January’s Community Call: The intersection of self care, community care, and community management

Pervasive in western culture at the moment is the concept of self care. Of setting boundaries at work and in personal relationships, of saying “no” more often, of striving for the perfect work-life balance. It’s important, in a world where we often feel compelled to be the best at everything – at work, as caregivers, even at our hobbies – to take care of ourselves. But how does self care intersect with community care? And if you increasingly see your community members stepping back from attending events or volunteering on committees, how do you continue to effectively manage a community? 

This is something the CSCCE staff team has been considering for a couple of months now. If it’s something that’s been on your mind, too, we hope you’ll join us for a “salon-style” conversation at our first community call of 2024. 

Balancing individual and community needs

At last month’s community potluck, one of our community members, while reflecting on system-wide exhaustion and lower levels of community engagement, wondered what it would look like to give community members the virtual equivalent of a cup of coffee or protein bar. In essence – how can community management give people energy? 

In this month’s call, we’ll facilitate a discussion about what we’re observing in scientific communities from academia to industry, and consider what we can do as community managers to support our members as individuals and as a collective. We’ll talk about the tension between taking time and space for yourself and how that can impact other community members and the community’s mission. And we’ll share our idea for a new framework for considering the interplay between self care and community care. 

January’s call

Abstract

Join January’s community call to:

• Share your perspective on how to balance individual self care with community engagement – both as community member and community manager
• Connect with others in the CSCCE community of practice as we consider this topic together
• Explore how a tangible output from such a conversation (e.g., a blog post or tip sheet) might best support STEM community managers

How to join

January’s call will take place on Wednesday, 24 January 2024, at 11am EST / 4pm UTC.

Our calls are hosted in Zoom – 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 generally last 90 minutes to allow time for discussion, but we try to keep all of the presentations within the first 60 minutes. We understand that virtual meetings have a tendency to overrun and overlap, so please don’t feel sheepish about arriving late or leaving early. We’d love to see you either way!

Please note: We will not be recording this month’s call in order to allow participants to speak candidly. We will share a recap of the call on our blog within one week of the call taking place, and you are welcome to join the asynchronous conversation on Slack.  

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 check 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@cscce.org.