On this page you will find all the major improvements that are made to Stitch. This page is updated regularly, so check in again soon for the latest developments. 

Most of these improvements have been at the request of our members, so please keep sending your feedback to support@stitch.net so we can keep improving Stitch for you. 

December 22

The new Activity Suggestions feature has been introduced to allow members to get an idea of whether others in their local area might be interested in an activity.

For an overview of how they work, and when you might choose to make a Suggestion instead of organizing an Activity see the below video:

November 22

Our new Welcoming program aims to ensure that all new members are welcomed, supported and able to start making new connections as soon as possible.

Existing members who exhibit specific behaviour on Stitch will be given the option to become an official Stitch Welcomer.

New members will now receive a personal message from one of our Stitch Welcomers introducing them to Stitch and offering any support they might need along the way.

For more details, including how to become an official Stitch Welcomer, click here.

September 22

When creating a new activity, hosts now have the option to include an automated personalized invite to members in their local area.

When selected, up to 30 members will receive a personalized invite to the event. If the recipient would like to attend they can easily register as an attendee.

For more details, click here.

August 22

When organizing an event there are times when attendees need to make a prepayment, for example, book a table or pay the admission fee.

To ease the burden on hosts and to increase transparency for everyone, Stitch has introduced payment options. When an attendee opts into an event that requires prepayment, members are prompted to pay their contribution via credit card. They will not be able to register their attendance until they’ve done so.

This alleviates the administrative burden for hosts and ensures all funds are received prior to the event, avoiding the risk of any awkward conversations after the event.

For more information click here.

There may come a time when you no longer wish to see specific events on your Activities page. For example, if you know you cannot attend an event or are not interested in it, you may not want to see it every time you visit the Activities page.

Stitch now gives you the ability to dismiss such events. Simply select the X in the top right corner of the event card.

You now also have the option to dismiss all future events from a particular organizer.

All your dismissed events will appear on your Activities page under a section called, Activities you have dismissed. No other Stitch members will know if you have dismissed an event or organizer.

The newly-created Member Network captures how many people you are connected with at Stitch and details how you are connected with each person. It's your personal address book of Stitch contacts, connections, and friends, all in one convenient location.

To view who you are connected with, visit COMMUNITY from the Stitch homepage and select Your Network from the drop-down menu.

Learn more about your Stitch Network here.

Common feedback from members has been that they would like the ability to filter upcoming events by whether they are in-person or virtual. Some people only wish to see in-person activities in their local area, while others only want to see virtual activities.

The Activities page now allows you to filter by the type of activities you'd like to see – local and in-person, or community-wide and virtual.

March 2022

Stitch members now have greater control over what event notifications they receive via email.

Members can now elect to receive a daily or weekly summary of events they are interested in, whether that is community‑wide virtual activities or events created in their local area. A member can choose to receive all email notifications or none!

Visit the Notifications page to customize which email notifications you receive.

Common feedback from members has been that they would like a way to share their images with other members. Stitch now offers you the ability to do just that.

You can now upload and share your photos to any comments section from within the Events & Activities, Groups and Discussions sections.

Simply select "Add photos" and upload your desired photo.
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Stitch Video Chat (powered by Whereby) now allows Stitch organizers to choose from eight virtual backgrounds for their virtual meetings!

To change your Stitch Video Chat background, enter your virtual meeting room and follow these steps:

Learn more about this new feature here.

Previously, you could only add a member to your events and groups if you had connected with this person via private messaging (i.e. you had exchanged at least one private message each).

This has now been expanded. You can now also manually add members to your events and groups with who you have attended a Stitch event with.

Learn more here.

As part of Stitch's ongoing mission to cultivate a supportive, fun, and harmonious community, we have implemented a new feature allowing all members to give us anonymous feedback about members they have interacted with.

This new feedback system aims to pick up on any negative patterns of behavior (such as abuse, harassment, and rudeness) that disrupt the harmony of the community. A member repeatedly marked as being detrimental to the community's health will be asked to moderate their behavior or leave the community.

Please know that we also encourage you to share feedback about members who have positively contributed to your experience of Stitch. If they were friendly, welcoming, or supportive in any way, we'd love to know!

