Informal Governance Working Group Meeting Transcript

Kate B: Hello.

Daniel T: Hello.

Kate B: Hello.

Julian (Bambi): Hello.

Daniel T: Lovely to see you all.

Kate B: Yes. Okay, and Bambi... How are we all doing? Daniel, how are you? You compressed?

Celine V: I think you should be able to hear me now, right? Just checking.

Celine V: Perfect.

Kate B: Okay. Nice. Okay. I'm just messaging Bambi. Okay, so let's see if he joins. Super happy to be here with you all. Let's... I thought there's a lot to work on for the governance working group and, like-

Daniel T: Yeah.

Kate B: ... there's hundreds of pages. So instead of trying to dive in solving all the problems, I thought it would be a nice idea just to learn a little bit more about how we approach this topic. Hi, Bambi. We're just starting. We're gonna do a check-in, and maybe just feel free to say a couple of words about yourself as well, because some of us haven't met each other. So the check-in question is: What is your understanding of the goal and mission of this work, and how would you or how do you approach it? So I'll put that in the chat. And yeah, just a couple of words about yourself as well. We have two minutes for each.

Daniel T: That's... I've-- Maybe I'll start.

Celine V: Great.

Daniel T: Or no. Celine, what-

Celine V: Go for it.

Daniel T: You can start.

Celine V: All good. Go for it.

Daniel T: Okay. Well, that seems like a lot to answer in two minutes. But hi, I'm Daniel. I'm on the board of the association. I care a lot about governance. I really want this to be an association that's owned by its members, where its members make the important decisions, where there is transparency, where... Like, it is genuinely controlled by the members rather than sort of theoretically controlled by the members. And I think that's also in our statutes that really matters that we implement that correctly. Like, you know, there's also a legal requirement for this. So my understanding of the mission is to set up the right distributed decision-making structure so that we support this community-owned association rather than sort of get it wrong. Which, you know, the fact that it's in the statutes doesn't mean that it can't be somehow end up controlled by a small number of people or have broken decision-making processes that never end up with anything, like gets paralyzed. And there's a fine balance to take between opening up as much as possible, but having clear decision-making structures that distribute authority clearly and explicitly so that people know what they can do, what they can vote on. They know what control, what power they have. And most importantly, so that when something happens that they disagree with, they still feel like they were part of the decision-making process. So it's not like every time a decision happens that you don't agree with, you start to feel disenfranchised, and you say, "Okay, it's not actually my association." So that's an important factor for me, that people stay engaged even when they disagree with the decision. So hopefully that's a good two-minute intro.

Kate B: Very good two minutes. Well done. Who would like to go next?

Celine V: I'm happy to go next. So I'm Celine. I'm very happy to be in that call. I had a very interesting conversation with Daniel during the Elsewhere about the whole governance structure. I'm Swiss originally, and we had also an interesting discussion about how to bring a little bit of Swissness in, and maybe a small teaser there. In Switzerland, if you don't know, we always have this booklet that gives you information about the votation that you're gonna vote about. And I think what we need to make sure jointly is that we take the decision there where the information is, right? So we don't really need to take all the decisions, not in the board, not with all the members, but always where the power of information is. And I would love to enable with something similar like a booklet or it's an idea to start with that we have the right level of information especially when we take broad decisions with many people to make sure that we take informed decisions. And I think one risk that we have in general, that's not only now for the Elsewhere, but it's that we get a bit fatigued by decisions, and I would like to jointly ensure that this doesn't happen. And yeah, that's about it, about me. Very excited to work with you guys.

Julian (Bambi): I can-

Kate B: Awesome.

Julian (Bambi): I can follow up on that. Hello, everybody. I'm Bambi, and I've well, been with Flying Tomato for a long time, Camply together with Kate. So we have a good friendship there, and we work together well. And I think what's maybe what's also interesting for the group to know is that I work for Amnesty International Germany, which is an association, a very old association. With 35,000 members and very old and rusty decision processes and unclear things. So-

Julian (Bambi): ... my maybe what I can add to the good points that have been already given is from the governance point of view I think what's important is also besides, yeah, sounds great to have decision structures that actually bring to decisions and that people, members feel part of this in some way. But also kind of stay on a practical level and thinking about how much information, how much work it was, for example, to provide an information package for the go/no go decision, and that we need people, we need capacity to also provide the information for example, for a booklet and so on. So step one, I think, and that's already part of the agenda, have a, an idea of segmentation of decisions, like which type of decisions are taken where to offload, to reduce load on other areas, so to say. And yeah, keep in mind, have it-- find a way to make it practicable to have a structure that enables everybody to take decisions without then offloading the effort to create information, complete informations to just few people. Yeah. And yeah, and segmentation of the decisions. That's it for now.

Kate B: Thank you. Ben.

Ben D: Yes. So good to see you all. I don't think I have much to add to what everybody else has proposed so far. It all, it all seems very correct to me. I guess I would just say simply that my hope is to contribute to the design of an organization that makes its members or that allows its members to feel empowered and informed to contribute to decision-making. So people feel that this is their organization that they are responsible for. And in terms of the how of that, I mean, I think as I said, you've, you've offered plenty, no? Like decision-making structure, decision-making hierarchy of how or of which kinds of decisions are taken where, the decision-making process, including the Swiss info packet, which I'm not super educated on the Swiss model, but from what I understand from afar, it seems like there's a lot to take from that. How to organize the voting, all those kinds of practical questions I think is yeah, the way to go. And I just noticed the little beard you're growing there, Daniel, which suits you. I like that. Nice one.

