December 2024 Community Update!

Dear Community

I enjoyed celebrating Cupsgiving with all of you! A big thank you to all the people that cooked the meals, shared the pies/cookies, and took part in all of the programming. It was great to read the forum posts highlighting the impact of gratitude and generosity!

The big news in our world is that we released our local support systems. This is version 1 of us working to bridge online care with offline care. Many people come to 7 Cups looking for help on the ground - they might need access to a food pantry, a shelter, a therapist, a treatment center, or a faith organization. We often make referrals to these places, but we can now do it in a more deliberate manner.

Also, you’ll notice if you click here: 7cups.com/local, you’ll see that we have the beginnings of a parallel mental health system for each country (and many states in the US). We are highlighting the number of people we’ve helped, the number of listeners, and the top 50 mental health issues for each state or country. We hope that these pages become hubs for local support resources so that people can get better help. Feedback and ideas on how we could make this better are very welcome!

Last, we are also working on a simple but powerful intervention we are calling the transformation wheel. I’ve asked the team and ambassadors to help me strengthen it before I share it more broadly. Look for more on this in the next week or two.

With gratitude,
GlenM

H

Happy Cupsgiving! I hope you’ve been enjoying all the gratitude events our wonderful community has put on. There’s plenty more to look forward to with Cupsmas so keep your eyes out for announcements, and I am excited to be out there celebrating with you!

Speaking of gratitude, our caring community is at work each day supporting and uplifting each other through various acts of compassion. Listeners, leaders, and members alike - it could be anyone making a difference through little acts of kindness. I rolled out a recognition activity to catch these moments and tag them! This is community-wide and runs through the end of the year so bookmark/subscribe to this post (Caught You Kind) and let someone know you see them!

The Welcome Committee has been a smashing success! Since its launch in July, our team has welcomed over 19,000+ new members! That's a staggering number, representing 19,000+ unique personal messages. But more importantly, these outreaches have created a vital bridge between newcomers and the 7 Cups community. By reaching out personally, Welcome Committee members are helping our new members feel seen, supported, and equipped to navigate the platform. This warm welcome makes acclimating to 7 Cups a smoother experience, encouraging them to participate and benefit from all the amazing resources and connections available.

We need more folks to ramp up our efforts and cover more ground. If you're a Verified Listener, please consider joining us: apply here!

Are you a new member who has been greeted by the WC? Drop a reply after reading this post to let me know!

And do check out our top greeters of the month here!

Hope

One of the most exciting news from November is the launch of the 7 Cups scholarship! The 7 Cups Scholarship reflects our commitment to empowering future mental health leaders by supporting students and future students in pursuing a mental health-related program. Open to both people in and outside the USA. Join us in shaping a brighter future for mental health care! More info can be found here (info comes right after university logos listed on the page)

It has been an eventful month on the teen side! Quests of Kindness continued with Weeks 2, 3, and 4 going live. Week 2 focused on kindness towards others, Week 3 on cultivating optimism, and Week 4 on building resilience. Teens and adult-teen listeners can still participate and catch up on tasks, the deadline to complete the challenge is December 15, 2024. We also launched Mission Revive TL, aimed at making the teen listener room a more engaging and supportive space. Interested in contributing? You can join the efforts here. 

Additionally, The Leadership Development Program (LDP) has adjusted its entry requirements, members can now join after just two weeks on 7 Cups (previously one month)

The workshop series is getting quite some interest from our community users. In light of the efforts of participants and received interest, the deadline to complete all participation is extended from November 30, 2024, to December 8, 2024. You can check out all the workshops being offered here. 

One of the most exciting happenings of November has been the updated 7 Cups Academy page! Check it out here 

Obs

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am grateful for everyone and their compassionate presence and empowering efforts in the group support chat. You make a huge difference in someone’s day to make it comforting and caring. Let’s continue to spread positivity and compassion everywhere.  

This month we celebrated Cupsgiving and were thankful to all who participated in the group discussions, fun activities, and gratitude shares. This time of the year is magical as everyone comes together to reflect and share what they are grateful for. If you haven’t shared yours yet, please share here! 

Also, 100+ members took the Compassion quiz and earned the shiny badge, “Compassion Hero”. This quiz is a good way to evaluate how compassionate you are. Everyone who has taken the quiz so far loved it and as per their feedback and suggestions, we will be releasing the second compassion quiz by the end of December 2024. We are close to 300 compassionate heroes so far, We are looking forward to getting 500+ compassionate heroes by the end of the year.  If you are a member and you haven’t attempted the quiz yet, give it a try here! 

And, we are working on reviving the Birthday Team to celebrate the birthday of the members and listeners with the community. If anyone is interested in joining the team, please feel free to send me a message at 7cups.com/@ASilentObserver We will be sharing more info and updates soon with you. 

SoulfullyAButterfly

This month, we have published a press release marking the annual Cupsgiving events to share the spirit of community and support during Thanksgiving and beyond. 

Another update is that we have changed our Youtube handle to @7CupsCommunity to represent our community and continue to spread word about it.

As the end of the year approaches, we have some exciting updates and events being planned - from the online therapy community celebrating 25 Days of Gratitude, Self-Care and Personal Growth as well as some closed group huddles - stay tuned for great content and ways to end the year on an insightful note. 

Evelyne

Care Team: We are still working on onboarding a few new applicants. We are also onboarding sleepysalem as a Project Agent! We are going to send out the long refresher very shortly for everyone to complete. We hit a new high of requests taken in 3 months!

Safety Team: We added Kieran as a PA and he has already been making excellent progress as a leader! He's hosted a discussion (that was very well received) and has made a forum post promoting the team 🌟

AE: This month we've welcomed three new team members to AE.  We're happy to have @DragonspanAnge, @EventHorizon, and @AGentleGlow on the team and we're very excited to watch them grow and evolve throughout their time here.  

CheeryMango

Upcoming Events:

• Cupsmas: December 1st-25th

Community Launch: In the coming weeks, we will be launching the Men's Issues community. This initiative aims to create a supportive space for discussing topics relevant to men’s experiences and challenges. We encourage everyone to participate and share their insights.

A friendly reminder for all forum supporters, community mentors and community mentor leaders are asked to fill out the Subcommunity Leadership Check-In Form for the month of November so we can keep updated on what’s going on in your team and roles and see how we can offer our assistance. 

Lastly, if you notice or experience any difficulties while using the forums, please help us to track and report any bugs in this thread. A gentle reminder when reporting bugs or issues, please give as much detail like time and location as to where it was experienced and include screenshots or any error codes so we can properly investigate it. Thank you for your continued support and here’s to what the new month brings.