is different from the needs of the entrepreneur who is trying to build their website. As always, members from a variety of communities were present as is the way with the Divi Brampton Meetup!

Be sure to join their next virtual meetup!

Go to Divi Brampton

Divi Cape Town in South Africa

Divi Cape Town

From the Host, Dirk Tolken:

Attendees: 5

Our last meetup was all about performance optimisation in WordPress and Divi and it was very well received. We also created a YouTube recording to help other Divi Meetup hosts with future performance optimisation ideas.

Stop hesitating and join this virtual meetup!

Go to Divi Cape Town

Divi Chicago, Illinois, USA

Divi Chicago

From the Hosts, Joan Margau & Scott Winterroth:

Attendees: 9

On November 9th, Divi Chicago hosted its first Divi Business Development Forum where we shared ideas for marketing and growing our Divi businesses. It was a fantastic and thoughtful discussion where many ideas were passed including some helpful tips and tricks from Divi Chicago co-organizer Scott Winterroth. In his book, the Digital Acquisition Cycle for Content Creators, he outlines a strategy for growing your visibility online using modern techniques.

And…

Divi Black Friday Bonanza! A Divi Meetup collaboration!

Attendees: ~60

For our second Meetup in November, we went bonanza with a multi-group virtual meetup to review all of the awesome Divi Plugins on sale for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Nearly 60 of us welcomed some very special guests including Nathan Weller from Elegant Themes, Cory Jenkins of Aspen Grove/DiviSpace, and Tim Strifler from Divi Life to give us the lowdown on the best Divi deals. Special thanks to Phil & Tracey from Divi Milwaukee, Mickey & Patty from Divi NYC, and Rosalinda from Divi Sacramento for presenting their favorite plugins and making this virtual event Coast-to-Coast.

They hope to have another virtual collaborative event soon! Keep a lookout!

Go to Divi Chicago

Divi Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Divi Dallas/Fort Worth

From the Host, Tommy Lee, Kent Pilkington, & Jube Dankworth:

Attendees: 22

This November, Divi DFW talked about the essentials of starting a Divi website. We talked about the plug-ins we use on nearly every site we create, how Divi options can create standardized formatting in pages and sections to reduce time spent tinkering with formatting, and the ideal settings to use in Divi. It was a relaxed, back to basics meeting, with plenty of time for questions and community suggestions.

We hope you’ll join us on December 15th for another Divi DFW meeting.

Go to Divi Dallas/Fort Worth

Divi Washington DC, USA

Divi DC

From the Host, John Browning:

Attendees: 7

We had a great meetup at the end of October, covering the basics of using the Divi Visual Builder. Vin, one of our members, showed us how to use all the Divi modules’ style elements to build a typical web page.

Divi DC would love your presence at their next virtual event!

Go to Divi Washington DC

Divi Dhaka, Bangladesh

Divi Dhaka

From the Host, Md Kamal Hossain:

Attendees: 6

In our last meetup today, there [were] few members were present in the meetup but it was a good time to discuss the Black Friday celebrations [of] Elegant Themes by the Divi Community. We discussed the next meetup with our most active and trusted members. Now we are planning to arrange a virtual meetup with a private university in Dhaka. As soon as we finalized the date & time by discussing with each other we will announce the day with all of you, my friends. Thanks.

Join Divi Dhaka’s virtual events and help spread joy in the area!

Go to Divi Dhaka

Divi Cairo, Egypt

Divi Egypt

From the Host, Mohammad Sobhy:

Attendees: 1

We talked about eCommerce builder with theme builder how it is [making] our life so easy and happy for that… We created a product page and shop page…

Don’t leave Divi Egypt hanging and join their virtual meetups!

Go to Divi Egypt

Divi Kolkata, India

Divi Kolkata

From the Host, Rajesh Ravidas:

Attendees: 13

It is [good] to see many new Divians from the city joining and our group is growing. This month our topic was “Learn to Convert Visitors into Loyal Followers” where we discussed how to use Bloom Plugin by Elegant Themes to grow your email list. It was a wonderful session again and nice seeing how attendees participated in the QA session eagerly.

Check out the energy from Divi Kolkata at their next virtual meetup.

Go to Divi Kolkata

Divi Lyon, France

Divi Lyon

From the Hosts, Stéphane & Amine:

Attendees: 9

Our last Meetup focused on the creation of a website with Divi in a general way in order to make an overview of the use of DIVI. The participants were happy and some of them registered again for the next meetups. The group grew little by little and new Meetups are created according to the feedback.

Divi Lyon just started and would love your presence at their meetups!

Go to Divi Lyon

Divi Madrid, Spain

Divi Madrid

From the Hosts, Luis Melgarejo & Julio Hector Loupias:

Attendees: 41

In this meetup, Oscar Viedma has shown us more than 12 snippets to customize Divi.
Among other snippets, we have learned to customize the hamburger menu in mobile views and tablets, as well as specific snippets for the scroll up icon. He has also shown us some snippets to customize WooCommerce in Divi.

We are very satisfied with all the value we contribute every month with our meetups to the Divi Madrid community.

You should check their virtual meetups out!

Go to Divi Madrid

Divi Milano, Italy

Divi Milano

From the Host, Francesco Cinque:

Attendees: 9

We’ve discussed the integration between the plugin Polylang and how it behaves with Divi and especially with the new Divi Theme Builder.

Be a part of Divi Italia and join their virtual meetups!

Go to Divi Milano

Divi Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Divi Milwaukee

From the Hosts, Tracy Champagne & Phil Reinhardt:

Attendees: 18

We had a really good meetup. People came with questions and a lot of people in the group had really good ideas and suggestions.

The Milwaukee crew would love your presence!

