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Some news for you! Friday Thread + Volunteer Recruitment

ella

Hello everyone

We wanted to share some news with you today...

Schedule Changes

Firstly, we've made the decision to move our weekly Support Thread from Fridays to Sundays.

So, this will mean your weekend schedule will be:

Saturday- Topic Support Thread
Sunday- General Support Thread (the same as Friday Thread)

This wasn't a choice we made easily but wanted to work in line with the current availability and schedules of our volunteers and staff.

Your needs are important to us, so we hope you can see that we have heard your feedback about cancellations and have started to make changes to our current schedule so that we can run the service as consistently as our current capacity allows. We recognise how difficult it can be when you’re looking for support and it’s not readily available so in the interest of full transparency, we will also be reviewing how we can make evening chats more consistent too—so we will be in touch next week with our plan, which is still to be confirmed.

To make this transition as smooth as possible, we'd love to hear from you about the best time for our Sunday Support Thread. Please take a moment to vote in the poll below.

Please note: This new schedule will start from this weekend.

--
Now, hopefully some good news: We’re Growing Our Volunteer Team!

We're so excited to share that we're officially opening up volunteer recruitment for both our boards and chat support teams!

It will take time to train new volunteers, so we ask for your patience as we work to rebuild our team, but please know that we're on it

We see you, we hear you, and we’re working hard to create a more consistent and reliable space for everyone. Thank you for being a part of our community during this time of transition.

With warmth and solidarity,

Your Community Team

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Comments

shannon_164

yay @ella that is such good news!! thank you

just to double check - i’m assuming this means there is no friday thread tonight then? been sat patiently waiting all day so far for it😩

and also, will that then mean there will be a support thread on sunday then chats on sunday night too?

independent_

Came to echo the question @shannon_164 asked about sunday chats.

I’m assuming that given it says starts this weekend it will be no friday thread tonight.

It makes completely sense to move the thread if more people are available to run it at that time (though I will miss sitting down on Fridays to the thread) and I’m glad to hear you’re recruiting new volunteers! Hopefully this is advertised on social media and things too, so young people will see and hopefully want to volunteer

Redemption

shannon_164 wrote: »

been sat patiently waiting all day so far for it😩

Same, I thought I was the only one, I was looking forward to it, great to hear that things are being looked at but would have been better to start the changes from next week and keep it the support thread today for this week also it leaves friday empty. Appreciate that things are being worked on though.

independent_

At the moment, with the new saturday thread, it’s only monday and friday that are completely empty, which is not bad considering the capacity issues at the moment. That’s assuming all chats and threads run, which hopefully will start to happen.

ella

Hey @shannon_164 you're absolutely right; with the schedule change, there won't be a Friday thread tonight but there will be on Sunday. I'm sorry that this might feel disappointing ahead of this evening but we are working hard to make sure there are less cancellations moving forward, as we know it is disrupting the support you are receiving from us

For your second question, you're also correct. This Sunday, there will be a support thread and a support chat

Hopefully this is advertised on social media and things too, so young people will see and hopefully want to volunteer

@independent_ It absolutely will- we'll be meeting with out marketing team next week to create the advertisement! I'm glad the changes make sense to you but I do hear you about not having it on a Friday, such a nice way to end the week

Sending hugs!

Lili5Bet

This is great news!! Thank you for sharing this with us!!

Redemption

ella wrote: »

Hey @shannon_164 you're absolutely right; with the schedule change, there won't be a Friday thread tonight but there will be on Sunday. I'm sorry that this might feel disappointing ahead of this evening but we are working hard to make sure there are less cancellations moving forward, as we know it is disrupting the support you are receiving from us

For your second question, you're also correct. This Sunday, there will be a support thread and a support chat

Hopefully this is advertised on social media and things too, so young people will see and hopefully want to volunteer

@independent_ It absolutely will- we'll be meeting with out marketing team next week to create the advertisement! I'm glad the changes make sense to you but I do hear you about not having it on a Friday, such a nice way to end the week

Sending hugs!

@ella Can I please if you can share if this will be with the usual mods who run the Friday chat threads or will it be maybe with the newly recruited mods? I will come regardless, will be great either way like if it the usual mods we'll be a bit a bit more familiar with them, the mod will be more familiar with us but if it's new mods or a different mod to usual will be great getting to know them. Also will the usual support groups still happen on Sunday?

Katie

TheNightmare wrote: »

@ella Can I please if you can share if this will be with the usual mods who run the Friday chat threads or will it be maybe with the newly recruited mods? I will come regardless, will be great either way like if it the usual mods we'll be a bit a bit more familiar with them, the mod will be more familiar with us but if it's new mods or a different mod to usual will be great getting to know them. Also will the usual support groups still happen on Sunday?

Hey hey @TheNightmare just hopping in here. The Saturday and Sunday threads will be ran by staff for the time being. Today's thread will be ran by me and @Sian321 3-4pm

In terms of Sunday Group Chats, we are in the process of looking at our chat schedule and mod capacity. Right now I can confirm that a chat will be running this evening. I'll pop a post on the boards later this afternoon to let you know which once we've confirmed it internally but so far it's looking like we can run Support Chat!

Redemption

Katie wrote: »

TheNightmare wrote: »

@ella Can I please if you can share if this will be with the usual mods who run the Friday chat threads or will it be maybe with the newly recruited mods? I will come regardless, will be great either way like if it the usual mods we'll be a bit a bit more familiar with them, the mod will be more familiar with us but if it's new mods or a different mod to usual will be great getting to know them. Also will the usual support groups still happen on Sunday?

Hey hey @TheNightmare just hopping in here. The Saturday and Sunday threads will be ran by staff for the time being. Today's thread will be ran by me and @Sian321 3-4pm

In terms of Sunday Group Chats, we are in the process of looking at our chat schedule and mod capacity. Right now I can confirm that a chat will be running this evening. I'll pop a post on the boards later this afternoon to let you know which once we've confirmed it internally but so far it's looking like we can run Support Chat!

Hey @Katie thanks a lot for letting me know, looking forward to seeing you both on there and really appreciate you 2 stepping in ❤️

shannon_164

i’m not at all complaining, pls don’t take it that way but if the poll received the most votes for 5pm-6:30pm why are the threads happening around 1pm-2pm each week, and only for an hour too? just out of curiosity

Sian321

Hey @shannon_164 , thank you for your post! It's a really good point you've raised here and very valid!

We're been running them towards lunchtime recently just as us staff tend to work 9-5pm weekends so the 5-6:30 slot would take us over those timings for now, however, we do have some flexibility to work 10:30am - 6:30pm, so that could help offer some more variety. I can aim to work 10:30 - 6:30pm tomorrow so that people do get a different option.

In terms of the shorter running time, you're totally right. That was not what we set out to offer originally! It's a bit tricker when we're working solo (like I am doing this weekend!) but we hope to offer longer sessions whenever we can.

Tomorrow I will do a 5-6:30pm one so that people get a bit more space and time.

Thanks again for your questions!

independent_

@Sian321 you are a star. Thank you so much for this, hopefully it can help more people that way. I reckon it's easier for people to have the 5pm start, it's not much different for me on weekends as i'm often quite busy but hoping to be able to come.

Amy22

I find the 5pm - 6pm would work for me best but it would depend because of the time I have tea on a Friday too, I still voted just in case I can make it