Kate B: How are you wearing a beanie? What's happening in the mountains?

Ben D: I'm just, I'm just setting my hair after the shower. It's just my 15 minutes just to get the shape in and then it's coming off.

Kate B: I see, the new shape. Love that for you.

Kate B: Cool. Thanks everyone. I guess my take on this question, I'm just gonna look at it again. Yeah, I think lots of really good points. Like just to reflect back a little bit what I heard, opening up as much as possible, but distributing power and access participatory to able-- enable it to actually work. I think this is really good. Like we want it to be people to feel really empowered and informed and know that this is their association and that they can contribute to decision-making. And like getting this effectively working I think is such an interesting challenge. I've been part of many organizations where this has been the goal and like we fall down in so many ways, one of which is decision fatigue, one of which is like decentralized theater where people look like they have access to make things, but nothing really changes. So I think one of them is information overload as well. Like I'm very... I think we're kind of drowning in an age of AI info, over info, and I'm like really curious about how do we help our currently 140 associados and other participants in this community like get the information without like drowning, which is such a beautiful design challenge. So that's exciting. And I think that my take on like the goal and the mission is like that this working group, like whoever joins it and whoever, how we get the mandate for that is still not clear, works to ensure that NCA governs effectively with full compliance to the statutes and uses our principles around participation, transparency, durability to benefit all elsewhere and all volunteers. I think the high level goal is that we make the best possible-- we help make the best possible burn that there could be in a, via this association. Cool. I think that was over two minutes. Sorry. Okay. So any like the check-in round, how I run facilitation is usually like we don't back and forth on each answers, but are there any like comments that you just wanna add in before we move to the next section? Anything like any patterns that stood out that someone would like to nod to? Cool. Okay. So in the or anything that just before we get started on the agenda, which I sent in the email is there anything that we feel like is really missing from this? Because we do have 50 minutes left and the agenda is quite long. But if there's something like, "Oh my God, we don't have this in this call," that's like not safe enough to try, please tell me now. So we're gonna start, like try to clarify a bit around this mission and mandate. See if we can even get to some like basic principles together, and I can share a document on this. There's a bit of repetition there. Yeah, I think that the mandate needs to be-- Currently how I interpret the statutes is that the mandate is given by the board. This is-- we're in this chicken egg situation with many things right now, but I think that we could propose a mandate perhaps. We wanna get towards like nutting out a bit of this high level governance, like the framework, how do we help people decide? You know, I don't think we're gonna get really into the details of, in this hour of the decision types. Like is it a GA only, high impact decision, medium, low. That's maybe for another time. Who is the working group and how do we work? That seems important because from this we should be going out like a bit more clear. Like we may be able to break into small groups. We may need to bring on some other people. We have the Thursday night call coming up tomorrow. We, I think we're meant to be talking a bit in that. And like what's on our like timeline actually. This seems quite important. Like... Yeah, I'll stop there. Daniel, you had a point?

Daniel T: Yeah, just that one of the things that's kind of like meta that's sort of missing, it's sort of present in the agenda, but like around the mandate and so on, is like, you know, we are talking about having a transparent decision process that empowers like the whole community and so on. And we haven't, you know, this meeting hasn't really been announced publicly. We haven't really invited everybody. This is kind of like an early working group. We need to start involving, like opening this up and involving, like at least opening to input. Like basically somehow it needs to enable much more people to feel part of this process fairly soon. Otherwise it might start to feel like, well, it's just a group of people that's proposing something, and it might create division just by the nature of being a smaller group that's not actively involving others. And that feels kind of relevant to all the points on the agenda.

Kate B: So maybe there's like a question I have is like, what is... Like can we involve people in the process as, but still be a group that has a mandate and is able to work effectively and efficiently together? Or is it, is your opinion that anyone should be able to join at all times?

Daniel T: Well, I think there is ultimately like a maximum group size to be able to actually work effectively together. But there is also probably a way that there can be some kind of and this is something we can discuss, but some kind of democratic opening about like selecting who is on this working group or like, you know, why they want... Like 'cause right now, you know, you are on this working group because you stepped in to do the governance, like governance coordination at a time when we really needed it, and that's a good reason. But is it a good enough reason for everybody? I don't know. It would be good to get validation of that. For me, that's a good enough reason. Like you're, you were there, you helped when it was needed, and you're passionate about this, and you wanna get started right away. But it would be good to get more buy-in from more people so that everybody recognizes that, yes, this is the right group to be working on this.

Kate B: Cool. Any answers to this or do you have new points, Julian and Ben? If it's an answer to this, go ahead. Julian's first.

Julian (Bambi): Yeah. It's kind of... I guess it ties to the mandate question of the group. And in general also other groups, like I think we could take or like, not we, but my impression is that the board could say we need a certain amount of working groups for certain areas and makes-- And we need to decide how, but makes kind of an open call and define some-- we define some constraints or like rank criterias to what, how does this group look like and what does it do. But then we can also start to work, I would say, and keep it practical. And my point was actually this, in my opinion, this is valid for all the working groups. So I think first of all, we should also talk about what is a working group for. As an example of that, in my work context, working groups of these types are called in by the board to help the board take certain decisions or to offload some work from the board. And so that's still a mandate from, directly from the board. So that could be an option.

Kate B: Ben?