Go to Divi Milwaukee

Divi New York City, USA

Divi NYC

From the Hosts, Patty, Jeanine, & Mickey:

Attendees: 12

We were so excited to participate in the first-ever multi-group meetup. The Divi Black Friday Bonanza was fun and informative. We learned about incredible discounts offered by the Divi developers for plugins and child themes.

Our Divi NYC co-host, Mickey Diener shared a demo of one of his favorite plugins along with other Divi hosts and members who shared theirs as well.
It was a success for sure and one of those silver linings to the need of hosting Virtually this year as we have found creative ways to come together and grow.

Be sure to check out their Meetup page for details on their next event!

Go to Divi NYC

Divi Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Divi Ottawa

From the Host, Kevin Sterling:

Attendees: 6

We had our first meetup at the end of October. Very excited to be welcome our new members and to be building this community and improving our local Divi knowledge!

Then,

Divi Ottawa November Meetup

Attendees: 3

We had a small turnout for our November meetup “Getting Started with Divi”. It was great to start with the basics and we will continue to build on this foundation. While our community might be a bit more advanced, we feel it’s important to include topics for all levels of expertise and look forward to sharing our knowledge and learning how to use such a great tool!

Divi Ottawa just got up and running and would love your attendance!

Go to Divi Ottawa

Divi Sacramento, California, USA

Divi Sacramento

From the Host, Rosalinda Huck:

Attendees: 10

For November, Divi Sacramento discussed the processes of site maintenance and site audits. We shared various WordPress plugins that help with site performance, as well as best practices to keep Divi websites up-to-date. In December, we’ll be celebrating the holidays with a virtual social meetup, including Divi Trivia and prizes.

Join them for their virtual yuletide get-together!

Go to Divi Sacramento

Divi Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Divi Salt Lake City

From the Host, Dustin Olsen:

Attendees: 13

We had a lot of great questions ranging from setting mobile settings and using specialty sections to create sidebars next to content. We also had some non-Divi questions about how to quickly, easily, update URLs, best options for booking appointments, and how to add a Kens Burns effect to images.

Next month we are going to do a demo of Global Options and how it can save you all kinds of time, and sanity. It’ll be an online event on December 9 @ 11:30 am.

Go to Divi Salt Lake City

Divi Satkhira, Bangladesh

Divi Satkhira

From the Host, Delower Hossain:

Attendees: 10

We covered typeface properties, how to choose & pair fonts, setting global defaults, typography best practices, and quick improvements to really take Divi designs to the next level.

Have you joined their virtual meetups yet? Check them out!

Go to Divi Satkhira

Divi Seattle, Washington, USA

Divi Seattle

From the Hosts, Bradon Garley & Shane Griffiths:

Attendance: 14

This month we reviewed Divi’s new sticky position feature. We explored how the controls work to make an element stick, and how to change design elements when the sticky state is active. We explored some examples of sticky elements when you’d want to use them, and best practices to not overuse them.

Be sure to check Divi Seattle’s community out!

Go to Divi Seattle

Divi Tampa, Florida, USA

Divi Tampa

From the Host, Steve Willingham:

Attendance: 7

The Divi-Tampa November VIRTUAL Meetup was held on Wednesday, Nov 18 at 1:00 PM EST. We had a great turnout, relatively speaking. Thirteen Meetup members sign up to attend, and seven actually showed up. All our attendees joined from Florida’s west coast area with the exception of one, Raquel from Elegant themes who joined in from Phoenix! We had a wonderful exchange of knowledge and tips on various Divi elements, especially the Responsive Previews on Different Devices and Customizing View Modes. We shared our screens and walked our fellow attendees through some steps to solve some “how-to” curiosities. Overall, this is a fun group, lively and engaged!

They’re looking forward to our next meetup in December.

Go to Divi Tampa

Divi Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA

Divi Twin Cities

From the Host, Lisa Beecroft:

Attendees: 5

[Our meetup’s topic was, “Best Plugins for Divi,” where] we had a lively round-robin discussion about which plugins we liked best on our Divi sites.

The Twin Cities are Minneapolis and St. Paul and they’d love to see you at their next virtual event!

Go to Divi Twin Cities

Divi Toulouse, France

Divi Toulouse

From the Host, Fifa Randrianasolo:

Attendees: 15

On vena it de tous niveaux concernant l’utilisation de Divi. Ce qui nous a permis d’être dans le partage d’expérience, d’astuces et de bonnes pratiques.
Un super moment de convivialité et de bienveillance.

Cela rechauffe le coeur en ces moments de troubles!

Divi Toulouse is looking to add to the leadership team! Let us know if you’re interested!

Go to Divi Toulouse

Divi Valencia, Spain

Divi Valencia

Divi Valencia

From the Host, Celine de Castro:

Attendees: 10

This meetup was a 2-part series where the group learned how simple it was to build an eCourse Portal using Divi. Everyone really enjoyed it and we will be coming back together [at] the beginning of December for a show and tell session where the participants will share the designs they chose and be able to share a bit more about what type of [e-course] they will be offering.

This group does not let you down. Check them out!

Go to Divi Valencia

Want to Host Your Own Local Divi Network Meetup?

Great! We’re always on the lookout for people around the world who are passionate about Divi and building community and want to spread that enthusiasm to their local community. We take care of the monthly Meetup fees, and we provide all our hosts with tons of resources to help plan and promote their events, including help with finding a venue and coming up with topic ideas.

Starting a new Divi Meetup group is simple. Just apply by filling out this form or email [email protected]. Once the form is complete, we will work together to get your group launched and linked to our Meetup Network. Easy as that!

Not sure if there’s already a Divi Meetup Group in your area? Just head to our Meetup Network page to see a map of our current locations.

Global Divi Meetup Network

Featured Image via Magic Panda / shutterstock.com