A new team of people working in the chapter pathways circle was slowly able to build up connections with the chapter community to support them in their daily work. We are happy to strengthen individual connections, however, our online formats that are open to the whole community lack participation from oikees.

What’s the added value of joining the virtual sessions we host?
That’s the question we need to address and actively communicate to our target group – our international chapters and alumni of oikos.
Furthermore, a constant learning is that only through personal connections we’ll be able to reach people. If chapter members don’t know anyone from oikos International, they will not engage on the international level.

Four board members were conducting our bi-annual chapter check-ins and were able to have individual calls with 28 out of 43 chapters.
In our house calls, our house facilitators hosted around 15 chapters that were actively participating.
For the semester opening, 2 chapters from the international chapter community attended. The semester reflection was attended by 3 chapters.

One of our houses was super motivated to discuss ways on reducing their carbon footprint. They will meet again soon to play the game “2 Tonnes”: https://www.2tonnes.org/english

Re-evaluate where we put our energy. What online formats do we want to host and offer to the chapters? What is actually helpful for them to feel supported in their chapter journey?

We completed another semester of chapter pathways and made progress in engaging as many chapters as possible through the chapter check-ins and houses. Excitingly, we are in the process of getting chapter coaching off the ground through a handover project to the new board!

• Some houses have been working better than others. We observed that there needs to be a “critical mass” of engaged chapters in the house for the community feeling and benefit of the house’s concept to really materialize.
• While last semester, we did not find the capacity to implement the chapter coaching, this semester we will have to take care to define realistic roles and generate a sense of ownership so that our vision can turn into a reality.

We successfully completed a year of houses & learnt a lot in the process! The impact became tangible in the warmth of our semester kick-off and reflection calls, where we had really deep and warm conversations around the value of our work as oikees and the importance of community in the face of the climate crisis.

So far, out of a total of 8 houses, 6 of them have been more or less functioning with 4 of them meeting regularly and doing well. Houses used to be organized by region and we are now mixing houses from different part of the world to foster more diversity in the exchanges between chapters.

https://oikos-international.org/about_us/chapter-pathways-initiative/#!

We are picking up the chapter coaching project and reworked on it / redesigned it in order to launch it in 2023. This way, we are getting one step closer to realizing the full vision of the chapter pathways! Rather than a shift in focus, it represents an expansion of our capacity.
Our 3 main goals are:

• Enroll 5 chapters in the pilot chapter coaching program
• Recruit a new generation of house facilitators
• Regroup houses to let more of them shine!

This fall, we have invited to the oikos orientation call (October 14th) to give chapter members an orientation of oikos International, our support offers and international opportunities. Chapter members left informed and new connections between the oikos International team and some of the chapter members could be formed.
In comparison to similar calls, the participant number has slightly increased, though not tremendously. We’d love to reach more chapters next time and have follow-up materials sent
During the the Community Reflection Call on December 9th, oikees were invited to reflect on achievements, challenges and learnings and could hear from other chapters’ experiences which fostered community feeling among chapters.

• Communicate early
• Less information overload in the orientation calls
• Leave space for connection-making/networking and exchange

oikos orientation call: 7 people from 4 chapters
Community Reflection Call: 6 people from 6 chapters

Participating chapters:
oikos orientation call: Lisbon, Barcelona, Warsaw, Copenhagen
Community Reflection call: Kano, Copenhagen, Nottingham, Graz, Paderborn, Barcelona

Launch of oiToolbox as digital resource for chapters to use for their chapter work: https://wiki.oikos-international.org/oikosmos/
Spread to at least 8 chapters already.

Next orientation call: February 2024, 10 chapters present

New oikos International Board more included to foster close connection to chapters