Ben D: Yeah. So just echoing that, obviously the, it presents us with the kind of generic question of how like how formally a working group is constituted so that this is an interesting test case for that. And hopefully at the same time we can be, yeah, codifying that process and answering those questions to be doing it for other working groups in the future. What I'm feeling there is like we need a short initial period of maybe a week or however long it takes to put out that open call for interest in this particular group. And then once it's constituted that, you know, the possibility of others joining later might be a separate question, but my feeling is like it would be good to have that- ... engagement from the beginning, but that compensating for that or alongside that, it might just be that it's a relatively consultative process, no? That there is a, say, a closed or semi-closed working group that also is communicating its decision-making, its deliberations, getting feedback and polling and as it goes through as well, so that there is-- people can still be included without necessarily having the full commitment, the full engagement of being in the working group.

Kate B: Yeah. Nice one. Celine?

Celine V: I very much agree with what has been said. So I would kind of like set up a short application process. But jointly we should make sure that we get some speed there to make sure that we can then actually get into the work. From my perspective so it's good to have some motivational aspect in there, so some motivation letter or something like that, and also the knowledge and skills. If, for instance, I'm then not elected, I'm super happy to give up the spot, right? I think that's a bit the mentality that we should have in this group as well. Whoever is best and will bring that further should join. So I just want to commit that I'm super happy with that and just be part of like the kickoff group.

Kate B: Cool. That's-- I think I'm trying to capture this in the questions in the chat. Daniel, did you have another response on this?

Daniel T: Yeah. Just to like kind of wrap around what, like what we've all been saying there. There's... Like right now, the only, like the only democratic process that's happened was the board election. So the only kind of democratic authority there is in the board. I believe very strongly that authority is on loan. And if the board doesn't prove to be worthy of that trust, then the authority will like fritter away very rapidly, which is why I'm very keen for us to put in good governance processes. But we have this kind of chicken and egg situation now, that in order to set up working groups, we need a democratic way to set up working groups, but we don't have one, and so we need to set one up. But like who sets one up? And right now that has to come to some degree from the board. And it-- I'm very keen, and this is-- I'm not speaking for the board there, I'm speaking for myself. Ben can speak for himself and we can discuss this on the board's-- board meeting tomorrow. But I'm very keen that the process is as open to the community as possible so that they feel like, you know, the governance process wasn't sort of designed in secret by some people they don't know, they didn't have any input, they didn't have transparency and so on. That's partly why. So I've got... I will create minutes and we can discuss to what to what degree we want them sanitized or not, and so on. But the-- I think it would be very beneficial for us to publish minutes of these meetings and so on to have them like very public and auditable by the whole community so that as quickly as possible we make this a community process rather than a board process. So we kind of bootstrap it with some board authority, but like be the first democratic working group as quickly as possible, which I appreciate is a challenge.

Kate B: Do you wanna go, Ben?

Daniel T: I think he just didn't lower his hand.

Ben D: Oh, no. Sorry. I was okay.

Kate B: I have a kind of response to that, which I think is like, I agree, like we need to make like as many like ways as possible that people can access the process, but there needs to be some like limits I think on just otherwise we won't be able to do work or be effective, which is kind of like... How did I think about it? Like the where I would see it is like a governance working group is a bunch of people that have said, "I will take responsibility to get some of this work done," and our role would be to propose with research and reasoning and input, and then the community decides based off that. I think like the other extreme is to say like the community should decide everything, but they don't necessarily have, or they might not have time to have read the whole statutes, and they may not have experience in like designing governance processes or being in associations. So I think like the people we wanna have in this group should have some expertise in order to actually make this much easier for people to participate in. And then that's where there's like a bit of a boundary. And so like the group has-- should have like a size, 'cause over like six people seven people, things start, can start to get hard to schedule even with different time zones, with this being volunteer work, with people having jobs. And then there could be like a way that, you know, I agree with Celine, like we should be trying to get the best people for the job in here, and if there's like a contestation of that like let's have a way for people to contest that or to indicate their interest and like... Yeah, I don't know. I guess the mandate does need to be called by the board. And I guess this question of like how the lead is nominated seems pretty important, but like we don't wanna get too bureaucratic, right? Like otherwise we'll be, we're still, we'll be on like how does the chicken and egg solution get solved for a very long time.

Daniel T: Can I speak?

Kate B: Your hand's up.

Daniel T: Okay. I'm wondering if it might make sense to like have a kind-- we can start working on this, but to organize in parallel as a very first bit of governance A kind of election of the governance team where, you know, anyone can apply and it's just like the-- we say how many people we want on this working group, let's say six people, for example, and then the people who get the six most numbers of votes are then explicitly selected by the community to be on this working group. And it doesn't have to be as-- I think it shouldn't be quite as complicated as the board election process, because that actually took a lot of work, as Ben and I can confirm. The applications were quite involved. But maybe some kind of slightly lighter application process, and then that is the group that is empowered to work on this, basically. That might make sense. And then we set the parameters of that, but then we trust the community to select the right people to work on this.

Ben D: So it would just be like a Google Form now with a couple of questions on it that people can fill out, and then you said you wanted to put it to a vote. So it-- what kind of vote would that be? Who would be voting? My initial-

Daniel T: Sociato's.

Ben D: Right. My initial reflex was, of course, if we're going for speed, then actually a board vote would be better, no? But if it's gonna be a Sociato vote, then we're gonna organize a... I think we're about 200 now or more people for next week, for end of next week or to just visit the new idea.

Kate B: Is there another way to do this that's like working with decentralized decision-making processes which does not default automatically to polling or voting each time? Like could be like consent-based or a advice process. Like, the thing is by defaulting straight to a vote on the first topic it's kind of setting the scene for how we will do governance, and I think that it's like potentially problematic to try to vote on everything all the time.

