Governance Working Group Meeting Transcript

Celine V: How's it going?

Daniel T: All right. A little bit stressed, but, otherwise okay.

Celine V: Lots going on?

Daniel T: Oh, just, like normal-

Julian: Hello

Daniel T: ... work. That's right.

Celine V: Hey there.

Julian: Hello, Celine.

Celine V: How are you doing?

Julian: Good. Good.

Daniel T: All good?

Julian: Mondays are always interesting because, I feel like there's so much to do for the week, but then it, it all dissolves within-

Celine V: It gets better at some point.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. How are you doing, Celine?

Celine V: Yeah. I have a little bit of allergies. so the pollen kind of, like, came back a bit, so I, I sound sick, but I'm actually not sick, just, just some allergies. Yeah. But yeah, good apart from that. Thanks. Thanks for asking. How are you, Kate?

Kate B: Good. I just went for a little run up the hill in the... I'm, like, an hour north of Barcelona. Forest.

Celine V: Very nice. Very nice. Hey, Ben.

Kate B: Hi, Ben.

Ben D: Hey, guys.

Celine V: Great. I think we still have some people who might join, such as Peter, but I'm not quite sure.

Daniel T: Yeah, Peter is joining, and Anna-

Celine V: Okay

Daniel T: ... as well.

Celine V: Nice. Okay, then let's give them another minute.

Daniel T: I don't know if Chris is joining.

Kate B: Where are you, Ben? Are you still in the hills?

Ben D: Still in the hills. But, I think I'm coming... I, I am coming out to Barcelona maybe tomorrow-

Kate B: Okay

Ben D: ... or the day after.

Daniel T: Which hills?

Ben D: The hills outside Barcelona.

Daniel T: Oh, right. Okay.

Kate B: You can stay at my flat 'cause I'm not there, but I-

Ben D: When?

Kate B: I'll talk to you about that till Saturday, anyway. W- I'll DM you.

Ben D: Okay.

Kate B: I'll DM you in response to your mess-

Celine V: Yeah.

Ben D: Yeah. Okay. Cool. Thanks.

Daniel T: Your hills look a lot like a wall, to be honest. All right. Hills.

Celine V: Nice.

Daniel T: These are hills. Very nice.

Julian: Oh, nice.

Ben D: Confirmed.

Daniel T: You've got a sea view. Very nice.

Ben D: No, no, it's, -

Daniel T: No?

Ben D: ... h- hills. Actually, Pyrenees. We can see the Pyrenees from here, so-

Daniel T: Oh

Ben D: ... it's nice.

Daniel T: I thought I saw some blue there, but maybe not.

Ben D: Yeah, it's mist and, and cloud and-

Daniel T: Oh.

Celine V: Okay. so Daniel, you said that Chris is also joining? Should-

Daniel T: Yeah. No, Peter.

Celine V: Okay. Peter-

Daniel T: Yeah

Celine V: ... will be joining? Okay.

Daniel T: don't know where he is. I talked... No. Yeah. He said he would be joining.

Celine V: Oh, yeah. Here he is. Amazing. So hi, Peter. Happy Monday.

Peter K: Happy Monday.

Celine V: Perfect. Yeah, then I would say let's get started. so basically, I, yeah, had a look at our, agenda from la- from last time, and we actually only have one, new topic. But I would say, I mean, we decided last time that this is more, an update call, and I think we have two main topics, which is mainly the, topic that you've been working on, about the governance and the setup. Then we have this one new topic, so what should we work on as a, work group in the following days? I think some important topics, and we should, structure ourselves around these or at least discuss, so that we, understand a bit, what the focus topics are. And then we have the dates, discussion, and I think, we can just give a short update there where we are. We're still working on it, but, yeah, I think we're progressing. and if you want to give some feedback there, you can of course give some. so maybe Kate and team, so it was also Anna and Bambi, do you want to give a short update where you stand? I saw the link you've sent yesterday on WhatsApp, but, yeah.

Kate B: Yeah.

Celine V: You can reach out.

Kate B: Do you feel like speaking, Anna or Bambi, or updating on where we got to?

Anna T: I am feeling kind of really behind. Sorry, I've been catching up since I got back from being away on work as well, so I have not had as much time as I want. I've just read through the proposal from Peter, but I would really like to catch up more and input more from the discussion we had last Tuesday. yeah. So nothing right now.

