Hello Cuddle Party Facilitators!
This is Mary, your Board president.
I wanted to connect with you and let you know what is going on.
There is some movement at Cuddle Party Inc. and we would love for you to be part of it!
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
There is a working calendar function on our Cuddle Party Website! You can enter your events on the web site no matter what platform you use or even if you don’t have an event listing on any other platform, you could use our calendar as your primary event platform.
Watch the in depth video here on how to post events:
Cuddle Party® Certified Facilitator Training – How To Post Events On CPI Website – By Mary S 2024052 (youtube.com) (about 20 minutes)
Don’t have time for that? Here is the quick(er) overview demo:
CP Events training video (youtube.com) (about 9 minutes)
The most common issue I have heard from folks is that clicking on the facilitator login takes you to the WordPress dashboard page. I’ll be working on fixing that, but in the meantime, the work around is to hover on ‘Cuddle Party Inc’ in the top left corner and then click on ‘Visit Site’. Then click the Facilitator Login button again at the top right. This will take you to the Facilitator Admin page.
It is beneficial to everyone to post your events so folks can find you from our website. I posted some events in May and had 4 inquiries from folks who found me from the Cuddle Party website, so we are definitely getting views there. As more of us post there, it will bring more awareness to how many events are going on. The primary inquiry we get at Cuddle Party Inc is from folks looking for events in your area. They want to find you!
TRAINING EVOLUTIONS
We are working on some new training offerings which we are super excited about. I wanted to give you a sneak preview of what is in the works.
1. New Organizer/Assistant training certification course. We want to help build community and empower folks to make Cuddle Parties happen. We know there are some who are not cut out to be facilitators or who really enjoy doing all that admin and logistical work to support facilitators. We also know that the number one desire from facilitators is to have more support. We want to give organizers and assistants the tools and information we can to fulfill this support role and be able to work with facilitators to bring events to their area. We also want everyone to know that this part of the work is just as important as facilitating. We want to formally welcome our Organizers and Assistants as part of CPI so they can be recognized as official members of our organization.
This will also be a lower cost step entry option for folks who may be contemplating taking the certification training but have time/budget barriers.
Watch your emails for invitations to help us develop and promote this training in the next few months.
2. Our Diversity, Inclusion and Community Care team is working on some new training modules following a continuing education type model. We still have some details to work through on how we will be presenting this, but I am super excited to offer more detailed support for these topics to our facilitators.
To visit with the DICC team, and be part of this process, visitors are welcome every other Wednesday from 9-930 am CT. Please fill out this form to let us know you’re attending.
ENGAGEMENT
The word of the day is Engagement. We are working on reaching back out to you, our facilitators and connecting with our communities. We are growing our teams here at Cuddle Party Inc. and we are actively seeking any volunteers who feel the call to help us with our mission:
to nurture honest human connections by
- Creating opportunities to explore, learn and practice embodied communication;
- Supporting an inclusive community of practice; and
- Promoting accountability to core values of bodily-autonomy, self-determination and kindness.
If you believe in the mission, you want to keep Cuddle Party going, and you have any amount of time to help us out with our new offerings and new movement, please do get in contact with us.
You can join any of our open working group meetings.
Tuesdays (except 2nd Tuesday) 1:00pm Central time.
Zoom: meetcuddleparty.org
Second Tuesday each month is reserved for the Board meeting at the same time. Visitors can attend Board meetings, but please speak with a Board member first for an invitation.
Meeting schedules are posted on the Cuddle Party website Event page:
REPORTING and the ASK
The expenditure report for 2023 is listed on the website so we can be transparent showing you how we spend your money. Please check it out on our donation page.
We are actively seeking donations to help us keep going. We are digging the lint out of our pockets to keep the lights on right now. So any little bit you can contribute is super helpful. Please consider donating $10 or even $5 per month. If you are actively offering events, perhaps the cost of one ticket per month back to CPI would make sense for you.
Please also consider asking your own community of attendees to help us out. We know there are many cuddle enthusiasts out there who love Cuddle Party and will help support us if we ask. There are some materials on our donation page to help you send a request out to your community. When I made one FB post to my community of 500 cuddle enthusiasts, I had three folks respond and they are now donating $50 per month collectively. This adds up fast and can mean the difference to us being able to keep going.
You can find it all under the DONATE button on the website:
Also, if you know any facilitators who have not heard from us, please pass this email on to them. We have old info in our databases and have lost touch with some. I would love to get updated contact info from anyone who wants to stay in touch with us.
LET’S CONNECT –
We are working on setting up a list serve with a third party provider, so if you receive an email from a list in our name, that is legit. Coming soon.
I would love to talk with you!
If you would like to speak with me to hear directly what is going on, ask questions, or talk about what you want to do to help keep Cuddle Party alive even if you only have one hour a month to share, please do set up an appointment with me. My booking page is here: Meet with Mary S. (google.com)
Mary S. Msorensen@cuddleparty.org
Recent Comments