Celine V: I think that's a very good point, and I do have a suggestion there. So what we could do is that the-- So we have the applications then the board selects and gives a proposal to the whole community. So we have kind of like a check-in, maybe not tomorrow in the community call, but for the next one, and you just ask, "Are there any informed objections against this proposal?" And then people can speak up. And like this you can ensure that everybody had the chance to speak up, but you don't have to discuss the details with everyone.

Kate B: That sounds quite good to me. And then there could be like, are there any informed like objections, and also are there people that would also like to be in this? And then from there, I guess like with the if we adopt a mission that we're doing the best we possibly can for NCA and elsewhere, I wanna be able to trust in this group that we'll do that. And like, if there's someone that comes in and is like clearly way more experienced than me and like has the time, I'm happy to step aside. And I kind of like would expect all of us would do that at some level. I don't know if that's naive. Ben?

Ben D: So just one detail that occurs to me with that is that if I was involved, like running that process or involved in that process, then I think it would also be important the personal individual communication with each applicant. Because I'm thinking of the applicant who makes an application but who is not taken into the proposal group. Then I feel like it's important to send that message, "Thank you for applying. These are the, these are the reasons why we thought it would be better composed otherwise." And yeah, that's just kind of a process detail that comes to my mind that would also soothe some ruffled feathers potentially.

Kate B: Okay. I just wanna pull us back to the agenda and like notice that we are deep in the governance, like the process of. I think, and I think it's important, this is important. Do we have... Like, I would like to get us back to trying to figure out some principles for how we approach this work, 'cause that might be more helpful as like swimming lanes to help like direct us. Because I think every time otherwise we can go down on a vertical like mandates, who's in the group, how often the decision should be, what's the, you know, how do we decide about ratifying the board decisions? And every time we're gonna get down to like here, whereas if we got... I mean, if we have some high-level principles that we can all agree to, that could help us. And a mission, let's say, that could help us, yeah, be more effective. What I mean by this is... I wrote some like random principles based off a whole bunch of notes that Daniel had sent me, but also like how we approached some of the go/no-go process and also, yeah, just brainstorming, and I wanted to like see how these sit with you. Okay. Wait. I'm just putting them in the chat, but that didn't work. So does anyone... Yeah. So the first one would be the working group proposes with reasoning and the community decides. The second one is governance is durable enough that... Wait. Governance is durable enough that even a bad faith board can only do limited recoverable damage, and light enough that people actually show up to use it. Votes bind policy and budget, not operational execution. If a decision can be made by a coordinator or working group, it should be. Governance is decentralized and lean. It exists to make better community driven decisions, not as an end in itself. We are accountable, open, and transparent, and lastly, participatory. The association is accountable to the wider elsewhere community, and its decisions should be visible and open to challenge by that community. Any red flags or things that seem really missing? Obviously, this is just main-

Daniel T: Yeah. I think-

Kate B: ... thought

Daniel T: ... as a principle, and I think it's important to state that as a principle, is that we trust the community's wisdom. Because otherwise, it's very easy to design governance processes that are kind of like, you know, infantilizing people and saying, "Oh, we need to, you know, pre-select and pre-true and do this." There is obviously some... I think there should be a filter of a kind of governance group or working group or something so that invalid governance doesn't get proposed for a vote, for example. But a fundamental principle should be to trust the community and not be like, "Oh, we can't, we can't..." Like, 'cause I've seen that happen so many times in so many environments. It's like, "Oh, we can't trust people to make this decision. They're not smart enough. They're not informed enough. They don't know enough. They can't know the ticket numbers. They can't know this. They can't know that." And then the more we fall down this, that hole, the more it becomes true because the more you infantilize people, the more they behave like children, and then it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I think it should be a founding principle of governance, of our governance thing, to trust the community's decision-making. Thanks for pasting it.

Kate B: I mean, there's obviously draft and they need some back and forth. Yes. So I think if we get a clear mandate, the details of that obviously to be decided and figure out who's in this group and why, and then we agree on what's our mission, that can help us as we start to go into which type of decision is this? How do we make it? And these principles are helping us guide ourselves. So this is just a draft, very draft proposal. Where are we on the... I'm just checking in on the... Okay, we did mission and mandate. So just to check on that, does anyone feel like they could go away, and Selina, I heard some clarity from you, and my-- if you're up for it to draft out what might need to happen in terms of the process you outlined, going to the community call and with the-- some members proposed saying, "Is there any objections to this? Who else wants to be considered to be involved?" And then how we might get the mandate from the board. Would you be up for framing that out?

Celine V: Sure. I mean, from my side, I'm super happy to help and to able, enable the decision-making for this working group, for sure. I think we just need a little bit more time than the call of tomorrow.

Kate B: Yeah.

Celine V: But we wanna get operational, so I think that's a bit what we should talk about if we all agree that this is the right way to go. So just to phrase out what I would propose, having the selection process, the board decides, and then in a community call, we ask if there are any informed objections.

Celine V: Does that make sense to everyone or any informed objections here?