To share your feedback, go to your Messages, find your conversation with the member you wish to rate, and select the red button that says, Tell us what you think.

Learn more about giving feedback here.

Until now, members had the opportunity to be get verified by attending a virtual verification event hosted by Stitch's founder, Andrew. They could also attend in-person events to become verified by a Community Champion, usually the organizer.

The virtual verification option is no longer available, and there are changes to how the in-person verification option by a Community Champion works.

If you are a Community Champion who verifies members, we encourage you to familiarise yourself with the changes to in-person verification here.

As part of Stitch's ongoing mission to promote our community values of kindness and compassion, and creating a welcoming environment for all members, we are currently trialing a feature that asks members for their feedback about events they have attended.

After attending an event or activity, the Stitch system will prompt attendees for feedback about the event, as in the image below.

Stitch will be monitoring this feedback for patterns of inappropriate and abusive behavior and for any breaches of the Stitch Community Guidelines. Negative feedback from a significant percentage of members can result in suspension or expulsion from the community, depending on the severity of the offense.

Learn more about giving feedback here.

Common feedback from organizers has been that they would like a way to change the background image of their events and groups. Stitch now offers organizers the ability to do just that.

Follow the below steps to change an event or group’s background image:

The Stitch team is constantly working to improve the experience of Stitch for all members. One section where considerable time and effort has been dedicated to of late has been the Discussion page.

The key improvements of the Discussions page are:

Learn more about these changes here.

Common feedback from organizers has been that they would love a way to add specific members to their groups and events. Taking this feedback into consideration, Stitch now offers organizers and co-organizers the ability to add members of their choosing to their groups and events, as long as the members meet certain criteria.

Learn more about this new feature here.

Virtual Activities & Events play a vital role in keeping the Stitch Community connected and engaged, especially with so many of us physically distancing.

With so many members participating in virtual activities, attendee limits reach capacity very quickly. While this is fantastic for the event organizer, it becomes a frustrating experience when members who RSVP don't attend and even fail to notify the organizer that they won't be attending. That's why Stitch has introduced marking nonattendance for virtual Activities & Events.

Organizers of virtual events will now be asked to confirm who did not attend their event. The Stitch system can detect who attended (or tried) to attend a virtual event by who selected the 'Join Now' button, however needs the final confirmation from organizers as to who did not attend.

Members who repeatedly fail to show up at events without letting the organizer know will eventually have their accounts suspended.

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Learn more about marking nonattendance at virtual Activities & Events here.

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After numerous requests from community members, Stitch now offers event organizers the ability to add a waitlist to their events, and for attendees to add themselves to this list if they wish. Discover how this feature works here.

If you are an organizer of a virtual event, you will no longer be required to mark attendance after your event, as the Stitch system will now do it automatically. Learn more about how marking attendance works here.

Members who organize activities on Stitch get to choose between three event types when creating an activity: Regular, Full Members Only and Public. Below are the updated abilities of each member in regard to posting activities, based on their membership plan.

(1): Limited members can only create in-person Regular events if there are no upcoming events within 5km/3mi of their location. They can only create a virtual Regular event if one doesn't already exist within 50km/31mi of their location.

(2): Limited members can only create in-person Full Members Only events if there are no upcoming events within 5km/3mi of their location. They can only create a virtual Full Members Only event if one doesn't already exist within 50km/31mi of their location.

(3): Community Standard members can schedule 1 upcoming local event, either in-person or virtual. They can also schedule a virtual Public event for their state or country if one doesn't already exist.

(4): Community Managers can schedule 4 upcoming Public events, either in-person or virtual. They can also schedule a virtual Public event for their state or country if one doesn't already exist.

Learn more about choosing an event type here.

In September 2020 we revealed that members who received multiple downvotes would be moderated based on the number of downvotes they received.

Now, we’ve made the system more nuanced:

Comments which receive multiple flags will be locked out of individual forums or even locked out of the forums altogether.

Stitch has long given members the ability to upvote positive comments and downvote negative ones in the online forums. In July 2020 we revealed that members must now select a reason when upvoting or downvoting another member’s comment.

Now, if a member receives multiple downvotes they will be locked out of individual forums or even locked out of the forums altogether.

