February 2024 Community Update!

Dear Community,

I hope you all are well! I am very glad that January has passed and just one more cold month until we start to get to the warmer weather.

We’ve been busy on a number of fronts. Check the below for more details. I wanted to share a few quick updates on our end. One, we’ve just started to do some work with Baylor University on the gratitude front. It turns out that gratitude is a master value virtue that opens the doors to all of the other virtues. I’m seeing it as a sort of secret passageway to wellness. I’ll post more on this front soon.

Additionally, we are going to be rolling out a number of new training updates that will make our Academy even more robust. I’m excited about this, but need to wait to firm a few things up before providing more details.

Last, I wanted to thank you all for helping us fulfill our vision. We started this over 10 years ago! The gap between what we were hoping to accomplish and where we were at the beginning was huge. It is still very significant, but we are a lot closer than when we started. Our work reminds me of this proverb:

“If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”. African Proverb – Martha Goedert

I’m enjoying our long walk together!

With gratitude,

Glen

H
Hi, everyone! Just a few things to point you to this month!

1. I want to thank everyone who took the time to share their thoughts and suggestions in our recent community survey. Your feedback is invaluable, and after careful review, I have shared key takeaways here.

2. Thanks to your encouragement, our Ambassador Updates are now a regular monthly fixture in the community. Here’s the latest from the team! Please do swing by the post to see what they’re doing and share your appreciation!

3. In our ongoing efforts to coordinate activities across the community and bring attention to all the exciting things we’ve got going on, I introduce our official Events Calendar! This calendar will consist of monthly themed events, planned by each community, holiday/special date themed forum posts, community challenges (ex. SoulfullyAButterfly’s Wellness Accountability Challenge) and events and forum posts to raise awareness for our many programs across all the domains that serve the community (Groups, Listener Rooms, Forums/Communities, Academy, Quality, Safety, etc.).

If you're a community leader, please contact CheeryMango or Tommy about submitting events.

If you're a team member wanting to spread awareness and boost the visibility of your program by organizing events, be it in forums or groups, get in touch with your lead.

Note: regularly scheduled group/chatroom events can be found on the on-site Community Calendar

Laiba
It has been a busy month! One of the highlights of January has been the launch of building self-esteem series. The content focuses on teens and young adults but people from all walks of life are welcomed. So far we have covered, what self-esteem impacts, value clarification, and how to conquer the fear of failure. Anyone who participates in the entire series will be eligible for the ‘Braving Self’ badge. The series is seasonal and you can participate and be eligible for the badge until March 24, 2024. 

In Academy News, we have a fresh recruitment post for the project agent role focused on outreach. If you are interested in educating people about the opportunities available at 7 Cups Academy then you can apply here. Additionally, the Group Support Program’s conversion to the Group Dynamics Course was announced. Our goal is to make the course available in February. 

Last but not least, 7 Cups Academy turned 4! We celebrated this milestone with the introduction of two new academy-focused badges and chatroom celebrations. You can join our celebration and find more information here. 

Obs
One of the new members shared a heartwarming feedback that how they already feeling better though it is 2 or 3rd day in the group chats. A big T H A N K  Y O U to everyone to coming together to empower, encourage and support each other with compassion and care. You all make the group chats a better place everyday to be in. 

It has been an empowering month for the Group Support. We organized Wellness Month with events like Journaling circle. Gratitude chain and I appreciate all who joined us to attend these events. Also, we released Group Support Quiz -V, if you didn’t take yet, please give it a try.  

On the Listener Group Chats front, we hosted 36 learning sessions and it was great to see some great learning and discussion from all. Thank you all for coming together to guide, support each other through listening journey. And thank you to our amazing hosts for leading us.

In the Teen news, Transition team working hard on a scale up plan and we will be sharing the implementation plan with community. We believe that it will bring more support to all teens about to or just transitioned alongwith a new leadership opportunity to support the transition program.  

Also, to support our community leadership learning, I initiated a Community Leadership Series. If you didn’t get a chance to participate yet, please check out the posts on what is a community leader and communication. 

SoulfullyAButterfly
We started off the New Year with an amazing compilation of the community’s reflections of the past year and what words we will hold on to during 2024 - see the community’s 4th word “cup” results here! Our dominant word for this year is “health” which aligns well with our community goals and progress.

During this month, we organized a January Wellbeing Challenge which was based on accountability and support for goals around 5 key topics. This challenge has led to great connection between listeners and members, with over 50 pairs made. 

Our 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 in the next 2 weeks! All members and listeners can now apply regardless of the date they signed up at 7 Cups. 

Another open research opportunity for listeners 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.

Lastly, the Content Development and Marketing Program at the 7 Cups Academy has celebrated its 3rd birthday this month. It has been a pleasure to work with all the leadership team (past and current) and we look forward to continuing to support many more trainees as well as helpful content. 

Evelyne
In January, we have worked hard towards improving quality. Safety Team has released several discussions (please see upcoming ones here). They have also most recently created safety discussions on important aspects that keep the community safe. The most recent one is off-site contact in bios. 

CheeryMango
In the month of January, we launched the Pen Pals community to encourage further connection and communication between community members outside of the group chats and 1-1 chats. All of the communication threads that exist in the other communities will be moved here.

Additionally, we have completed more than 90% of the forum restructuring with a little over 5 communities left to restructure. After these are done, we will be updating the community specific guidelines and the about/resources sections. 

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 January 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.