Daniel T: I-- So I feel like it's important to say something tomorrow, and I'm happy to come up with something and run it past you and see what you think about some kind of statement. But we need to say something about the fact that this is happening and to... Like, we are effectively borrowing authority from the board, and it makes sense for a board member to mention this tomorrow on the community call and to say, "Oh, hey, here's what we're trying to do to kind of bootstrap this governance into existence." and I have some slight hesitation about the we're gonna propose something and it's this or the highway type of approach. I think there needs to be a more nuanced thing than just, oh, I have an objection that's gonna slow down everything and cause a car crash of delayed decisions and stuff like that. There needs to be some kind of way for people to enter and or to influence this without stopping it. Which I think the, we propose this, and if you have any objections, it stops everything, which is the way I'm understanding the model at the moment, does have that concern for me because we have some decisions that are quite urgent, like around dates and around governance itself. And so we need a way for people to object and participate in some kind of way without stopping everything. Hope that makes sense.

Ben D: If I may, perhaps I misunderstood 'cause I thought what was proposed before was that the board would select the working group composition and then that working group composition would be presented to the members for potential objections if somebody wanted to comment on that, not the initial this is how we're gonna create the working group itself proposal tomorrow that somebody would object to. No, no, I don't think the board should select candidates. I didn't think we would be doing that. So maybe I misunderstood. Like the question I guess is where is the The Associados objection or input actually sought, I thought it would be later in the process rather than earlier, the community call tomorrow being to inform of this group's idea, the board's proposal to proceed, and then I would think if somebody had feelings about that, then they would apply to the group, you know, and that would be the way to participate at that point.

Daniel T: That would make sense to me if we like, 'cause that then feels like a way to object without stopping the process. 'Cause otherwise, you know, it's, it, that is a tool to sort of manipulate groups is to say, "Well, you know, you can object, but if you object, you know, there'll be all these terrible consequences, and that will be on you because you objected." And definitely don't want us to do that. And not suggesting that was the idea, but that's the, like that was an interpretation that I felt some members might make if they feel like the only objection they can do is to stop the process. But if we can object by participating in the process, that might be more dynamic.

Julian (Bambi): Yeah. I think one point that will be good is to inform, if there are some decisions that we need to take in the next weeks about dates that you mentioned, Daniel, to make that very clear that we need a working governance group to take these decisions and that can help everybody get more context, no? And understand if there's urgency, the urgency.

Daniel T: I can take on drafting something to, like some key points that I would mention tomorrow to run past all of you so that if you have any objections to how I'm phrasing those points, you can you know, intervene.

Kate B: Ben?

Ben D: Could I propose that perhaps the presentation tomorrow doesn't come from a board member, but from some other member of this group?

Daniel T: I disagree 'cause I think, like it is coming-- like the authority to do this is coming from the board. 'Cause otherwise it would be like, "Okay, let's do a full democratic process to select people to be on the working group and so on." And the fact that we're speeding this up to a degree is by deriving board... Like by using board authority. And we want to stop doing that as quickly as possible, but we are doing that initially.

Ben D: Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I cut you off just because I know I'm agreeing with you. Actually, like that yeah, at this point, actually it is the board that is saying we're gonna make an executive decision to do this, and we wanna do it the best way possible, and this is how we're gonna proceed.

Kate B: So two questions. I mean, one is not a question, it's a note of like, obviously this kickstart the retroactive selection and process for all working groups, which is cool. And then the next one being like who then decides of-- if people wanna object and therefore be part of the group? Like who decides who's in this group?

Ben D: My hand's still up, so, I mean, I-- my suggestion before was that it would be the board that would be proposing the original composition.

Kate B: So the board would then propose all members of all working groups?

Ben D: I think that-

Kate B: Not follow-

Ben D: I mean, maybe it can happen parallel to this, but the vision that comes is actually that working groups would like if there was a process for it, that the process would be kickstarted by submission to... A submission by somebody to the board. Anybody can submit a proposal for a working group or perhaps any minimum group of people can propose, can submit proposals for the formulation of working groups. That's how I would imagine it could be done. Eventually, you could have a particular working group, it might even be the go-- you know, within the governance group's remit to assess those proposals. No?

Daniel T: Yeah. Yeah, that would be a way... I mean, that it is a possible process, but where there would be a submission, some kind of approval by the board and or like an approval by a governance group that filters those groups, and then maybe ratification by the general assembly at the next general assembly that, okay, this working group is okay. That could be a way to... But we can discuss that in later meetings.

Julian (Bambi): Yeah.

Celine V: And this is something that will be defined by the governance group, right? I mean, okay. Because I guess we should wait until that's formed and then we can define that. Because when we said before we will take the decision where the information is, yeah, we should make sure that we follow this principle because I very much agree with that principle, so that maybe not everything has to go through the board if it's already very clear how the working group should be formed. But the governance one, I think it's good if it comes from board.

Kate B: Also we can-- like one of the things we can do in governance and change in the GA under the Article 7.7 is like to change the RRI, the regolamento, the regimen interno, and like that as we... Like those are like the statutes. Like, not the statutes, but like how we can govern, and that we could change it so that the new working group election process is different, for example, in that first decision in the first GA.

Ben D: Yeah, 'cause it's all... In the end it's all like delegated board authority that is codified by the internal regulations or the statutes. And that board authority obviously is then actually the democratically elected authority, right? But it could just be a rubber stamp process where the working group advises yes to form the-- so the governance working group is advising yes to form this working group, and then it just goes as a formality through a board vote.

Kate B: Okay. Do we feel like we-

Celine V: Do we agree then? Yeah.

Kate B: Sorry.

Celine V: Go ahead. Sorry, Kate.

Kate B: You can close this given that I think you're taking on this little-

Celine V: Yeah. I was just saying that I really like the proposal Daniel, that you would prepare something and then maybe circle it around and have to give some feedback or also support if you need it.

