Hosting a Community Session is a shared commitment. By showing up and creating a clear, welcoming space, you help other people make time for what matters—and their presence helps you do the same.
You don’t need to be a professional facilitator or manage every moment. The aim is simply to provide enough structure and consistency for everyone, including you, to settle in and get something valuable from the session.
Expectations
FLOWN's Community Guidelines set out the standards we ask all Community Hosts to follow:
Timeliness: Starting and ending your session on time is one of the most important parts of hosting. Participants may have cleared their schedules to join, so your punctuality is a meaningful sign of respect.
Cancellation: If you can’t make your session, cancel it with as much notice as possible so participants aren’t left waiting.
Welcoming attitude: You don’t need to be a professional facilitator, but a friendly demeanor goes a long way. Greet participants warmly and help them understand what to expect from the session.
Inclusivity: Be mindful and respectful of people’s different identities, experiences, needs and ways of participating.
Naming conventions: Make sure your session’s name and description accurately reflect its content and what participants can expect.
Scheduling: Everyone can create sessions, but please be mindful of other hosts when scheduling something with a similar theme or purpose at the same time.
Connection: Meaningful connections often form through FLOWN, but we don’t encourage sharing personal information such as email addresses or phone numbers. Respect people’s privacy and be cautious when communicating outside the platform.
What we don’t expect from hosts
Put your own work aside: After opening the session and setting intentions, you should be able to settle into your own work and focus alongside everyone else.
Provide counselling, crisis support or personal advice: You can respond with kindness, but you aren’t responsible for supporting someone beyond the purpose of the session. If you’re concerned about someone’s wellbeing, use the reporting tools or contact the FLOWN team so we can assess the situation and decide what follow-up may be appropriate.
Resolve personal disagreements between members: You can redirect the conversation, set a boundary or remove someone from the session to de-escalate the situation, but you don’t need to mediate a conflict.
Investigate or manage serious incidents alone: The FLOWN team is here to help with anything that needs investigating or following up. Use the reporting tools and contact us with any additional information or context.
🤔 Not sure what to do? You don’t have to make every decision alone! If you’re ever uncertain about how to handle a situation, contact the FLOWN team. We’re happy to offer guidance, talk through what happened and help decide whether any further action is needed.
Creating an inclusive space
People join FLOWN from all over the world, bringing different cultures, backgrounds, experiences and ways of working. That variety is one of the best things about the community.
What brings everyone together is a common goal: showing up for ourselves, and focusing alongside others.
Offer different ways to participate
Let people know they can speak, use the chat, share privately or simply listen. You might say: “You’re welcome to share aloud or in the chat - and it’s always fine to pass.”
💡Tip: Participants can use the three-dot menu on their own video tile to temporarily update their name during a session. Adding something like “Skip me for sharing” or “Listening today” is a simple way to communicate without interrupting the session.
Give sharing a clear route
Sometimes a room falls silent because nobody knows who should go first—not because people don’t want to contribute. Giving the sharing a simple structure can remove that uncertainty.
💡Tip: Pass the baton. Explain that you’ll invite the first person, and that each person can choose who shares next. For example: “I’ll ask Alex to begin. When you’ve finished, please pass the baton to someone else. You can always pass if you’d rather not share.”
You can also begin by sharing your own intention before passing the baton to someone else to break the ice and set the example.
Be clear about cameras and other session expectations
Let people know in advance how the session will work, including anything you expect around cameras, sharing, music, movement or participation.
Cameras can make body doubling feel more powerful, but keeping a camera off may be what allows someone to participate. When something is important to your session format, include it in the description and briefly repeat it at the beginning.
💡Tip: Add the key expectations to the chat when the session begins. This gives new arrivals something to refer to and makes it easier to redirect someone later without singling them out.
Make instructions easy to follow
Briefly explain what participants are doing, how long they have and what will happen next. Adding prompts and key details to the chat gives people something to refer back to.