The new rules work like this:

Discover the rules around online and in-person behavior in the Stitch Community here.

Virtual events have been a great success for the Stitch Community, allowing members to connect in a variety of new ways with other members across the community, which has been particularly important during COVID-19.

After listening to feedback from members about things that have worked well, and things that could be improved, we've rolled out some changes to virtual events. Improvements can be seen in areas including security, marking attendance, how names appear on videos, and supported video providers.

If you're a virtual event organizer, or a member who attends virtual events, please make sure to read our article about these recent changes here.

Feedback from Community Champions has revealed that while they are happy to respond to private messages and answer questions from Limited members, they want to control whether they have a permanent connection to them or not.
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Upon receiving this feedback, we introduced restrictions for Limited members who wish to communicate via private messages, to give more power to Full members.
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Discover what restrictions have been enforced for Limited members here.

As part of Stitch's response to the COVID-19 crisis, a number of features were designed to help members create and sustain social connections while physical distancing. One of those features was the Group Video Chat feature for Stitch Groups. See image below.

This feature allowed group organizers and co-organizers to ‘open’ the Video Chat Room as a way of connecting with group members.

The Group Video Chat feature was a great first step to test out the concept, but overwhelming feedback from members was they wanted the ability to schedule virtual events rather than open them via a chat room.

We took on board this feedback to create Virtual Activities on Stitch which feature the Stitch Video Chat capability. Virtual Activities can be scheduled at a predetermined time, show on the Stitch Activities page, and are now a very core part of Stitch.

The success of Virtual Activities has meant the original version of the feature is now no longer used or required, so we are removing it from the Group page.

Finding members who share your specific interests has taken a big step forward with the introduction of the search bar on the Members page.

Simply type your interest in the search bar and you will be shown members who have specified that interest on their Stitch profile, provided they are new members or members who live close to you.

Take for example the below image. When searching for “camping”, a member will be shown everyone who has identified camping as an interest.

This is particularly important for Community Champions and event organisers as they now have the ability to search, find and invite members with common interests to their group and activities, helping to supercharge their community building efforts.

Learn more about the Members page here.

The Members page plays an important role for many Full members. Community Champions use this page to find and reach out to new members, welcoming them to the community. Event organizers use this page to search for people they can invite to their upcoming activities, and individual members use this page to connect with other members for one-on-one conversations.

To further support our members who positively contribute to Stitch through community-building initiatives, we have now boosted the number of profiles they can view and message from the Members page.

Members who have achieved either Gold, Platinum or Diamond status, are a Community Champion or have an upcoming event on Stitch will notice the most number of increases to the profiles they can view and people they can message.

Discover what your membership plan entitles you to on the Members page here.

The goal of Stitch is to build a community where everyone can feel safe, supported, and welcomed, and where they can engage on the online discussion forums without being worried about online abuse.

Stitch has long given members the ability to upvote positive comments in the forums, and downvote negative ones. Now, a reason must be selected when upvoting or downvoting a member’s comment.

Learn more about each of these reasons here.

Members on the “Public” or free membership will now be identifiable on the Stitch web site and app by a green LIMITED badge. (See image below; member faces have been blurred to protect privacy.)

This badge change helps highlight that Public members of Stitch are limited to participating in only the Public parts of the Stitch Community. Public members can attend Public events and activities, join Public Groups, and participate in Public Discussions. They can only attend a limited number of regular Stitch events, however, and can only use Stitch to communicate with Full members of Stitch on a limited basis.

This change is primarily for Full members of Stitch, who asked us lots of questions about what the "Public" badge meant. By highlighting that Public members are actually limited to participating in only some parts of the Stitch Community, we hope this small change makes things clearer for all members.

Learn more about Stitch badges here.

Two Full membership plans have had their names changed. These changes better reflect the purpose of each plan, allowing new members to select the plan that best suits how they want to interact with the Community.

Our lowest level Full membership is now called Community Basic.

Our most popular Full membership option is now called Community Standard.

Please note that only the name of these plans have changed, not the features included in each plan.

Learn more about each of the membership plans here.

