| I want to clear something up, because I think I’ve let a wrong idea sit for too long. |
| I’ve noticed that a lot of you are treating the Tuesday and Wednesday group calls as optional. Something to drop in on if you happen to be free, or if you hit a specific question. I understand why. But it’s backwards, and I want to say this plainly: the group calls are not supplemental to the Foundations of Facilitation and Cuddle Party Certification course. |
| The group calls ARE the course. |
| The written material is the prompt. The conversation is where the actual class happens. |
| Here’s why we built it this way. Some of what we’re teaching, how to hold a boundary, read consent in the room, work responsibly with touch, isn’t something you can absorb from a page. You can read a textbook all day long, but without a classroom and an instructor, that reading alone doesn’t qualify you. Boundaries and consent work the same way. You need to talk them through with experienced facilitators and hear how they hold up in an actual room before you can really process it. |
| You learn how to be in community by being in community. That’s not a slogan, it’s the whole design of the training. Our coaching team brings decades of group facilitation experience to every call, and that kind of personal coaching, over the year or so it typically takes to certify, is a large part of why the course is priced the way it is. When you skip the calls, you’re not skipping an add-on. You’re skipping most of what you paid for. |
| That is also why we have added a student cohort for the first time ever. So we can put even more structure on this process for those who work best with structure. |
| What you are missing – |
| I want to tell you honestly what we’ve seen happen when people try to get through this course on their own, reading the material and skipping the live calls. |
| They lose motivation. They stall. And then, often, they stop coming back to the training altogether. |
| It’s not a coincidence. Certifying as a facilitator in an ideal world is not a solo pursuit and trying to do it that way tends to be a real slog for folks. The calls are where the material actually lands: where you hear how other facilitators handled a situation you’re worried about, where a question you didn’t know you had gets answered because someone else asked it first, where you walk away reinvigorated instead of stuck. |
| Every time I get on one of these calls, even on the weeks I think I have nothing to bring, I leave with something. That’s the pattern. It’s not just me. |
| And it goes both ways. You don’t need a question to justify showing up. Come because someone else in that room might need exactly what you know. We’re all peers here, everyone facilitating this course has a bit more experience in one direction, but you have maps we don’t have too. That exchange – that’s Cuddle Party and cuddle community. It’s the whole point. |
| If you’ve been facilitating for a while and figure you’ve outgrown these calls, I hear that, and it’s fair that you may not need to be on every single one. But the group setting still has something for you. The newer facilitators in that room are looking for exactly the kind of map you’re carrying, and staying connected to the group is part of how we keep the whole community’s practice sound. |
| If you’ve been putting off the calls because you didn’t think you needed them this week, I’d gently push back on that. Come anyway. Tuesday afternoons at 3:00 Central, Wednesday evenings at 8:00 Central. |
| Mary S. Executive Director, Cuddle Party Inc. |
| If you missed out on the cohort info, here it is. This really is your LAST CHANCE to confirm joining the cohort September 8 (next week!). Remember that currently certified facilitators should recertify with the new 2026 curriculum. This is a great way to do it and take advantage of your 90% off discount for re-certification and get access to all the new material. |
| The cohort begins Tuesday, September 8 and runs through Tuesday, January 19. We’ll meet on Zoom from 4:00–6:00PM Pacific Time/7:00-9:00PM Eastern time on Tuesdays. |
| Cohort dates: September 8, 15, 22, 29 October 6, 13, 20, 27 November 3, 10, 17 December 1, 8, 15 January 5, 12, 19 |
| We will not meet November 24, December 22, or December 29. |
| Ready to join the cohort? |
| If you have not yet registered and paid in Ruzuku for the 2026 classes, you can do that here: |
| Once you’ve completed those two steps and are confirmed as a student in Ruzuku, please register for the Zoom meeting here: |
| **Registering for the Zoom meeting is your final confirmation that you’ll be joining the cohort.** |
| Once the cohort roster is finalized, Autumn will be in touch directly with everyone who has confirmed with additional information before your first meeting. |