Live AMA/ New Forum Mentor Meet 'N Greet!
Whaaa I'm so excited! First off, I'd like to apologise for the late notice, but you're all formally invited to a live AMA/Meet 'N Greet for our new forum mentors. We've had some lovely new forum mentors inducted in the past couple weeks, and in the spirit of forum love, @poeticguy and I would like to help 7cups give them a warm welcome! Here's everything you need to know:
Who will be "interviewed": Specifically, the new forum mentors (if I missed you please let me know so I can add you) - @mscoxie @TranquilSong72 @WonderfulPumpkin71 @Anggi @Dillion @AdVictoriam @bookworm4 @cristiana33 @Erinik @anchoredwithhope - and also any current forum mentor you decide to ask questions to!
When and Where: The Listener Community Room, Tuesday December 22nd, 9 PM EST as well as this thread!
How will these "interviews" be conducted: Questions can be posted in this thread or in the Listener Community Room during the event. All questions will be answered in this thread.
Why a live AMA in the forums: Demonstrate the value of the longevity of the forums; Increase engagement by allowing listeners who aren't comfortable with the forums yes to participate via the chatroom; Time Zones can be a hassle but with the combined force of notifications, tagging, and the longevity of forum posts, your questions can still be answered even if the person in particular you are "interviewing" isn't even present at the time, how cool is that??
Rules: Questions must follow chatroom, forum, and community guidelines found here. I have volunteered these individuals without their prior consent, so please be respectful and don't feel hurt if they choose not to participate.
If you have any other questions or concerns regarding this event please do not hesitate to clarify with me via pm or this thread :) I look forward to seeing you all there!
@Monbon
This is going to be a great initiave for us to meet others!! I cannot wait!
Sounds great! I'm unavailable for the live 'meet N greet' unfortunately! That would of been cool, however, I'm available for questions! Go ahead.....ask me anything 😀👍
sounds awesome! 
.. sorry wont be there for the live meet and greet although would have loved to! but these timezones!! 
... i dont like timezones! 
... but im available for questions sooooo ask away!
This is an awesome idea. And since I would like to get to know everybody :) , I shall ask a collective question that is sufficiently vague. Please forgive me ;)
So,
What inspired you to become new forum mentors? How are you planning on influencing the forums? And also: if you were an ice cream flavor, what flavor would you be?
@UmbrElla1413
Great questions!
I love the forums because it's a way to support people in so many different ways and being a mentor gives me an opportunity to keep the forums beautiful and clean..
I'd try to spread hope throughout the forums as much as I can..
Strawberry Mint
@anchoredwithhope Thank you so much for your brilliant answer! I wish you all the best in your mission of spreading hope... That's a beautiful goal (and also a beautiful choice of ice cream flavour 
)
@UmbrElla1413
Thank you for your wonderful questions!
I used to have a listener friend who was very active in the forums and I was inspired to follow in his footsteps. I think it's never too late to join in and show our support to each other. This post by Lyra helped me a lot when I was still really new and clueless!
I plan to infect everyone with forum bug! xD
Ooooh I love ice cream! I'd be cookies and cream for sure.
@Anggi Thanks a million for that link! I feel the same way you seemed to feel about the forums, and I am also in the process of getting a little more involved in them, so your answer really inspired me! 
And the cookies and cream flavor sounds heavenly!
@UmbrElla1413
Q: What inspired you to become new forum mentors?
A: What originally inspired me was seeing something posted that was incredibly inappropriate. I alerted the forum mentors that I knew of but they were unavailable at the, to meditate the situation. Seeing the post up for some time led me to want to help out in any way that I could. :)
Q: How are you planning on influencing the forums?
A: I wouldn't necessarily say I plan to influence anything but I do plan to encourage communication and posting in the forums. I also plan to help out wherever I am needed. I really hope to see a positive growth of people posting more in the forums simply because for many, time zones are an issue. The forums give us plenty of time to answer or post. :)
Q: if you were an ice cream flavor, what flavor would you be?
A: hmmmm good question......ben and jerry's salted caramel with the caramel core :)
@mscoxie I admire your reaction to that negative experience... instead of expecting others to deal with it later, you decided to take action! And I absolutely agree with the time zone problem and have already used the forum to connect with a member I might not otherwise have been able to talk to 
@UmbrElla1413
What inspired you to become new forum mentors?
@Rocketsmom she has inspired me to do a lot. Also @Jaceofspades has helped me a lot as well throughout my listener career this far :)
How are you planning on influencing the forums?
I want to keep them fun, but informative as well. I mean who doesn't like to share their funny stories and jokes for everyone to laugh!!!
And also: if you were an ice cream flavor, what flavor would you be?
:O I would have to go with chocolate mint on this one, I loveeee it!
@Dillion You go after-eight! (You know the chocolates, right?) I love how you're planning to focus on the fun parts of the forums, too, I really don't know those too well up till now and I feel like it's important to sometimes move from the more serious topics to the fun parts of the website
@UmbrElla1413 Wow that's a great question Indeed!
1) In my case, what inspired me to become a forum mentor is the platform itself. I love how it achieves to engage the whole community as one in what seems to be a perfectly synchronized community, and I sure wanted to go a step further in helping the forums thrive!
2) I hope to have the chance to be as awesome as the other forum mentors when it comes to organizing, moderating and just helping them in our goal to make the forum the best it can be
3) Chocolate for sure ;D
@Erinik I couldn't agree with you more when it comes to the qualities of 7cups. The internet can feel like such a dark place sometimes, but 7cups is such a great example for its advantages. Most of all, it reminds me of all the brilliant people out there, who make it their goal to support strangers and work to make the website even more safe... (and thank you for being one of them!)
