Home› Community Announcements
If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options

Important changes to Group Chat

TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,042 Boards Guru
edited October 2022 in Community Announcements
Hello guys, gals, non-binary pals 👋🏼

We'd like to let you know about some important temporary changes to Group Chat. At the end of this post, there are spaces you can share any thoughts or feedback about the update.

What’s changing?

From 24th October, there are three main changes:
  • Group Chat will be running Monday to Thursday (and will be closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday)
  • There will be one extra chat break week in the year (read more about chat break weeks)
  • Under 16s Support Chat will be paused temporarily

Why is this happening?

For a few reasons, we've needed to close chats quite often recently. We recognise that’s not useful for you folks, particularly if you’re looking for support or a space to unwind. To give you a more reliable chat schedule, and to help us manage our resources internally, we'll be temporarily reducing the number of chats that are running. Due to low attendance levels, we've also made the decision to pause Under 16's Support Chat for now.

We know that Group Chat is a valuable and helpful place for you all to get support and connect with each other, and we know it means a lot to you. For some of you, Group Chat is a big part of your support network, and a change in that can feel difficult or even a bit scary. We and the rest of the community are here to go through that change with you and support you.

We also want to reassure you that this is a temporary change and we aim to run chats on more days in the future when we have more internal resources.

Click the spoiler below for other places you can get support when group chat isn't open ⤵
Where can I get support when Group Chat isn’t open?
  • The Discussion Boards are here as always for you to reach out for support about anything you are going through. You can also join our weekly Friday Group Chat threads.
  • Our webchat and helpline are available for you to reach out to. You can call them for free on 0808 808 4994 or access our webchat or email service from our website.
  • Childline - offers information, advice, and confidential counselling to anyone aged 18 and under. You can call them on 0800 1111, or you can head to their website to access their webchat service.

If you need support urgently, here are some crisis options:
  • Our Crisis Messenger text service provides free, 24/7 crisis support across the UK. To start a text chat, text THEMIX to 85258.
  • Samaritans are reachable by phone and email 24/7. Whatever you're going through, you can call them any time, on 116 123. They also have a 1-1 webchat service available.

How can I share feedback about this change?

We'd love to hear your comments, feedback, or questions about this update in this thread. If you'd prefer to leave feedback anonymously, we have created an anonymous feedback form for you to complete.

If you have a bit more time to help us out, we’d also love to hear your thoughts on how we could make use of the extra group chat break, what you love about Group Chat, and a few other things that might help us run more group chats in the future. If you'd like to get involved with this, fill out this survey. :)

As always, thank you all for being patient with us and generally being wonderful humans.

The Community Team :star:
We're @Aife, @Ella, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 5pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
Post edited by TheMix on

Comments

  • Options
    DancerDancer Community Champion Posts: 7,813 Master Poster
    edited October 2022
    I'm not really surprised that this has ended up happening.
    "There's a part of me I can't get back. A little girl grew up too fast. All it took was once. I'll never be the same." ~ Demi Lovato
    "The way that I have found the light in my life is through the expressive arts because I know that I will be accepted for the way I am." ~ Me
    "I'm going to get strong again and see you soon. " ~ Anonymous 
  • Options
    Millie2787Millie2787 Community Champion Posts: 5,154 Part of The Furniture
    Glad you’ve taken the time to re-group and work on getting staffing back to a place where you can safely run the chats your want to ♥️
    Sometimes all you need is one person to believe in you , for you to begin to believe in yourself.
  • Options
    Mel_Mel_ Posts: 574 Incredible Poster
    Even though i kind of understand this, weekends is sometimes my hardest times and I usually rely on group chats a lot for my support so I'm definitely going to struggle without the chats on the weekend. Hopefully staffing can be resolved
  • Options
    TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,042 Boards Guru
    Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on this with us, and for being so understanding of the changes that we're having to make.

    We really appreciate and value all of your feedback, and we know that these changes might feel a little difficult or scary at the moment. If you've got any further feedback for us then do drop by with a DM or fill out the feedback form mentioned in the original post - we're more than open to hearing it.

    Take care, legends,
    Harry and the team
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 5pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
  • Options
    independent_independent_ Community Champion Posts: 8,647 Legendary Poster
    It says in this post there’ll be an extra chat break, do we know when this will be yet @TheMix?
    “Sometimes the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them.”
  • Options
    TheMixTheMix Posts: 3,042 Boards Guru
    Great question @independent_. We haven't booked this one in yet, but they would be roughly every 2-3 months. We'd love to know how you'd all like to have the chat breaks across the year. We can either have shorter and more frequent breaks or less frequent and longer breaks across the year.

    We've made a Group Chat survey where you can share your preferences on this and also if you're interested in having more chat threads on the days chat isn't running :)

    Once we've had a few responses from the community we'll be able to plan these in and update you all when they are :)

    - Aife & the team
    We're @Aife, @Ella, @Gemma, and @JustV - the staff team here at The Mix.

    Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 5pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.

    We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
Sign In or Register to comment.