December Community Call: Our Annual Potluck

We like to send the year off with a little bit of fun, mixed with some contemplation and so for our December community call we’ll be hosting our fourth annual end-of-year potluck. This year, we’ll be focusing on tech tools for supporting community management on a shoestring budget! 

As with most CSCCE events, this call will with be an interactive opportunity to:

  • Try out some new ideas and/or tools that may be relevant for managing your own community
  • Meet and connect with other STEM community managers to learn from one another
  • Take an intentional moment in busy schedules to reflect and identify progress made and potential next steps in your own work

Rather than everyone bringing a dish to share, as is typical at most potlucks, all participants are welcome to bring examples of tools that they’ve used to solve specific problems – or problems in search of a tool! We’ll structure the meal (see below) so there’s time to share and time to learn.  

Join us via Zoom on 14 December at 11am EST / 4pm UTC, and feel free to wear a festive hat or sweater to liven up our Zoom screens 🙂 

Add to calendar

This month’s community call will be a virtual potluck. Attendees are asked to bring a low-budget tech tool to share – or a scenario they’ve encountered that they are looking for a tool to solve. Image credit: CSCCE

Tell me more about this virtual potluck format

We’ll divide up the 90-minute call into three “courses”:

Appetizers: Anyone joining the call can share a useful hack or free/low cost tool that they’ve found for making their lives easier at work. For example, how do you keep on top of time zones or national and religious holidays when scheduling meetings? Do you color code your ToDo list? What tool do you use to keep your community member’s contact info up to date?

Main course: CSCCE staff will use a low budget tool to scaffold an interactive activity. 

Dessert: Traditionally, our annual community potluck concludes with some reflection time, and we’ll hold space during the dessert course to look back over the year and talk about goals for 2023. 

Additional details and activities

This year we’ve also started a playlist of songs related to community management, and we’d love your help to get it from 30 minutes to 3 hours of tunes! (Plus we’ll briefly show you how we made it so you can make your own list!)

At some point during the “meal,” we’ll also take a silly group photo (don’t worry, we’ll tell you if you have spinach in your teeth). So get your funny hats and ugly holiday sweaters ready! Of course, if you’d rather turn off your camera during the picture, that’s completely fine, too.

Because this is a social call, we won’t be recording it. Instead, we hope you’ll come and enjoy the company of your fellow community managers while learning about some cool tools  and reflecting on the year.

December’s call

ABSTRACT

Join December’s community call to:

  • Unwind at the end of a hectic year
  • Learn about low-cost tech tools for keeping your community organized
  • Celebrate your own accomplishments and those of your fellow community managers

How to join

December’s call will take place on 14 December, 2022, at 11am EST/4pm UTC

Our calls are hosted in Zoom – simply click here and we’ll see you in the webinar!

Video or not? You’re welcome to turn on your webcam if you like but fine if you prefer just to use audio.

Our community calls last 90 minutes, but we understand that some people will need to hop off at the one hour mark (or earlier). Come for the hour – or for the full 90 mins, as your schedule permits!

Please note: While our calls are usually recorded, we will not be recording this one because it’s intended to be a social event.

ADDITIONAL INFO ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY CALLS

Our community calls usually take place on the third Wednesday of every month at 11am Eastern, but occasionally times and dates vary depending on speaker availability so please keep an eye on our calendar of events.

Wonder what we’ve talked about in previous calls? The archive listings can be found here, with select recordings available on YouTube.

Not yet in our Slack group? Request to join here.

Further resources

We curate a growing collection of resources for community managers on our website. If you have any questions about our work, or are interested in partnering with us on a future project or call, please contact info@www.cscce.org