When initiating a conversation with a Stitch member, all new conversations will automatically begin with Hi, followed by your recipient's name, as in the image below.

Many Community Champions send multiple messages to new Stitch members every day, welcoming them to the community and offering to help them with anything they may need. Such a small gesture goes a long way in making a new member feel welcome, valued and part of the community.

Having a salutation already pre-filled allows our Community Champions to more easily and quickly paste their pre-crafted message, without having to personalise their message every time.

Event organizers can now duplicate their existing events, giving them the opportunity to post recurring events on Stitch, provided they are their own events. Previously, only events that had already happened could be duplicated.

Recurring events play a crucial role in helping a community grow and flourish, especially a community that’s just getting started. We have seen time and time again that members who attend recurring events such as monthly ‘Mix and Mingles’ begin to feel connected to everyone else and learn how safe and welcoming the Stitch community is. That’s why they are such an important aspect of Stitch.

Learn how to duplicate an event here.

Members can now organize events for Stitch Groups they belong to, giving them the ability to play an active role in hosting events for their fellow group members.

Previously, only group owners and organizers could host events for their group.

Learn more about Stitch Groups here.

Stitch's free membership level will now be called a "Public" membership, instead of a Basic membership. This name change is intended to be simpler to understand, by reflecting more clearly what a free member of Stitch can do, which is attend Public Activities & Events, join Public Groups, and participate in Public Discussions.
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Organizers of virtual events no longer need to use a third-party tool such as Zoom to set up their events. Stitch Video Chat is now supported as one of the options when you create a virtual event.

This means event attendees don't need to download or install a separate piece of software to attend virtual events, they can do it just using Stitch.

Learn more about Stitch Video Chat here. 

Members on the Community Plus and Community Manager membership plans now have the ability to open their events to a wider audience.

Community Plus members can now create events for their local area as well as their state or region, while Community Managers are the only members who can create country-wide events.

Learn more about virtual events here.
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An increasing number of community members are seeking alternate ways to stay socially connected during the coronavirus pandemic and are turning to Discussions, Stitch’s online discussion forum.
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Previously, only Full members could participate in these discussion. In an attempt to allow all Stitch members to stay socially connected, we now allow Basic members to participate in the online discussions, specifically the discussions labelled as Public. If you're a Basic member, look for the pink "You're Invited!" tag. 

Learn more about Stitch Discussions here.
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Over the last few months, we have been asking Stitch Community Champions for their input about ways we can improve the Stitch membership structure to better help them grow the community in their local areas, while at the same time ensuring the community can be sustainable over the long term.

Based on that feedback, we have restructured the plans to help members choose a membership that's better suited to what they want to do as part of the community. 

Discover the new membership plans here. 

Many community members have expressed an interest in being able to form private groups with Stitch members of their choosing, believing that will help cultivate even stronger and more meaningful and intimate relationships. 

Based on this feedback, Stitch now offers Community Plus and Community Manager members the ability to create an unlimited number of Private Groups. 

Private groups are hidden from the wider Stitch Community, and a member must be invited to one to participate. All events and discussions posted to a Private group can only be seen by members of the group.

Learn more about Private groups here.
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The term “open” which has been used frequently to refer to certain events and groups (i.e. open events, open groups) will be progressively phased out and replaced with the term “public”. 

The definition will still remain the same, and will refer to those events and groups that are available to all members of Stitch -- both Basic and Full. 

Public events and groups will be distinguishable by the Pink tag that says Public. See images below.
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Learn more about Public groups here.
Learn more about Public events & activities here. 

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The unverified member badge across the Stitch web site and app has been updated. 

Previously, when a member created their Stitch profile yet hadn't verified themselves,  they were distinguishable by a black badge that said UNVERIFIED. They will now be distinguishable by a light green badge that says BASIC.
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Please don't mistake this new badge for the darker green Basic badge. The darker green badge is for verified Basic members. The lighter green badge is for unverified members. 

Learn more about member badges here. 

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Common feedback from event organizers has been that some members RSVP to events but don’t show up. This can be very frustrating and disheartening for organizers, especially when a person does this repeatedly, without notifying the organizer. 

Taking this feedback into consideration, Stitch now allows organizers of events and activities to mark attendance after their event has occurred, telling Stitch who attended the event, and who did not. 