Julian: yeah, similar honestly. we, we had a discussion about the governance working group. we found s- yeah, I guess there were s- different views on how the group should work, like how much input from- From, the community can be needed. but now this concrete proposal from Peter, that Kate shared, this is more of a generic or like, yeah, more, yeah, generic, regulamentation for creating working groups. So maybe that's, could be-- could make sense to discuss this, I think.

Kate B: Yeah. Just to add, yeah, I agree. I think it's a really... It's like pre- pre- governance working group, which may be like the second working group somehow. but I think in the meeting we had some agreement that once we figure out, you know, how we're doing governance and what the governance system is, it's really important to try to communicate ab-about it to the, to the NCA, make it m- more accessible. but we're not there yet because we haven't exactly decided what the system is. but key parts is like, yeah, working groups, how to form one, how to be a lead of one or nominate a lead. And so that's why I'm really happy that Peter's proposal kind of covers that. So perhaps the governance working group, once it forms, can work on like which decision types mechanisms should they use. do they need to go be in a general assembly? Are there other ways that we can govern collectively? What is like fit for purpose for the type of decision we're making? Which seems to me to be really important. So that's where we're at. And I, yeah, I agree that discussing this proposal is a good idea.

Celine V: Daniel?

Daniel T: So, my-- so concern reading this like, and, you know, Kate, we shared a couple of messages, and I said I wanted to discuss this, like, in person rather than via WhatsApp. Like, is that... Like you say, like, "Oh, once we have this in place, we can start working on governance." I, it-- that doesn't make sense to me. Like, you can start working on governance without having this in place. In fact, we are working on governance right now without having a working group in place. We are putting together an, an event dates, vote, which is a kind of governance as well, without this in place. Anna has been having a chat with Daniela about a coordinator, like the role definition of coordinators without a governance, without a working group in place. and so whilst there might be a, a usefulness in the concept of working groups, making it a prerequisite to doing work doesn't quite make sense to me. work can and does... I mean, we ran an entire event without setting up a single working group. so like it, it, it feels kind of like maybe we could have a working group. Like we, we can, we can work like this. In fact, this is work that we're doing to define this, but it's not necessary to do this in order to do governance or in order to do working groups because we already are doing work without this official definition of working group. Does that make sense?

Kate B: It makes sense. It's not necessarily the... Yeah, related to what I was saying. But go ahead, Julian, then I'll come back in.

Julian: I guess what, what came up for me is, and, and that kind of supports a bit the idea of like creating a way to make working groups, is that at least my interpretation of the statutes at the moment, there's very few, bodies that can take decisions or which is basically it's the GA and the board at the moment, and the only collaborate-- way of collaboration that is present in the, in the statute is working groups, or at least is one that is more present. It has an, a whole article dedicated to it. So if we move within the framework of the statutes, I think it's important to have a, a way, a clear way to create working groups and so on. So yeah, that was, that's my observation.

Celine V: Daniel?

Daniel T: Yeah. So I mean, so you say if we move within the frameworks of the statutes, like the, as, as somebody who was there, like helping form the, the association and like, you know, caring a lot about why we formed this association, the goal of it has been to serve the, the community by providing the structures that are needed to interface with, with society. It's not to go and restrict and say, for example, "If it's not in the statutes, you're not allowed to do it." if, if we were going by, "Oh, we have to operate within the frameworks of the statutes," we wouldn't have had an event because there's nothing in the statutes that's, you know, enabling us to organize all the stuff that's happening. Like it's not ex- none of it is explicitly authorized in the statutes, and yet we're able to do all this work. And I mean, I... This, this is not to say that the concept of working group is entirely like, problematic, but like you, you were saying like, oh, like it authorizes certain kinds of, decision power. Actually, this proposal, for example, doesn't state anything about authorizing anything. It creates a bunch of obligations on the working groups without actually authorizing any decision power. And the decision power still comes from what is already in the statutes, which is, you know, basically votes of the general assembly or the board, or basically engaging with the community and like, you know, getting people to agree to something, even without a general assembly, but the general assembly is a formal mechanism for it. So I'll be quiet now. There's a lot of people who raised hands.

Celine V: Kate?

