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On my way to WordCamp Europe 2017 in Paris

Published: June 14th, 2017 | Updated: July 21st, 2023 WordPress Community Two doves in front of the Eiffel tower

I am in a train. The Thalys from Rotterdam to Paris Gare du Nord to be precise. My wife is sitting next to me and is having fun watching here social media timelines. We are on our way to Paris for WordCamp Europe 2017.

This will be my third WordCamp Europe (WCEU), and the second for my wife. After co-organizing the first WCEU in Leiden in 2013, I skipped Sofia, attended Seville with my wife, skipped Vienna in 2016, and now we’re back. On our way to Paris. The first time for me as attendee, and not as co-organizer. Let me tell you why.

I was involved In the preparations for WCEU 2017, attended a few meetings in the volunteer team but than ran into a problem of time shortage.

Being a business owner I had to make decisions, and I chose for my business. f you are a business owner yourself you might find yourself in situations where you have to make decisions. OK, that’s an understatement, owning a business means making decisions, all the time. And that’s OK.

One thing I learned in the 8+ years I own my business is that making decisions is one of the most important things you need to do. Besides getting customers and sending invoices ;-). I had to make a decision between helping organize an AWESOME event, or serve those new clients who were waiting for me to agree to do business with them. I chose the latter.

It was a good decision. Although telling my fellow organizers that I had to quit was hard. The team is great, with dedicated people and I just couldn’t find the time do give 100% dedication myself.

My goals for the coming days are:

  • Be a tourist together with my wife

  • Meet new people

  • Catch up with friends

  • Learn new stuff

  • Talk to people about the future. Maybe I’ll tell more about that in another post.

Currently, we are waiting in Brussels Midi and people are waiting in the aisle for the doors to open. Next stop Paris. Here we come!

About Marcel Bootsman

Marcel discovered the web in 1995. Since then he has paid attention to and worked with lots of technologies and founded his own WordPress oriented business nostromo.nl in 2009.

Currently Marcel is Business Development Manager Dutch & DACH Markets at Kinsta where he helps Kinsta's client base grow with Managed WordPress, Application, Database and Static site hosting.

You can contact Marcel on a diverse range of online platforms. Please see the Connect section on the homepage for the details.