March 2024 Community Update!

Dear Community,

I hope you all are well! It is starting to warm up here and the sun is shining at least a few days out of the week. It is always a relief for me to move out of the winter.

We’ve been hard at work on a number of fronts. A big change we’ll be releasing - hopefully this coming month - is a new onboarding process. I’ll share a much more detailed post in the coming weeks, but wanted to give you a glimpse of what’s to come.

The above is probably our 70th iteration on this little graphic. I hope you like it. Any and all feedback is welcome in the comments.

In short, when a person comes to 7 Cups we’ll create a plan for them. Each day they come back and do 3 items (learn, explore, grow), the person will take a step up towards the summit. We think this new model will provide more structure and support.

Also, thanks for all the heart warming words on the letter of hope (https://www.7cups.com/forum/siteupdates/GlensNookCommunity_547/ALetterofHope_324507/)post! Reading your responses was the highlight of my week. Thank you! 🙏❤️✨

H

Have you ever experienced a difficult time in your life that ultimately led you to become a stronger, more compassionate person? Maybe you faced hardship, loss, or personal struggles that made you question your path. But instead of letting those experiences define you, you used them as fuel to grow and give back to others. These stories of overcoming challenges and turning pain into purpose are powerful. They remind us that even amidst darkness, there's light to be found and a way out to a brighter future. They instill hope that anyone can find their way and we’ve seen countless successes through the support of our dear caring community.

As part of an upcoming campaign, we’re gathering your inspirational stories of hope and perseverance. Check out the forum post and consider sharing yours! When ready, fill out this form and we’ll be in touch.

And for all of our newbies, we see you and we want to ramp up efforts to welcome you through our Welcome Sessions. We will begin hosting in March, serving both members and listeners. And the rest of you are invited to join the welcoming committee!

We could also use some help welcoming newcomers in the forums. If you’re interested in making a difference in a new user’s journey, I’ve got some tips for you here. And if you simply want to drop a heartfelt hello, that would mean everything to our newbies (and me!).

Lastly, want to plug our Events Calendar! Get in touch with your team leads ASAP if you’d like to add special events or team-related activities to it for the new month.

Laiba

It has been an eventful month! The highlight has been the launch of a teen-specific challenge called Small Steps. The goal is to aim to do small things for yourself in the category of sleep, food, exercise, and mental health. Teens get stars for completing certain tasks and it is fun to take care of yourself when others are joining in and people can cheer each other on. We have a leaderboard that helps us see everyone’s progress. If you are a teen you can check out the challenge here. 

The building self-esteem series continues! With a special guest post by @Kristynsmama and @pandanfe. Both of them bravely and generously shared their experiences with building self-esteem and supported others through tips and words of encouragement. You can view their post here and you can see all the posts in the series here. 

Lastly, Carnegie Mellon University is looking for adult listeners residing in the USA to help their study by filling out a short questionnaire. Find more information here

Obs

It has been a wonderful month filled with discussions, learning and celebrating awareness weeks. The February Group Support Event: Kindness, Courage, Connection went well and thank you everyone for their contributions and support. In the Sharing Circle news, @Lou73 introduced  Hosting Heros initiative to recognize, celebrate and appreciate our dedicated and committed hosts. If you have anyone to nominate, please share and nominate them.  

In the Teen news, we are working on strengthening Teen Transition Program. We introduced teen transition supporter  role to offer extended support to transitioned teens to adult side. Also we rolled out a Teen Birthday form to celebrate birthdays together with community. 

We are also working on bringing  an initiative to encourage more connection and learning experience with Adult- Teen Listener on the teen side. We will keep us updated with the announcement soon. Thank you everyone for their support, empowerment and compassion in the community. 

SoulfullyAButterfly

This month we celebrated International Boost Self-Esteem Month with a self-esteem exploration event held in Special Events. The room was filled with prompts and insightful shares every day for 10 days. We are looking forward to organizing more ways to explore, share and grow together as a community. 

Lastly, we have one open research opportunity for listeners which is based on Simulation-Based Training of Active Listening Skills, being researched by a team from Stanford University. To read more on how you can help their next round of research, click here.

Evelyne

Here are some highlights from our teams:

Care Team has just finished having Care Team Week! @serenePeace3726 and @ReganL are their newest Guides, and @SnowTabby is training to become a Quality Mentor. 

For Anonymous Evaluations Team, 8 people join AE just this month. They’ve been collaborating with LCT for increased listener quality as well.

@Heathermarie95 has completed their co leader trial phase for the AL team! Congrats! 

The safety discussion on 'supporting member feeling unsafe' received so many upvotes and many members left thoughtful feedback. @Aurewolf is writing thoughtful discussions each month to help educate the community. 

Listener Coaching Team had a listener coach complete their training and officially become a listener coach (@JustSophia)! They also exceeded their monthly quota and hosted a teen icebreaker session.

CheeryMango

February was a bit of a quiet month in the community's domain but we are always excited for the leaders that commit their time and effort to supporting our communities. Join us here in congratulating our recently onboarded leaders for February. Congratulations to @Kristynsmama on being our newest Project Agent. 

We are currently looking for new additions to join our Communities Leadership Team as Project Agents. There are currently four focuses available for you to choose from: Events, Engagement, Community Building and Leadership. The application form and full details of what we are looking for can be found here. 

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 February 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.