Kate B: so I think that for me, like it helps to resolve the chicken and egg situation of like some people thinking we don't have legitimacy to, to do anything, that this neatly solves it. And then downstream from that is the, like the work that we have been circling around in the working group of like- You know, which kind of decision can be made outside the general assembly. The-- I think we can start that work really easily now if we, like, follow this process, and I think that the-- actually using the form of working groups is a really good way to do that a-a-and to figure out, like, do we wanna use advice process to... 'Cause I think that using general assemblies for everything is, like, gonna be very slow. It's gonna take, too much time. It is something that should be reserved for things that we're basically putting into law. Like, it's a, it's a heavy process, and yeah, that's kind of my take on it. before, y- as you mentioned, Daniel, we, we got to this point without having any of-- any working groups. But I kind of see we're at this point now where we try to give some structure to what has happened before, so that in the, in the future we can have some nice patterns that we can s- use, so to not get into the situation again of like... I think it was great, like, to working with emergence, but the question is do we want to, like, have some structure and use some patterns so that we can go forward more sustainably?

Celine V: Yeah, Ben, do you wanna go ahead?

Ben D: Yeah. I sympathize with Daniel's, sense that we don't need this to do work and, and we've already been doing great things together and, and for sure it's possible to do all of this informally. that's great. for me, I feel like the, the value of th-this, codified regulations or statutes like this is, is, is for the worst case scenarios or for the extreme scenarios when a problem emerges, when a conflict emerges, when there's a misunderstanding between people and, and things need to be clarified. And the question is, well, how do we, how do we clarify disagreements, misunderstandings, confusions, conflicts, and, you know, eight people on a board informally who know each other well, who are working together regularly that, that can, that can also clarify informally. But, that's what governance is, no? To have the baseline, the foundation of common understanding, common reference point that everybody can, can come back to when they need to. But otherwise, yeah, just let the people work however they want, and if things are going well, then, then who cares? That's all.

Celine V: Daniel?

Daniel T: Yeah. I think you said something interesting, Kate, like, about it conferring legitimacy onto the, onto the working group. And, the thing is, like, nowhere in the, in the, this document does it say it confers legitimacy. so that's a kind of projection that we're making on this. It's one of my issues with this document is it imposes a bunch of obligations but no benefits, which makes it open to people projecting whatever benefits they, they think come from this. and if we are gonna pass some kind of regulation creating working groups, and there is a benefit of legitimacy, we should define what it is. We should define how limited it is. We should define under what circumstances can it be withdrawn, which this document doesn't. and also there's, like, a big question that arise for me as a board member is, do we have the authority to lend legitimacy in this way? Like, I mean, you know, if I-- if, if the board were to just go and decide this... Like for-- take an example of the coordinator selection. If the board were to have a meeting tonight, and let's say Ben's come up with a great policy for selecting coordinators and deselecting coordinators, and we vote together on it in the board, and we say, "This is the policy for selecting and deselecting coordinators," it won't have any legitimacy just because the board voted for it. in fact, I think half the-- like, most of the coordinators will just ignore it. Cantina already has a history of ignoring whatever, like, way of selecting or deselecting or defining coordinators or meta leads or whatever has been defined by an org. the legitimacy doesn't come... I, I, I, I don't think we can give legitimacy to work by virtue of just saying, "Yes, this working group exists." We can create a kind of container, and there's value in that, in a kind of neutral container that says, like, for example, for tracking, so that people know that there's a group working on governance and they can join it. there might be some, some value in that kind of working group. But, like, I don't know that we have legitimacy to give. If we do, we should be very clear about how limited the legitimacy is. That, for example, it doesn't mean that, I don't know, like there's, more weight on the proposal of this working group. They still have to stand for themselves. and they still have to engage with the community and, and, like, get their legitimacy that way. and yeah, like the-- sorry if I'm not making myself clear. There's a kind of like limit to... Like I, I think the limit is a lot tighter than we're assuming here. We're not like a, a, a, a board that-- like we're, we're-- we, we have been elected. There is some legitimacy in that, but that doesn't mean that just whatever we decide is gonna be the way that a committee works. I'll be quiet now.

Celine V: Kate?

Kate B: Yeah. I-- maybe I'll try to, like, define how I... Like a comparative analysis. Like on one side we have, like, this idea that working groups can form very, like, relatively easily. Like anyone can join the working group. it lasts for a temporal period, like it's defined in this document at like two to six months. It has like a goal, right? It's like, "Hey, we're the dates working group. We see that there's a big problem there. If we don't put out, do this research about the dates, get the input, make a-- get the input from the community and decide, that we're gonna face some problems later." Let's create this working group and do this job. And so I think what's-- And the, the way that this current working group has done that is t- by creating a general assembly for everyone to vote, which is one way. But another way that that could easily happen is for you to use-

Daniel T: Yeah.