💡Tip: A clear limit can help intention-setting stay focused. For example:
“Share your top three priorities.”
“Describe your intention in ten words or fewer.”
“Write your intention in the Intentions panel first, and then we’ll go around the room.”
Stay curious rather than making assumptions
People may participate differently for reasons that aren’t immediately visible. Focus on what is happening in the session rather than trying to interpret someone’s behaviour or motivation.
If you need to check in, use a neutral question or private message instead of asking them to explain themselves in front of the group.
💡 Tip: Describe what you’ve noticed rather than what you think it means. For example, “I’m checking that you can hear us and have everything you need,” rather than “You don’t seem engaged.”
Make activities adaptable
When leading movement, offer a simple alternative. For example: “You can join the movement, stretch in your own way or use this time to pause.”
💡Tip: Remind participants that they can adapt or sit out an activity without needing to explain why.
Respect names, identities and experiences
Use the name someone has chosen and be thoughtful about differences in language, culture, identity and communication style. Members may include a pronunciation guide on their FLOWN profile.
💡Tip: It’s always fine to ask. A simple “Could you help me pronounce your name correctly?” shows that you care about getting it right. If you make a mistake, correct it briefly and move on without making the person manage the moment.
Adding sparkle ✨
Time and again, we see hosts bring a little of their personality, experience or interests into the way they run a session. FLOWN is a human-powered platform, and that individuality is part of what makes it sparkle.
Your style might show up in:
How you welcome participants
The prompts or questions you use
The energy or type of recharges you lead
The format or theme of your session
The music you choose
How much interaction and sharing you encourage
A great way to develop your own hosting style is to attend both facilitated sessions and sessions run by other Community Hosts. Notice what helps you feel welcome, what supports your focus and which small touches you might adapt in your own way.
💡Tip: Less can create more. A clear structure, a few thoughtful touches and space to focus will often make a stronger session than a packed agenda.
Tips from FLOWN Facilitators
Our FLOWN facilitators spend a lot of time hosting sessions, and they’ve picked up plenty of small tricks along the way. Here are a few of their favorites.
Don’t aim for perfection
If you’re new to hosting, allow yourself to be new.
A small mistake doesn’t make you a bad host, and it doesn’t need to become a stumbling block. Notice what worked, adjust what didn’t and keep going.
As Karla puts it, practice helps.
Partner with the room
Hosting can feel much more natural when you remember that you’re part of the session too.
Simple language can reinforce that feeling:
“We’re all here together to get some work done.”
“I’m looking forward to focusing alongside all of you.”
Find the right pace
Pacing a session takes a little practice. You want to give people enough time to respond without letting pauses or sharing take over the flow.
At the same time, you don’t need to wait indefinitely. If they don’t respond after a few seconds, move on warmly and let them know you can come back to them.
“No worries, I’ll come back to you in a moment.”
“Let’s keep this to around 30 seconds each so everyone gets a chance to share.”
If someone runs over, it’s okay to step in and bring the group back to the schedule. Keeping time protects everyone’s experience.
Prepare a few things you can lean on
A little preparation can make the session feel much easier to host, without scripting every moment.
That could be your welcome message, intention-setting prompt, recharge instructions or anything else you don’t want to recreate in the moment.
Connect with the room
It can make your delivery feel warmer and more direct, even though it may feel slightly odd at first.
Acknowledge without needing to fix
You don’t need to find the perfect response or solve what they’ve shared. Acknowledge it, give them space, and continue when it feels appropriate.
Let yourself enjoy it
There was one theme that came through from almost everyone: be yourself.
You don’t need to turn up the energy or become an entertainer. Bring the parts of yourself that feel natural, and let the session grow from there.
When your session needs a little extra support
Even a well-planned session may need a small adjustment. Our guide to handling challenges covers setting boundaries, redirecting conversations, using host controls and responding when someone’s behaviour affects the room.