Sub-community Updates!

Hi everyone! I hope your week is going well. As many of you who participate in our sub-communities may know, for a sub-community to provide maximum support, it requires a strong dedicated leadership team that can work with our wonderful members and compassionate listeners to provide good quality support. From the time when sub-communities came into being until today, the sub-community leadership team has worked tirelessly to ensure a good experience for the volunteers and the members. A part of this is to constantly review our sub-community structure and make any necessary updates. Today I am here to announce some updates that you can expect to see soon!

The sub-community team is reviewing communities that have needed some extra love, but because of their particular topic can be difficult to find enough coverage, making it especially hard for members to get support on these topics. In the next few weeks, the sub-community team will work together to merge some sub-communities and forum categories to ensure that each sub-community is cared for and members are able to get the support they deserve.

Why Merge?

◦  Some topics go really well together and on their own, the sub-community lacks the support it needs. An example of this is foster care sub-community and Family and caregivers as they are related topics and can come under one sub-community.

◦  Teamwork is dream work. With combined leadership support we will be able to add to the support factor and provide a higher quality of sub-community experience.

◦ ​​​​​​​ A few sub-communities had little to no activity in the last 3 to 6 months which is not ideal for anyone looking for support in those areas. Through merging, we can overcome that hurdle.

◦ ​​​​​​​ Fewer sub-communities equals better quality as the leaders can join hands and the sub-community ambassadors can work more closely with the leaders. Quality over quantity.

◦ ​​​​​​​ Easier to find the topic you are looking for, you can expect to find all related topics under one sub-community.

When will this happen?

The sub-community team did a trial with the foster care sub-community merge with the family and care-givers sub-community to give everyone an idea/example of what do we mean by these merges. The following are the first sub-communities scheduled to be merged:

◦ ​​​​​​​ Namaste India with Around the World

◦ ​​​​​​​ Job & Career Support (forum category) with Student Support.

The merging happens one thread at a time and will start 48 hours after this post goes live, so that everyone can have the time to see this update and ask any questions or offer any feedback they may have. This is not a sudden change, it will not happen right away even when we start the merges, its a manual process that takes time. We will merge one sub-community at a time. Once the merge is complete, the announcement will be made in the merged sub-community. We wanted you to have the heads up! I will be announcing any future merges in this sub-forum so keep an eye on it if you are interested!

A big thank you to @Tazzie, @MonBon, @Mel and @Anomalia for collaborating on this and being the voice of community all throughout the process.

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