On Wednesday, 18 December we held our sixth annual community potluck – an opportunity for members of the CSCCE community of practice to come together for a laid back hour or so of conversation, connection, and reflection.
Every year for these events, we use the metaphor of a potluck dinner party to scaffold the call. At a potluck, guests bring a dish to supplement the host’s plans. Similarly, at CSCCE’s annual potluck, everyone is invited to bring something to share, although it’s never food! This year, we asked our guests to bring appetizers of resources and community management stories from 2024, while we “fired up the grill” in Mural for the main course. And to round out the meal, we celebrated with a chatterfall “digestif,” each sharing three words we hope to embody in 2025.
In this blog post, you can find out a little bit more about how we facilitated the call, and check out a word cloud of our 2025 intentions!
Appetizers: Dips, chips, and veggies!
During the appetizer course, we were delighted to hear stories about successful workshops, new and inspiring daily practices, and the many ways that STEM community managers are bringing together their members to move forward with collective purpose. We also co-created a pretty interesting reading list and podcast collection, so if you’re looking for inspiration, may we suggest:
Books
- The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
- The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
- My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
- What it Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill
- The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Podcasts
Main course: Cooking up connections on the CSCCE grill!
For the main course, we scaffolded an activity in Mural. The idea was that everyone could use pink sticky notes to share a skill or “superpower” they have, and/or a green sticky note to share something they want to do in 2025. Then, we tried to match the skills with the goals to forge connections between participants who might help each other out. We added some “seasoning” to the grill in the form of tiny salt shakers (alt +1s!) and orange stickies for additional comments or questions.
It was a really interesting activity, and particularly exciting to learn (and celebrate) everyone’s strengths (including the often-overlooked ability to write a really good email!!).
Dessert: Intentions via chatterfall!
After a fantastic hour or more reflecting on the highs and lows of 2024, we closed out the call with a few moments to look ahead to 2025. We asked everyone to think of three words that described how they hope 2025 will be, and then on the count of three all shared them in the Zoom chat window. The resulting “chatterfall” was a beautiful collection of intentions (as well as a couple of phrases that didn’t make it into the word cloud above: “more more more” and “just do it!”).
Wishing you all the best for the holiday season!
A big thank you to everyone who joined us for this end-of-year tradition. It was a pleasure to welcome new members of the community, and reconnect with some of the people who’ve been coming to our potlucks since 2019. Whether you were able to join us or not, we wish you all the best for the upcoming festivities, and a happy new year!
Please note that CSCCE will be closing at the end of the day on Friday, 20 December 2024, and re-opening on Monday, 6 January 2025.