January 2020 Community Update!

Hello Community!

I hope you all are well. Weve got a jam packed update for January. A big shout out to our community managers and our community leadership. Theyve all been working very hard to move things forward across a number of domains. It is great to see the progress made since the last update. In what follows below youll see updates from each member of the community team. When I read this, I hear empowerment, support, and pride in our collective accomplishments and problem solving capabilities. Go community!

On a more somber note, many of you have been following the news of my grandmother breaking her hip and then becoming ill. I wanted to let you all know that my grandmother passed last Wednesday evening. She was almost 90 years old and had a long, full, and meaningful life. The service was beautiful. Shell be remembered as a person that always looked for opportunities to share kindness and compassion with others – baking cookies, knitting blankets, and supporting people that were going through tough spots. Im very thankful that she was in my life. Ill miss her.

On a positive note, I wanted to share that Im very much enjoying our return to community. It has been great to connect with ambassadors and work more closely with the community team. We are working on a new volunteer leadership guide and also building out a guide on how to build your group or sub-community on 7 Cups that we are modeling after this book – Get Together. Look for more on these items in the near future.

Thank you!

Glen

H:

Weve got some exciting news!

One of the things about 7 Cups that I am most proud of is how loving and passionate our community is. The amount of effort put forth by you every day is nothing short of phenomenal. Every single person on this platform has something to give. No amount is too small or too great.

We have been working alongside our wonderful ambassadors to come up with new ways we can improve communication across the entire community. As you know (or will now know), we have five tracks: Quality, Forum, Subcommunity, Group Support, and Chatroom. Under each track, there are several roles and teams. With so many opportunities to take part in, it can be a lot to keep up with. The other challenge we face is hard work going under-acknowledged, not knowing which leader to go to for what, and also not knowing where the site is going and how well were doing! We want to make things simpler, and to align everyones goals, and heres how:

The tracks have been condensed into three domains: Quality, Engagement, and Safety! This snapshot showcases the structure:

Although track leaders and teams work steadily and tirelessly, we dont really have any concrete goals, which makes it difficult to shout out to the progress being made. This system helps us organize our work better. Not only are we setting visible goals, we are also tracking them as we go so we can see how far we have come, and what were doing together. Think of this as a way of actively caring about our community.

All of this points to one great, big goal. For visual people, lets call it our North Star. The North Star never changes position. People use it to know where they are and where they are going. It continues to guide people and show them the way.

Our North Star is this: Increase Quality, Safety and Trust Across the Community

The cool thing about this is that it all ties together. So, ambassadors set the big goals Mentor leaders, you can set goals that line up to the ambassadors, and mentors can do the same. Support sessions leaders, chat supporters, etc etc! This is an opportunity to share with each other and grow even closer through your team and your tracks collective goals. And its kind of nice to know whats happening around Cups, right?

This is not exclusive to leadership! Listeners and members can set goals for what they want to do and get out of 7 Cups!

I know this system might sound confusing at first, and thats okay! The bottom line is that 7 Cups is intricate, and we have developed a way to collectively include everyone because you are everyone, and our community wouldnt be what it is without you!

(If you would like to take part in this or learn more, please drop questions in the replies! We would love to see everyone get involved!)

Laiba:

The community team worked with the community leaders to launch Holiday events for both adults and teens. Moreover, events like kindness challenge and holiday support threads were created to give extra support to those who may need it during the holiday season. The community also shared their goals and resolutions for the new year.

The teen community welcomed the new year with a new years party where we all reflected on the happenings of 2019 and talked about the year that awaits us! Five AMAs (Ask me anything) were hosted by adult-teen listeners, an opportunity for teens to ask them any questions they may have about topics like aging up, adult side and their experience of the teen side. The Adult-Teen Listener Team updated the ATL process to ensure added safety and a smoother process. Lastly, the teen side is trialling with a cheer rewards for chat supporters who are dedicating their time in supporting the teen listeners through difficult chats.

The Teen Leadership Team has been working hard to improve support for teens who are soon transitioning to the adult side. In an effort to do this, the teen transitioning mentor role was relaunched. The first batch of Teen Transitioning Mentors is trained and ready to support the teens!

The sub-community and forum team joined hands in merging Ten forum categories/sub-communities to ensure a better support system for members seeking support in these areas and to improve volunteering experience of the listeners dedicating time in these areas. See the announcement post here! Additionally, the sub-community leadership team welcomed a new community mentor leader to lead the 7 Cups Internship sub-community. A special thanks to @Tazzie for her consistent support with these updates.

The Internship Project revisited the Intern Support System and made changes in the mentor assignment system to better support the interns and to improve the Internship mentor experience. Two New Mentor Leaders joined the Internship Project & Sub-community Team

Note: some links are listener only

Obs:

Okay, so here we are! Lets see what we did together!

I am grateful to have such a great team and the community who always supports, cooperates, collaborates and guides me while we work on improving our Group Support for better experience. Good work everyone!

First, as per our communitys ideas and suggestions, we brought up Group Support FAQs. All the frequently asked questions related to group support listed in this post. If you find anyone in the community asking a question related to Group Support, you can redirect them to check and read this thread. It will help them to know our Group Support for better and join hands to build it stronger.

Second, in the same direction, we also started the initiative - Ask Me Anything with Group Support Manager. It was one of the suggestions made by you all and I am glad we are doing this. It will allow everyone to ask anything related to Group Support rooms, rules, roles and anything in between directly to your Group Support Manager.

Third, we made a big change in the Group support Rooms. We lowered the criteria to join support rooms. I know we are making quick changes lately and it is inconvenient for many of us. But we are making them to ensure you get all the support and good experiences you deserve while we keep our site moderated and safe for everyone. And this change was in the same direction.

Fourth, Two new Group Support Mentor Leaders joined us to help with covering Group Support Applications and other activities. And, we also have new Support Team Leader, Chatroom Mods, Global Mods and Room Supporters to spread some love and support in the rooms.

Fifth, we also worked to bring some love and care for our listeners. We launched Chat Support Queue System to help them with resources and timely support so they help our members feel listened and supported better. As well as made a quick note to clear the participation rules in the listener chat rooms.

Other improvement plans are in-progress. We continue to work hard on other challenges you have surfaced. Look for more updates soon. And, please send feedback about any specific bad or good experience you have while being in the community, whether they are related to group support, forum, 1-1 or anything in between. Thank you for your patience and being with us.