Celine V: I think Kate is frozen, right?

Daniel T: Yeah.

Julian: Yeah, I think it's me.

Celine V: Okay.

Julian: With a cliffhanger.

Celine V: Drop a message in the chat. Okay. I-

Kate B: Yeah.

Celine V: Oh, now you're...

Kate B: Oh, no. do you remember what I-- what you heard last?

Celine V: I was trying to figure out if I was frozen or you. maybe you just, try again.

Kate B: So it's like working groups can form very easily. there, there needs to be like some kind of like, yes, this is a thing. Let's ensure there's not five. Let's ensure that they're not, like, doing the same work or, like, it's not an attack. Let's confer, like give them the power to do that. It's actually, like, more agile, more dynamic, and actually trusting the community more, I think, to say let's have s- like, working groups form very easily. And the key part being that they might not ch-choose to use a general assembly, and I would hope that they do not, because I think that is a very heavy, slow, bureaucratic form of governance that must be done with a vote, and that we do not have to be defined or limited to just that. And I hope that working groups will enable us to unlock, a whole bunch more dyna-dynamism and more trust, and that's kind of the direction I see this going in.

Celine V: maybe Daniel, you can go ahead. I wanted to wrap it a little bit up, but maybe you wanna react to this.

Daniel T: Yeah. Just like, so you mentioned the advice process, for example. Like, I, I love the advice process. I implemented the advice process in GrantTree and then upgraded it when I realized that people weren't using it enough 'cause they weren't, like, bold enough in their decisions, and then eventually evolved to holacracy. And, but I really like the advice process. but the, like, in the context of what we're talking about, like if we say that, okay, yeah, working groups can make decisions by the advice process. They just seek advice and make a decision. If the decision doesn't have the legitimacy that comes from actually engaging with the community and getting community buy-in, it doesn't matter whether we call it advice process or the working group votes on it or even if the general assembly votes, if there's not been the right kind of process to build legitimacy through community engagement beforehand, people will ig-ignore those regulations. Like if we were to pass a sound policy and people felt like, well, it got passed by the general assembly, it's legally enforced and stuff, but I don't feel like the process was open enough, I don't feel like it was participative enough and stuff like that, people would still ignore the sound policy. and a-as they do right now. and, so the, like, again, like I feel like th- if this proposal focused on just saying, well, we don't confer legitimacy, but we just help organize things, and it was explicit that it's just helping, like, you know, clarify, organize, make it maybe clearer what the pattern is to follow, that would be something that might make sense. But that doesn't feel like what this proposal is doing. It feels like it's trying to create, as you said, some kind of legitimate decision-making process that's not the general assembly, that's quicker, that's bypassing potentially the community trying to make decisions in a different, in a different way, and that doesn't make sense to me.

Celine V: I think we have very different opinions about how we should do this, right? how we create this legitimacy. Is it through engaging with the community or is it through a written document and anything in between? I think, Daniel, you also suggested a bit like the most important topics that we should be working on from your point of view. I think it gives also a, a nice perspective on, on, where we should go. So I would actually like to jump briefly to this topic and then see how we move forward with that because, I'm not sure if we're gonna resolve that in a group of, of eight people, if that makes sense. so maybe we just go there briefly, Daniel, and then maybe you also have a suggestion a bit how or do we need anything written from your point of view that goes into this direction? I think that would help to understand where, where we should go. So that would be this point, right?

Daniel T: I'm not sure I understand your question. Is it to me asking for something written?

Celine V: No, no, no. I, I think let's, let's briefly jump to the, these topics that you raised. and I, I understood you that this would be kind of like the core of, our work that we should be doing. -

Daniel T: Okay

Celine V: ... but maybe you can phrase it out-

Daniel T: No, I-

Celine V: ... a little bit better.

Daniel T: I, I'm, I, I, I certainly am not in,... I, I don't consider myself to have the legiti-legitimacy to decide what other people's work should be. these are things that I see that would be really helpful that I put in my head under the heading of governance. That doesn't mean that everybody else will see them as governance, but is, like, it-- there are things that I think would be super helpful to this community to help it learn how to discover this muscle of governance and flex that muscle. and, I'm not saying that, you know, I'm not setting the agenda for other people- ... in this way. I wanna be clear about that. They're just lists of ideas I care about.