@UmbrElla1413
I was nominated! :o
I'm still going to keep doing what I'm doing - posting on new threads to make sure no one feels ignored. Right now, Im figuring out how to best use the forums. It's a different kind of interaction, that's for sure.
Strawberry and other sweet (not tart!) fruity flavored ice creams are delish :)
@AdVictoriam Thank you for your answer ad your mission to make everyone feel heard! 
@UmbrElla1413
I was inspired to become a forum mentor in order to integrate the Listener Written Guide Project into the forums. I think it's important to keep our community well connected :)
I don't have any plans to influence the forums yet other than populating the Listener Guide Library with lots of wonderful, new content from our listeners.
If I was an ice cream flavour, I would be French vanilla! Just because it's my favourite flavour :D
@tranquilSong72 That's a fancy flavor! Never heard of it before... And I'm really glad to hear about your mission, the listener library is such an important resource and there always seem to be some topics missing...
@UmbrElla1413
I'm not a new forum mentor, but I'll answer all the same ^^
Q: What inspired you to become new forum mentors?
A: Honestly I was always asked to take care of forum issues since I had been a mentor for so long so I just added forum mentor to one of my tracks - and ironically it is now the track I'm most active in so everything worked out xD
Q: How are you planning on influencing the forums?
A: I am running the forum team with @poeticguy, and I feel like helping as many people be connected as possible is my sort of push to let the community influence the forums rather than me personally influencing the forums
Q: if you were an ice cream flavor, what flavor would you be?
A: Cookies 'N Cream is bae
@MonBon Thank you for anwering in spite of you being an "older" forum mentor... Your goal of letting the community influence the forums so strongly reminds me of our general mission as listeners.. to let everyone determine their own goals and actions.
Also, I your ice cream flavor! It sounds like two awesome foods combined to create the ultimate awesome food! Yes!!!!!!!
THIS IS AWESOME!!!
Woohoo! I can't wait!!!
And I have a question for you all:
Is there a particular forum thread you're especially fond of?
@Anomalia
Aaaa super excited to answer this question!
I'm really sorry, but it's impossible for me to choose only one. My favourite threads are the following:
❤ Put Some Sunshine in Your and Someone Else's Day!
❤ I Am Proud of Myself Because...
❤ Dipping Your Toes Into The Forums
@Anomalia Hmmm thats too tough to say...I have whole sections I adore lol :D
@Anomalia
This is a hard question haha! I am very fond of the Milestones thread, mostly because I love seeing our members make their progress here and are able and willing to share that with other members and listeners in the community.
@Anomalia Well well, tricky question!
So, I'm gonna go with the FAQ's thread, they're kind of my holy grail when it comes to referring new Listeners to vital information!
@Anomalia
Thanks for the heads up on this @MonBon..
For me, it's "How long have you been self-harm free".
It seems odd for me to write that considering it's not something that I personally have a background in. However, it's a thread where a small ounce of positivity can make an incredible lot of good.
@Anomalia
Shout outs and Make someone's day! These are two threads that I love, because there is so much kindness and love shared there. I think that support between listeners is very important. I love to see this sort of kindness between people :)
@Anomalia
I love my Daily Factoids thread ♥ (Even though I haven't posted anything in a while...)
Ah @MonBon this is such an interesting way to introduce new Mentors and make us feel all so welcomed!
Thank you all for any questions you are posting here & for your messages!
Unfortunately, I won't make it to the chatroom at 9 PM today but I will respond to any questions you guys post in this thread later.
@UmbrElla1413
What inspired me to become a forum mentor!
Hmm, well I was a lady on a mission! When I first came here as a member, I didn't quite slot into any category, which surprised me actually because although my illness is rare, the treatment isnt, and touches 1 in 4 of us during our lifetime! I wanted to become a forum mentor because I wanted to integrate a space for chemo buddies, manage this specific topic and give unlimited support to our members who have fallen victims of cancer, and indeed the family and carers who usually bottle everything up and suffer in silence.
The forums have now become a second home to me, replying to posts, clearing away any nuisance postings. ......And of course the added perks of being a forum mentor. ..... you get to edit your own post and correct all the typos! 🙈
I wanted to ask this one to all forum mentors, including myself, What was the first thing you done, as a forum mentor?
@mscoxie @TranquilSong72 @WonderfulPumpkin71 @Anggi @AdVictoriam @bookworm4 @cristiana33 @Erinik @anchoredwithhope
I edited one of my posts that I made a typo in :D lol!
@Dillion The first thing I did was head to my sections. I browsed all the new posts in my sections so see if anything needed my attention. Then when I saw that all was well....I browsed all new forum posts to see if help was needed there. From what I saw, I am happy to say that the forum team and mentors are on top of things!!! Keep up the great work everyone!! :)
@Dillion~ The first thing i did was head to my section and read each and every post and had a little panic attack as to how to go about things! but then i got help and now i seem to get the hang of it
@bookworm4
You've got the hang of it now though :D
@Dillion
I decorated a post of mine that looked boring
@Dillion That's a great question! And yep, I'm copying you, but I did exactly the same!
Went to one of my old posts and fixed a typo!
@Dillion
That was the first thing that I did too!
@Dillion
It's actually kind of funny. @Laura made a new forum for the Listener Written Guide Team and she just wrote a test post in it. The contents were something along the lines of "dkfjsjkkfjsdkf". The purpose was to make sure they were showing up in the Listeners Only Forums.
We both forgot to delete the thread so somebody came along and replied "lol what?" to her post.
So my first action as a forum mentor was to delete that thread haha :P
@Dillion
Deleted a soliciting post :)
@Dillion
I edited a factoid in the daily factoids thread because I accidentally left out the crucial part of that factoid xD
@Dillion
Haha I immediately went to my AMA and corrected my typos 🙈