Daniel T: We're all in the same WhatsApp group, right?

Celine V: Yeah.

Daniel T: Or can we add Ben and-

Celine V: Not yet.

Daniel T: ... Bambi.

Celine V: Yeah.

Kate B: Should we just use a private channel on the Discord?

Daniel T: Why is-- Yeah. I mean, I'm not very keen on private channels but I suppose WhatsApp group is the same thing.

Kate B: I mean, I don't know. I'm not very keen on WhatsApp.

Daniel T: I'm okay to use WhatsApp instead. Can we try doing this just in the governance channel on Discord? Is it-- What's wrong with the public channel? Like we're not discussing any great state secrets here.

Kate B: I guess in the favor of like decentralized and lean, like-

Daniel T: Mm-hmm

Kate B: ... where we need to like move very quickly with like high context, high information, I think having like full on is like not lean.

Celine V: I agree in the sense of also you can create some misunderstandings, right? Because maybe you just shoot out a proposal and you have some words and expressions in there that might seem wrong to the community, and we can still work it through in the small rounds. So sometimes they're a private channel. Actually open for both.

Daniel T: I'm kind of feeling drawn to that principle added at the end there, the trust the community. Like this is a very-- like there's a lot of smart people in this community. The ones who are gonna be interested in governance usually are gonna be the ones who have, you know, useful thoughts about it.

Kate B: I don't think we're saying that we don't think they're smart.

Daniel T: Mm-hmm.

Kate B: I'm saying that the way like information, like teams need to work on things is not necessarily in public open all the time. So it would be a proposal that a working group can opt to do. We can give information wherever possible and make all the, like notes transparent and make it like ways for them to find it. But I don't necessarily agree with like doing our work out loud in a public channel. I don't agree with that.

Daniel T: Mm-hmm.

Celine V: Should we vote about it? I mean, we're five.

Ben D: Vote.

Celine V: So that's maybe a good first exercise. Closed or open?

Ben D: All I would just add to that, Daniel, is that I don't feel it's a question of respecting or not, or trusting or not the individual's potential to contribute or goodwill. But I like, on top of what Kate said, it's like actually giving people the sufficient like avenue to contribute. You know? Like I, if I just leave a door open and someone just pops their head in and takes a quick look and then just like shouts their two cents and leaves, it doesn't mean that they're not a quality, trustworthy person. It just means that they've been like invited into a room where they actually should have been here since the beginning to contribute productively, you know? So I think that's the principle for me, is like let's just set the conditions that people can contribute productively and not waste their time, yeah, contributing in an uninformed way.

Daniel T: Hmm. I mean, I'd like to register my disagreement with this. I ran a company for 10 years, and I found that I stopped doing private channels, especially when I thought, "Oh, this is, this idea is not right. I'm working on the share scheme, the incentive scheme and stuff. Actually, this needs to be like ready before I show it to other people." And actually, those were the ones where I had the most fruitful contributions from other people, where they told me quite early on, "Actually, no, this is wrong because of this." Like, and they were quite-- like they're popping their head in and saying, "Hey, actually, I don't agree with this." Helps me not waste loads of time building a share scheme that everybody would have immediately disagreed with, and directed my attention in the right places. So my experience suggests the opposite, that having the door open is really helpful, and it also builds enormous amounts of trust and buy-in from the community.

Kate B: Is it correct then or is it that there are no like private channels at all, even in the board?

Daniel T: I, for the last three years of my time at Grant Tree, I just refused to participate in any private channels. And-

Kate B: In the-

Daniel T: ... we might have had private channels, but I wasn't in them, and I was the founder, CEO. I was involved in most of the important things that were going on.

Kate B: I'm talking about the current situation. So is it correct that all channels that we have-

Ben D: But no, the board channels are completely-

Daniel T: I know there are some private channels. I just agree with you

Ben D: ... there's a whole bunch of board channels that are private. Yeah.

Daniel T: And I consider-- I personally consider that a problem, but like I'm not the... you know, there are seven other people on the board, so they get to decide also. There's that, and there's five other-- four other people on this call, so you know, that's... Yeah.

Kate B: Okay. I mean, I-- again, I Celine, I like your idea to vote, but I also like the idea of using different decision-making protocols that are not always like, you know, majority based or like consent based or advice process. We can always also use a vote. What do you think might be a good way to resolve this?

Celine V: I mean, I also think it's important to recognize, as we said before, this is just an interim working group, right? So the decision and the governance should anyways be taken or the decision should be taken after. We, I think it's fine at interim to agree how do we now work together, because we know that our main goal is to kick things off. And there, if we're private or not, I think both is valid. People should give us and we should trust the community the benefit of the doubt if we do a mistake in an open channel, but also if we decide to short term short term have a closed one. So to be honest, I think we can briefly vote and be pragmatic and just go for one solution, if you agree.

Kate B: Mm-hmm.

Celine V: And then actually do the... Because the conversation is interesting and we need the principle, do we have closed channels or not? But then actually take the decision when the group is formed and we have a setup.

Kate B: Okay. So it's interim process until proper group assembled. Is there a proposal? Well, I propose to work in Discord in a private governance interim working group channel, and publish all information as possible to the public governance channel.

Daniel T: Since you also proposed the, this kind of like let's propose something and see if there's objections, maybe I would propose that we start with this as a starting thing, but we do ask if there are objections in the call tomorrow. And if there are some objections to private channels for governance, we consider them, and we consider changing our stance.

Celine V: I like that. Yeah. Would you include that directly in your-

Daniel T: Yeah.

