Create 2024-10-11-open-hours.md

Announcement about Inaugural Open Hours

Author: CartBlanche

website/content/blog/2024-10-11-open-hours.md

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+---
+title: Launch of the MonoGame "Open Hours" AMA sessions
+date: "2024-10-11"
+excerpt: Meet the MonoGame team and get your questions answered
+tags: announcements
+author: MonoGame Foundation
+image: /images/blog/cover/monogame_foundation.png
+ogImage: /images/blog/cover/monogame_foundation.png
+---
+
+The MonoGame Foundation is proud to announce a new level of engagement with the MonoGame community through a series of monthly AMA sessions aimed to improve communication.
+
+## Initial Meeting
+
+The inaugural MonoGame "Open Hours" meeting will be on:
+
+### Wednesday 16th October - 12:00 EDT, 16:00 UTC/GMT, 17:00 CET 
+
+### Channel and Connection Details
+
+TBA
+
+## The Meeting Schedule
+
+Each month, one week on from the MonoGame Foundation monthly board meeting, the group has agreed to host a series of sessions to both communicate announcements to the community and also open the floor up to questions the community has about MonoGame operations or ask questions that they have about the framework.
+
+* MonoGame Board meetings - 2nd Wednesday each month
+* "MonoGame "Open Hours" - 3rd Wednesday each month - 4PM UTC
+
+::: note Following the crowd
+This all came about due to [Microsoft hosting their own "Open Hours" sessions](https://discord.gg/msftgamedev) recently and some of the MonoGame community who also join that call expressed an interest in MonoGame doing the same, we agreed.
+:::
+
+## Agenda
+
+We will learn as we go for these new sessions. The first call will be an open forum where we will invite developers to talk and ask questions and we will do our best to respond.  
+Going forward we aim to talk about a recent announcement or feature and then open the floor to questions.
+
+If you prefer to just type, the call will also use Discord's text features and the team will be on hand to respond too.
+
+::: note Only during open hours
+Following suit with Microsoft's process, the "Open Hours" chat will only be open during the meeting (and clearing up any outstanding questions afterward), it will not be a general support forum.  The team are making this time available to the community, so please do not abuse it.
+
+If you have queries beyond the meeting times, then we recommend you use the rest of the Discord channel.
+:::
+
+We look forward to meeting and hearing from you then!
+
+## Get Involved
+
+[Contributions are welcome through:](https://monogame.net/donate/)
+
+- Code.
+- Help in the [Community discord](https://discord.gg/monogame) and beyond (we also love blog posts).
+- [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=3142012), several tiers are available.
+- The MonoGame store (coming soon) with MonoGame branded gear and merchandise.
+- [Bounties](https://github.com/MonoGame/MonoGame/issues/8120), Fix bugs and add features faster as well as get paid for your work :)