January 2023 Community Update!

Dear Community,

H just pinged me to let me know the community update is due! I was like woah, wait, we are already through January?! Time is flying by. I hope you all are off to a strong start in 2023!

As you can see below, we’ve been working hard on a number of fronts! I wanted to highlight a couple of features that we have rolled out in case you missed them. The first is a journaling feature. If you go to your path and scroll down you’ll see a prompt. This is only visible to you. This includes all your activity on the site, test scores, and any journal entries you make. We will be starting a program where we do a line a day in the journal feature. My daughters use the one second a day video app so this will have a similar feel. You’ll eventually be able to see all the lines together and then easily look for themes as well. I think this will be both insightful and fun!

Another one is updated open search on the forum. This search capability is a significant upgrade over our old search. You can find threads that we were previously not able to surface. Try it out when you get a chance and let me know what you think!

Last, I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful feedback on The River post. I enjoyed the conversation with you all! As always, thank you for looking out for those that are struggling and helping us all lift one another up!

Best,
Glen

Heather (H)

As you know, our community is our focus, and the most important thing is serving our community. You are the community. You are what 7 Cups is made of, and we want the decisions we make to be made together. We want to continue to do great things with you by involving you, as contributors and leaders, and collaborating to keep driving the 7 Cups mission

Every quarter we run a survey to gather information on quality, morale, and overall satisfaction, and identify improvement opportunities. We received 71 responses, and lots of good constructive feedback. Some of the things we’ll be addressing include improving communication regarding rollouts and changes, and cross-collaborative communication across teams, faster rate of badging and cheers awarding, and working on tightly organizing a table of contents that showcases all of our leadership roles, as well as suggestions for the listener community and quality advancement.

In the meantime, I’ll be sharing some of the positive feedback from this survey for you all to enjoy and as reminders of how wonderful you all are. Stay tuned for that to be dropped later in the week right here in this subcommunity!

This month in our Leadership Spotlight series we highlighted: Star001 and amiableVision1813

We’re always looking to recognize the talent in our community! If you know someone who demonstrates great leadership qualities, please nominate them!

Laiba (Hope)

Since the last update, the Academy has been focusing on improving leadership training. We now have form based mentor training for Internship and QLP, we also updated our internal mentor documents such as the mentor guides for the programs above. We have also been reaching out 1-1 to let experienced listeners who meet role requirements, know of the academy mentor role. If interested, you can apply here!

7 Cups Academy celebrated 3 whole years! That means we have marked three years of supporting our community’s listeners and members in improving their personal and professional skills. What a journey it has been. Do join us in the celebrations here.

Obs

On the Group Support front, we opened Depression Support Group Chat (Adult side) to bring more support and compassion for the community members. You are not alone in the journey towards healing.

In the Teen Community news, we updated Teen Take Over schedule to every Monday at 8.00 p.m. Eastern time and scheduled topics for discussions as per discussion with the teen community.

Also, we optimized the Listener Community Discussions process and made it easier for a listener to become a discussion leader /host to lead uplifting and learning discussions. If you are interested in trying, please check the application here.

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 2023 - see the community’s 3rd word “cup” results here! Our dominant word for this year is “growth” and I am excited for us to have started this year with great progress made.

Season 2.5 of Huddles is still ongoing with different prompts posted into these group chat rooms 2-3 times a week. We have gained a lot of insight and are looking forward to announce the next season of Huddles soon.

Our dev and product teams have worked hard on chat feature upgrades which will be launched soon. Alongside the efforts in forum restructuring involving the grouping of current topics present in some communities in collaboration with community leaders, we have planned to launch two new communities soon - stay tuned for launch information for the Women’s Issues and Work and Career community spaces early in February.

In the content world, the Content Development and Marketing Program has marked 2 years since its launch as a 7 Cups Academy Program. We have had 78 graduates and our mentors and leadership teams are looking forward to supporting these graduates and prospective trainees. To help facilitate content production, @Clarisse29 has stepped up and has been training to be an editor. Last but not least, Team Lightship continues to active mental health awareness and support. You can learn more by viewing January’s community event here.

EvelyneRose

We've seen a great deal of increases in quality from our teams. Anonymous Evaluations will be putting out a monthly forum post detailing educational skill based guides that will cover common quality points. The AL Tests are being passed with increasing numbers, as well as grading tests weekly. We are also reviewing Quality Mentor applications weekly. Safety Patrol is currently reformatting to match the current needs of the site. Listener Coaching and Care Team continue to provide compassionate support and skills coaching for the listener community.

CheeryMango

Thank you to everyone who has played a part in making our communities active and supportive. We’ve seen a boost in forum engagement for numerous communities and hope this continues to grown

All forum supporters, community mentor 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.

We are looking to expand our Leadership team and welcome all those who are interested in helping out with processing applications, helping communities with engagement or hosting events to apply HERE. Please reach out to me if you have any questions.

Thank you always for your continued support in the subcommunities!