Celine V: ... kind of like proposal that you're making?

Daniel T: Yes. That's how I would say, like we've, we're currently working in a private channel, and we are curious what, how people feel about that. Like, and I'm happy, like maybe Kate, you can, or anybody else, you can draft some reasons for the private channels, and I can list them out in the call, or you can read them out in the call, and we can have a little conversation for like, you know, 10, 15 minutes on the community call tomorrow and see what the feedback from the community is about this.

Celine V: Mm-hmm. And maybe just important if you want to point out that private channels can be useful. It's important to state, hey, it's not about intransparency, but it's also not for the information overflow, right? I think that's what a, what you're protecting the community from a little bit with private channels. So we can maybe list advantages and disadvantages. Yeah.

Daniel T: I-

Celine V: But then also, I guess if we do the objection thingy, we should always have our recommendation or maybe then the recommendation from you or from the board, because if not, it's, it's hard to object, right? Yeah.

Kate B: I think it, for me, it's mostly about getting things done in a timely manner, in an efficient way. Like if we have so many, like things that we need to get done in governance and we have pressing deadlines, we have to work lean in some way, and like try to abide by the principles of decentralized, transparent, open where possible. But we have to like, this is a work, working group. Like we have, should have a mandate to get things done. And if we can achieve that mandate, like how we communicate is pretty important. Like, yeah. Okay. So we form one... I'm preparing like the reasons why we're proposing this, and then you're gonna think how to explain it and ask for... I don't know if it's objections. It's... Like that's already for me like language that's like hyper-positioning objections. It's like feedback maybe.

Daniel T: Feedback. Yeah, sure. Feedback.

Kate B: Cool. Also like cool funny jokes and memes and like all the other fun stuff that happens in private channels, please. Like using that terminology. Okay. We have like eight minutes. So on the agenda we still have quite a few points. So the-- we actually did working group and how do we work? But it's kind of like gonna be an interesting one before we start getting into like the work of like governance framework. Like I had seen, like we do need a couple more people because there is a lot of detail here, and there's like even amongst, let's say seven, eight people, there could be small, smaller groups. I think it's really great that we have Julian who has a lot of experience like proposing or working with like financial processes in general assemblies, and I'm curious like if that's something you are keen to help with here, Julian? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're muted.

Julian (Bambi): Thank you. So sure. The question is, would that would start to be part of the governance working group and potentially, I don't know if we... Well, that's another kind of governance question. How many working groups do we have when we decide to have a new working group? No. More of a finance working group. But yeah, let's, let's start here with it.

Kate B: Yeah, I would see it like working with whoever's in the finance area currently, and like, 'cause financial decisions, budget approval is like a major part of the GA that does need like some I would say experience, like expertise to like shepherd that through. And given that you have a lot with that, it would be awesome if you could kind of take that role amongst other things. What other like key kind of roles do we see or needed in this team? Like what is the work that needs to be done that we don't have the capacity right now or example? Ben?

Ben D: It might be a little further down the track, but at some point there would need to be someone People stewarding the decision-making processes, no? Like managing proposals or ensuring information packs are distributed communicating, organizing votes, et cetera.

Kate B: Yeah. That sounds like a really important role. And also, like organizing, scheduling the GA would... And other governance events, like votes or whatever seems... Is that the same thing or is that different?

Ben D: Well, that could be... Yeah, that seems... I mean, are we speaking yeah, no, yes. Short answer, yes.

Kate B: Governance working group administrator type thing. Daniel?

Daniel T: Yeah, I mean, there's a-- basically there's preparing the information that's gonna be submitted to the community. There's... But there's also deciding what actually turns into a vote of the community. Not from selecting which governance is worthy and so on, but what is actually governance and what is not governance, and therefore redirecting stuff that's not governance to the right channel. Which could be an election of a new coordinator because I disagree with how this area is run. Okay, well, that's change the coordinator, not pass a policy to try and force the coordinator to do something they don't want to do. But we'll define that as we as we go along. And the there, yeah, there is organ... I'm not sure if organizing the GAs, it could be part of the governance department. It could be... I mean, I guess right now that's a secretary responsibility, so I guess that can be delegated to a working group. -

Kate B: If the secretary is doing it, that's great.

Ben D: Sorry, that's, that's organizing the GA, did you say, or?

Daniel T: Yeah. I don't know if that's secretary that is explicitly responsible.

Ben D: Oh, geez. I'm I'm afraid it might be.

Daniel T: I think it might be.

Kate B: Great. And Daniel, I just didn't understand, like do you think... Well, maybe I would have a counter, like there could be a person that's responsible or has the work of like the helping sort governance proposals into what goes into the Duocracy or the organization, what goes into the high tier GA process. And also it might be cool to like build something like a matrix, like Humaneske portal that helps us sort those decisions.

Daniel T: Yeah. I think it would be on the Humansapp, like which is obviously an app that does everything at this point, and will become even more so. Like voting probably, 'cause that's also where we have all the Associados tracked and stuff, so it's the place where it makes sense to track votes and stuff.

Kate B: Well, I've actually written like a matrix and tried to sort like... I mean, we can-- And this is what would be fun to test with all of you. Like what's GA only? Like what do we know is GA only? Because we've read the statutes and like there's no avoiding it. What should go into a GA because it's high risk, high duration, irreversible, blah, like policy decisions? Like, yeah, there's a whole table. What doesn't fall into that, and is perhaps medium that may-- could-- we could use another decision format to take like a poll. Do we wanna do the polls? If it's low, do we always like put it into the Duocracy? So I do have this and we probably don't have time to get into now, and it's just like a first pass. So would love to like circulate this async and get feedback and like, yeah.

