September 2023 Community Update!

Dear Community,

I hope all is well! My twins have moved to college and the youngest have returned to school too. The big kids are doing well, but experiencing some homesickness. A significant transition all around. I’m hoping any transitions you all are experiencing are going well if you or your loved ones are starting a new season in life.

I wanted to thank you all for all the help you have provided in the last few months. We’ve made a number of updates and you have been very helpful in providing quick feedback in helping us iterate and make each of the changes stronger. One theme that surfaced was the need for us to better connect new listeners with mentors. Look for much more here soon and an overhaul of all of the leadership components of the site. Right now much of this is tucked away on google docs or in a nook or cranny somewhere in the forum. This will all be streamlined and much easier to find very soon.

Additionally, we just launched a new community titled Religion and Spirituality. And please consider adding to our spotify playlist here.

H

Hey everybody! We are one month closer to autumn (my favorite season). If anyone has any fall traditions, they should definitely tag me in a reply.

Alright, here’s what’s been going on!

We’ve been asked for clarification on what’s allowed to be shared links-wise in rooms. I’ve written guidelines you can reference here. If you’re a Kahoots enthusiast interested in organizing a session, please speak to a moderator first.

Leaders: We’ve got plans in store for you. To strengthen communication with our leadership base, we have created a new badge that will assigned to everyone active in a position (7 Cups Leader). We will be using it in the future to target alerts tailored to you, give you early access to new features for testing, and other perks we’ll introduce along the way. Announcement post here.

And lastly, I just want to shout out to our Product Head @Jon7Cups. He’s been working really hard this year, juggling all kinds of projects and liasioning between the community and engineering, all while collecting feedback to better serve you from a product perspective. He cares a ton and thanks to his diligence, we’ve been able to really increase our communication with you all. Please give him some love in the replies, or if you see him in the rooms do say hi!

Speaking of Product, please keep an eye on the Featured Updates category for all future announcements and I highly recommend subscribing to the community (right-hand side of the main page wher it says Info + Join) to stay informed!

Laiba

August has been an eventful month. On the academy front, we have a new ambassador in town. @Yourbuddy30 joined us as an academy ambassador with a focus on general academy courses and general academy areas. Other than that, it has been maintenance as usual for the academy as we continue to focus on our leadership to meet trainee/intern needs.

As you may recall, we launched two new teen sessions last month (Mindful Mondays and Fantastic Fridays). The sessions are a hit among teens and to ensure more teens across timezones can attend the sessions, we have added two new times! This has been made possible thanks to the contribution of @Kenzolena @Tabbycat97 and @FrenchMarbles

Currently, teens can attend Mindful Mondays and Fantastic Fridays on Mondays and Fridays every week, at the following times.

📌9:30 AM - 10:30 AM ET with @FrenchMarbles

📌12:30 PM ET - 1:30 PM ET with @Hope

📌4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET with @Kenzolena

Obs

In the Group Support news, we made some changes and updates in the Group Chat leadership roles and training. (Please read about them here). On the Sharing Circle front, we introduced Refresher quiz for all hosts and working on creating a general Sharing Circle Quiz for the community. We will roll it out soon.

On the Listener Group Chats front, Chatroom leadership team working on multiple fronts to add more support, training for everyone. A few to name are:

1. Simplifying the Chat Support Requests

2. Make the Chatroom mentor and Chat supporter training more scenarios oriented

3. Discussions team working on adding more hosts to bring more sessions as well as some more scripts.

In the Teen Transitioning Program front, we started “Transitioning Prompts” to encourage discussions on challenges related to transition and guide and support the aging up teens. Please check and participate in them here!

While in the leadership news, a bunch of compassionate listeners and members stepped up in the Group Support roles to support our community in the Group chats. A big thank you and appreciation to all of them. While a special shout-out to @emotionsListener on becoming the LGBTQ+ Support Team Leader to organize and bring more LGBTQ+ focused discussions. While, @MeaningfulSilence and team working hard on bringing more support discussions in the Personality Disorder Community.

Evelyne

This month we onboarded 10 + Quality Mentors to help bolster our quality support initiatives. We are also creating some special projects behind the scenes to continue to provide excellent support for our listeners. We are also improving our onboarding process and safety procedures. SPOT and Safety Patrol are in the process of being revamped. We are also in the process of creating a Quality Mentor feedback form and info posts for each project.

SoulfullyAButterfly

This month, we have launched a global research opportunity for both listeners and members who have been using 7 Cups for at least 3 months regularly (and are over 18). The researchers at the International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) are conducting a research study to understand the effect of a Systemic Therapy inspired Growth Path or Listener Training on mental well-being.

Systemic therapy focuses on relationships between people and the patterns of interaction within the systems that impact the well-being of the individuals within the system. If you are interested in trying this therapeutic opportunity, you can find more information and sign up here.

We have also created a Community Advocate badge for those interested in being forum supporters with a focus on adding therapeutic content in the forums, a project which has helped bring helpful activities and discussions in the community.

Last but not least, we have launched a way to share the bonds through musical interests amongst the community users! You can now submit music suggestions for our 7 Cups playlist to be hosted on Spotify here.

CheeryMango

It has been a great month in terms of forum leadership and very exciting to see more leaders stepping up to support our communities. We onboarded 3 Community Mentors, and 5 Forum Supporters.

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 July 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.