We understand that life gets in the way sometimes, so missing an activity occasionally, especially if it was accidental, is not a problem. However, failing to show up to three activities in a row without letting the activity organizer know is not acceptable, and these members will eventually have their accounts suspended. 

Learn more about how to mark attendance and why it’s important here.
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In October we released one of the biggest updates we have ever made to the Members page on Stitch, designed to improve how Stitch members find and meet like-minded companions for one-to-one connections.

Here is what the new Members page looks like now:

As you can see, the page includes a lot of visual improvements, with some big changes to the design of the members cards to make them easier to see and use. But much more important are the changes under the hood, which make a dramatic difference to how Stitch introduces members to each other to help them meet like-minded companions.

Some of the changes in this update include:

We have updated all our documentation about how the Members page works, so you can get an overview of how everything works here.

It's worth noting that the new update no longer allows free Basic members to send direct messages to other members. We thought it would be worth explaining the reason for this change.

The purpose of the (free) Basic Stitch membership is to let Stitch members enrich their lives by meeting people at activities they enjoy. We recently gave Basic members a very significant increase in the amount they can participate in the community, allowing them to join as many Stitch Groups they want, and attend as many activities they want, and even create and organize activities of their own, all for free. This is in line with the Stitch Community's status as a non-profit community which has the goal of connecting as many people as it can.

At the same time, Stitch needs enough members to upgrade to a Full membership in order to keep the community running. Members who want to get the most out of Stitch, and in particular connect with other members directly through the Members page, need to join as a Full member. A Stitch membership is designed to be very affordable and starts at just a few dollars per month.

If you're a Basic member you get to reply to direct messages from other members, so attending Stitch events and activities is still a great way to expand the number of people you can meet through Stitch, all for free. You only need to become a Full member if you want to initiate new conversations with the other members that Stitch introduces to you on the Members page. 

The updated Members page will now let Basic members view five members each and every day, so you can get a good idea of the sorts of members you will be able to meet through Stitch, and you only need to decide to join if you'd like to connect with someone. 

We think this is a very fair system which allows Stitch to have a positive impact on the lives of our Basic members (who don't support the community financially), while providing much greater benefits to our Full members (who do). Only a small proportion of Stitch members attend events and activities, so if you want to give yourself the biggest chance of meeting as many members as you can, then we'd strongly encourage you to join as a Full member. 

If you do, you'll be doing your bit to help the Stitch Community sustain itself and have a positive impact on the lives of Stitch members all over the world!

Have you ever arrived at a Stitch event and not known how to contact the other attendees? You might have turned up at an outdoor concert, for example, where there are thousands of people and you don't quite know how to find the Stitch members you are meeting. Or you might be the organizer of an event and want to send a message to all attendees to let them know where to meet.

Stitch has always let you post an announcement on the event, or send a direct message to other attendees, but there was no guarantee they would be checking their emails at the time of your event, so they may not get your message.

That's all changed with the introduction of Instant Notifications for the Stitch iOS and Android apps.

Now, any time you post an announcement on a Stitch activity, or send another member a direct message, they will get a push notification on their mobile device (provided they have the Stitch app installed) to let them know.

And if you're attending an activity or an event, you should make sure you have the Stitch app installed so that you can be notified about any late-breaking changes announced by the event organizer.

The Stitch app can be installed for iOS here, or for Android here. Alternatively, just search for "Stitch Community" on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. 

After discovering that most of our community uses Stitch on their mobile, we decided it was time to make some important upgrades to the Stitch mobile experience.  

After months of hard work from our development team, we can now announce that Stitch is on its way to becoming mobile friendly! Even though there’s still a lot more work to be done, you’ll notice that using Stitch on your mobile is now much easier and smoother than it used to be. 

Before the update, if you were to click on a Stitch link on your mobile, you would have been taken to your preferred internet browser and had to use Stitch there, even if you had the Stitch app installed on your phone. 

Now, any links you press will take you either straight to the Stitch app, or you’ll be given a choice as to where you’d like to open the link - in your browser or in your app. You now have a choice! 