Celine V: Mm-hmm. I really like the ideas and the proposal. I would actually love to test it also in this group or, yeah, maybe later on. Just looking at the time, I wanted to ask if we should make sure that for this ad interim working group that we have maybe already a next call scheduled or... Because we have quite some topics to discuss still, and we will get the feedback from the community tomorrow, right? But I think we still need to phrase out especially how many people we need and what we need, and I guess this will only be in the next step, right? So tomorrow it's just announcement that there will be something and then... So that's why I'm proposing let's fix a date that is soon-ish and then we can define the roles and actually kick off the application process to make sure that we get operational. Does that make sense?

Daniel T: Yeah. I, and I-- That makes sense to me. And if you-- Like whatever you've got of this I can mention, or we can mention in-- Or I can, you know, I can invite you to speak about what we're doing so that people know. Like it doesn't have to be me talking. Like I can introduce the slots and then hold space for it at the end. I think it makes sense from a it derives from the board for now. But yeah.

Celine V: Mm-hmm. Yep. I unfortunately cannot attend the community call tomorrow, so I have to rely on your on your minutes-

Daniel T: Okay. I'll-

Celine V: ... Daniel tomorrow to read it after.

Daniel T: Yes.

Celine V: But maybe, I don't know, someone else could kind of like help out there. That makes sense that we're, as an ad interim group, will define the roles. Does that make sense?

Daniel T: Yeah, sure. We have about 20, 15 seconds before this call ends.

Celine V: So my proposal is-

Kate B: I don't care what we were discussing for tomorrow night's call. I got a bit lost. Who's doing what? Who can come?

Celine V: So my understanding is that Daniel will prepare a proposal, send it to us, we can give feedback.

Daniel T: Mm-hmm.

Celine V: One question will ... So it's about the process of the selection of the working group, and also about the private channels, right? And we can give feedback. I would just suggest maybe we can add you guys to the WhatsApp channel just for now as an interim. We can give feedback in there, and then we decide in our next call. And I think our the only thing we should do right now still is set a date for our next call, which can even be very soon-ish, on Friday or a Monday if you guys are available, because then we can debrief on the community call. Does that make sense?

Daniel T: Sure. I'm available, I think, on Friday.

Celine V: We can either do Friday or Monday maybe. What suits you better?

Kate B: I'm unavailable on those days.

Celine V: Unavailable, unavailable, right?

Kate B: Mm-hmm.

Celine V: Does Tuesday work for you? Or what's the next date you would be available? Maybe that's better, the better way to ask.

Kate B: Technically I'm out of office. Like, I'm on the road and will be had until the 10th. But if we really need to do something ...

Daniel T: I didn't hear that.

Kate B: Sorry.

Celine V: Yeah, sorry, it's interrupting Kate-

Kate B: I'll find out then

Celine V: ... somehow, the internet connection.

Kate B: Monday at like ... I'm out of office till the 10th of August on the road.

Celine V: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Kate B: But if it's really urgent, I think I can do Monday.

Celine V: Okay.

Kate B: Maybe 6:00 PM. If that works for all of you, I can try to find a stationary spot.

Celine V: It would work for me.

Daniel T: 6:00 PM CET?

Kate B: Yeah.

Celine V: Or maybe-

Daniel T: Which time zone?

Kate B: Oh, yeah. ...

Daniel T: I can do 6:00 PM CET. I cannot do 6:00 PM UK because that's board meeting time.

Kate B: Yeah, that's fine.

Daniel T: Okay.

Kate B: It's an hour earlier. Or could be 7:00 after the board time.

Daniel T: Yeah. That works too as well. So 7:00 PM UK.

Celine V: But then I actually have something there. Tuesday doesn't work?

Celine V: On the 4th?

Kate B: Tuesday can work. I can, yes.

Celine V: On Tuesday I can fully adapt time-wise.

Ben D: Fine for me.

Kate B: I would have to do, like ... Would be better ... ch ... What's 6:00 PM UK time? Will be what time, CET? 7:00. Is that right?

Celine V: Mm-hmm.

Kate B: Is that all right? 6:00 PM, 7:00 CET Tuesday?

Celine V: Yeah. So we do 7:00 CET. Okay. Should I ... Maybe I can just invite you into a Zoom call so we don't run out of time next time.

Kate B: Mm-hmm.

Celine V: It's good to time box though, but okay. Perfect. So are we fine? I will set up an hours meeting on the 4th of August and we will debrief the community meeting then. Daniel, you would share with us on the WhatsApp group what you have. Maybe Kate, do you have all the phone numbers? Because I don't. Just to add them to the WhatsApp group, I can make you an admin.

Kate B: Yeah.

Celine V: Okay. Then I will-

Kate B: And then I guess before Tuesday I'll share the very basic decision tier thinking-

Celine V: Mm-hmm

Kate B: ... for us to discuss.

Celine V: Perfect. Good. Sounds good then. I think then we're through. I'm super glad that we met, and thanks for setting up the additional call, Kate. And yeah, I think that's about it. Looking forward to seeing you again next week.

Daniel T: Cool.

Ben D: Yeah. Thank you Celine.

Daniel T: See you all next week.

Celine V: Thank you.

Kate B: Thank you.

Celine V: Bye everyone.

Daniel T: All right. Bye.

Ben D: Bye.