December 2023 Community Update!

Dear Community,

I hope all is well! It is chilly here (25 degrees F, -4 Celsius) and I desperately wish it was warmer. The older I get the more I like the warmth. I can see why so many older folks live in warmer climates like Florida.

We’ve been very busy in the last month. Perhaps the biggest change was the new community page. Thank you all for helping the product team iterate on it. It has a nice way of highlighting all the active parts of the community. We are also cooking up another update to the app that should be live soon. Another update is our partnership with the IDGs is now live. Check out the new inner development growth path here and the community here. To formally enroll in the IDG Course, you can read more here.

Last, I shared a post yesterday on how we all make mistakes and can wonder why we made a bad decision. The goal is to help us see that we often have the right goal, but might be taking the wrong path to get there.

Stay warm!

GlenM

H
We kicked off November thinking about how we visualize 7 Cups. When you imagine 7 Cups, what visuals come to mind? I invite you to check out the contributions and add your thoughts. You don’t have to be a creative to do it! Be it an image you make or an image you find, an analogiy, or a metaphor, every piece is part of the fabric that makes up our dynamic community so share your concept! Wouldn’t it be cool if we collected enough quotes/text and images to make a virtual book? ;)

For the members who’ve inquired, I wanted to throw out that I have compiled a list of the support roles that are available. You can reference it here - I really appreciate your interest in helping the community!

Just in case you haven’t seen it yet, our hard-working Ambassadors are also now presenting monthly updates to bring you the latest in their domains! Please give them some love!

Lastly, the Community Team is throwing a party on December 19th! RSVP here! We’ll send out a reminder closer to the date, including some of the agenda questions  - hope to see you!

Laiba
The academy team in collaboration with @SoulfullyAButterfly has launched the Inner Development Goals course! The Inner Development Goals provide an essential framework of transformative skills for sustainable development. The current IDG framework represents 5 dimensions and 23 skills and qualities. They promote human inner growth and development. If you are looking to understand which skills/qualities can help you grow as a person then this is the course for you. You can read more here. 

Additionally, learning about cognitive distortion series continues. In the month of November, we covered emotional reasoning, the fallacy of change, comparison, and labeling. All of the posts are linked here. 

Lastly, on the leadership front, we now have a team lead for our Mindful Mondays and Fantastic Fridays sessions @Kenzolena. We also have some new academy leaders! You can congratulate them here

Obs
Grateful for the compassion and support everyone bring to the group chats. It was good to see how most of the group chats were humming this month and credits to you all for making it happen. 

On the Member Group Chats front, we kicked off November working on a bunch of items to address the suggestions & feedback we received from you in AMA w/ GS Ambassador. 

• We introduced Guidelines Refresher Quizzes to refresh our knowledge and understanding of group chat  rules. 

• Simplified & strengthened Mod & Doorkeeper Request form for ease of access. Check more about it here!

• We about to onboard two new Group Support Mentors. One of them going to introduce Skills Discussions for Chatroom Moderators and Room Supporters. 

In the Teens Town news, we are currently working on two updates:

• Bringing some interesting and cool challenges for our teens as suggested by them. We will be releasing it in a series. 

• We will opening up Friendship Group Chat to have some games, fun, AMA, and open chats about teen transitiong. Thanks to our Teen Transition Mentor: @wishfulWillow6962 

On the Listener Group Chats front, lot of things cooking. We opened Listener Community Room as 24/7 to bring a lighthearted and relaxing space for our listeners. Thank you to @Fristo for his unwavering support and initiatives to bring fun, games and support to us. 

Lastly, we celebrated Anti-Bullying Awareness Week and I appreciate everyone’s participation, thoughtful comments and thinking to spread the awareness and the combat bullying. And, thank you to @AnnaSilverberg for initiating The Community Guideline Series for our discussion and participation. 

SoulfullyAButterfly
This month, we’ve had exciting product feature updates. Quotes have evolved into statuses and are hoverable on the profile rollovers. In addition, we have a brand new community homepage that replaces the old forum page. This community tab now offers a comprehensive view of not only forum posts, but key community statistics and live events you can participate in.

Our Stress Savvy challenge has been ongoing for the past 3 weeks and we have got to explore stress and related aspects in a closed safe space environment through a combination of features including forum discussions for learning, a growth path for self-exploration and group chats all through the weeks. 

I’ve had the pleasure to be part of the latest 7 Cups Academy hosted IDG Course and encourage you all to consider joining to learn about transformative skills to face our ever-evolving world.

Lastly, some research opportunities still open include the IPU based study based on systemic therapy. 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. The window for signing up for this study is closing soon!

Another listener-focused research study recently introduced for US folks is based on Simulation-Based Active Listening Training as well.

As we come towards the end of the year, we hope to introduce more great opportunities to connect and thrive - keep an eye out for more fun challenges and learning opportunities.  

Evelyne
For this month of gratitude, we are grateful for all our hard working mentors, mentor leaders, and Ambassadors who have worked tirelessly to support quality education, outreach, and support. We have officially combined Safety Patrol and SPOT into one team. We will be re-starting safety discussions in the coming weeks. We are currently recruiting for the Safety Team, so please contact @Rebekah, @Tommy, or @KristenHR if you would be interested in joining. If you have any ideas for safety discussions, please let us know!

The AE Team has been working hard on education and outreach. They made a post about blocking members you can find here.  They are also working on collaborative projects with LCT. 

CheeryMango
In the spirit of the holiday season, we kicked off our annual holiday events by celebrating Cupsgiving events. You can check out the Masterpost here. A big thank you to our community leaders for stepping up to help host this event: @heathermarie95 @PoliteOcean @SunshineAlwaysGrateful @KateDoskocilova @KristenHR @AffyAvo @CyclingThroughLife @BlueRivercares @FaithfulZareia @EmotionsListener @tommy @amiablePeace77. All of those who have participated will be receiving the Cupsgiving badge. Our next event will be Cupmas and more details will follow. 

A big congratulations to our newly onboarded forum supporters who have stepped up to offer support to those in need: @EmpathysGarden, @El2002snow, @AutisticYouth, @Kristynsmama @jem7cups.

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 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.