This is just the first step toward a more enjoyable and seamless Stitch experience on mobile - stay tuned for more exciting updates! 

You can now create an activity and discussion from within your chosen Stitch Group. 

Previously you would have had to visit the Activities and Discussions pages on Stitch to create an Activity or start a new Discussion. Now, you can do these from within the Stitch Group you wish to invite. 

This is one small way we have made it easier for our community to connect with their fellow Stitchers. Learn more here. 

Every since Stitch was launched our Help Center has been the go-to place for answers to all your questions about Stitch and the Community, everything from how to change your profile picture to posting an activity on Stitch. 

Now, we also have a Stitch video library! 

The Stitch video library is where you’ll find a growing number of videos designed to help you understand the Stitch Community. 

These include general videos about Stitch and the Stitch Community; interviews with Stitch members; tutorials; and video updates about the latest happenings on Stitch. 

We’re adding new videos all the time so please visit the Stitch video library frequently to check out what’s happening.
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A common request from existing community members has been for the ability to easily help other members set up and complete their profile, especially new members who may have difficulty doing so. 

We’ve listened to your requests, and now give Gold, Platinum and Diamond members the ability to help others set up and complete their profile! Learn how to do so here. 

The new Stitch Groups now give group organizers and owners the ability to better organize and manage their communities as they see fit, as they now have full control over their group’s members, activities, discussions and announcements. Learn more here.
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Previously when an activity or event was created in your local community you would receive an email inviting you to this event. In very active communities, where multiple activities may be suggested every day, that meant members could receive multiple emails per day.
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Now, rather than receiving a separate email for every single activity or event posted in your city, Stitch gives you more control over which events you want to be notified about.

If you have enabled event & activity notifications on the Notification Settings page, you will now receive:

Let’s look at the above in detail.

Stitch now only sends out email invitations for activities and events organized for Stitch Groups you have already joined. This means that you have complete control over which invitations you receive. 

If you’re interested in being invited to anything to do with ballroom dancing, for example, you might join a Ballroom Dancing Group in your area. Or if you love the comedy events held in Manhattan, just join the Stitch Manhattan Comedy Group in order to be invited to those events.

You will receive event notifications for all Groups you have joined, regardless where those events are held. 

This means that if you sometimes travel between different locations, for example, you can join groups in both locations in order to find out about events you’d like to attend. Or you may be so passionate about bird-watching that you are willing to travel hundreds of miles for a bird-watching expedition, so you join a bird-watching group that is far away from you, but keep the rest of your activities on Stitch local. 

It’s totally up to you!

Being notified about activities for the Stitch Groups you belong to makes sense, but what about all the other activities happening in your area? 

As outlined above, in Stitch areas which have a lot of community activity, the number of invitation emails being sent could prove overwhelming. So Stitch no longer sends an invitation for each new event in your area. 

But at the same time, you still want to know about those events, as there is often a lot of great stuff going on. You just don’t want to receive dozens of emails every day!

Stitch now addresses this by sending a weekly summary of all the events published during the previous week in your area. Best of all, you get to choose the distance that defines what your “local area” means to you.

For some people, this will mean getting a summary of all the events happening very close to them, for example within 3 miles of where they live. For others, it may mean being willing to drive for an hour or two to get to events in a nearby city. 

Once again, the choice is yours. 

To control which activities are shown in your weekly summary, visit the Notification Settings page and change your distance preference as shown in the image below:
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We have now simplified our memberships, offering you two plans to choose from: Basic and Full. Learn more about each membership plan here. 

Gold, Platinum and Diamond members now have access to an additional feature that directly helps them build and grow their local community - it’s the ability to communicate with unverified members. 

Previously, unverified members could not communicate with the community in any way. They couldn’t initiate conversations with other members, nor can they respond to messages they had been sent (though they could read them).
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Now, Gold, Platinum and Diamond members can initiate a two-way conversation with unverified members, opening up a dialogue between existing and possibly nervous new members.
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In most cases, unverified members need a little encouragement to get verified, and a welcoming message and an invite to an upcoming event from a trusted member of the community (such as Gold, Platinum and Diamond members) will go a long way in motivating them get verified and join the community!
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Learn more about this feature here.
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