Celine V: Yep. Okay. I mean, okay then, but then let's jump back to this in general. For me a bit the question is, we're eight people. I, I like that there is a concrete proposal. I think that makes it,... or there is at least a good baseline. On the other hand, I see very different opinions. I mean, I think we need some sort of agreement if we need a written document or if the legitimacy is actually created by engaging with the community and a little bit like Daniel and myself did it with the, date selection, right? We just started working. We just did some work and, I guess some people are engaging. We went to the community call and also opened up and said, "If you have some feedback, you can engage." We also got some feedback. so that's how we are trying to get this legitimacy. And my question is: how do we now, decide which way to go forward? Because I see these very different opinions there, and once again, not quite sure if a group of eight people should be discussing that. Maybe we could also create a smaller discussion. Kate, Daniel, or any other, other proposals how to resolve this?

Daniel T: I'd love to hear from Anna and Peter as well if they've got something to say.

Celine V: Maybe Julian first, as you have the hand up. Maybe you already have something in your mind and agree with-

Julian: For me, it's really, like the, the topic of formalizing working groups, and hearing Daniel now, immediately goes a level up. Like the fundamental question is: do we want to be this association, this community? Do we want to work in a, in a way that is, fully, like at every decision there's a poll, so to say? There's a consultation of the full community or do we want to have some level of delegation? so if we want to have a consu- like a informal, preparation of work, and then at every decision a poll or a voting, then we don't need... maybe we don't need formalized working groups. but also then I think that's a fundamental question for what is the board seeing themselves as their function. Like is it a function of coordinating and expressing at each step, each month, the, the new, like just a new topic and organizing, community decision about that where everybody's involved? Or is there some kind of delegation and saying, "I've been elected as a board member. I have my principles, my agenda, and will try to follow that and involve the community when there's big decisions to take. But between those, I, I work kind of independently or like in a smaller group." I think that's a really fundamental question. Like what's the, the, yeah, this, this core governance principle, so to say.

Celine V: Daniel?

Daniel T: So I'd be curious to hear, Ben's answer- ... 'cause I think he'll have a different answer from me and, yeah, I, I'd be curious. But, my, my sense is most of the work of the event has been done without doing polls at every, every situation because it's, you know, what they call a do-ocracy. Like if you're the person organizing the cantina, you're the person organizing the cantina, and like, you know, the, it's not gonna be because somebody in a committee somewhere decided that whatever, that you're gonna organize the cantina that way. You're, you're the person doing the work. You're the, the person building the, middle of elsewhere. You're the person building the, the middle of elsewhere. You make the decisions that you need to make the, the thing happen. and for the board, the, the board has been in a, position that I hope to be temporary, where because we had to set up an event from scratch, get bank accounts, get all that kind of stuff sorted out, we end up taking a lot of operational, roles, a lot of op- operational responsibilities to get, get the shit together to get the event happen, happening. but my hope is that in a couple of years, whenever we're, like things stabilize a bit, the board becomes, you know... It was part of my application. The board becomes boring again, and it's basically just paper pushing, signing the permits, like, you know, signing off on the budget created by the finance department, et cetera, rather than, going and actively doing the finances or actually building the systems and so on. That would be my vision, and Ben might have a different vision. And I see Peter has his hand raised, and I think Peter has probably a lot of vision because he's been thinking about this topic for over a decade. - ... so I'm very curious to hear what he wants to say there.

Peter K: Yeah. Hi, team. Sorry for last time where I was in a noisy place with, bad headphones and no one could, could hear me. So before I say anything, just to give you context of like why I'm even here in this group. I've been involved with Nowhere since 2009. I've been working at Nowhere since 2010. I was the second build lead of Nowhere. I was general coordinator. the role that I'm most proud of is I was toilet lead, and I miss our old wooden toilets very much. But just to say that I've seen this community go from, 400 people to, 4,200 at our biggest year. I've seen it go through a lot of growing pains and seen a lot of, infighting and burnout and people not having a good time at Nowhere. And I'm glad we didn't give up, but we, you know- We've been wanting for a very long time that people have the most positive experience and smooth experience as possible, at Nowhere in general. So, I think something I'm really thinking about in, in these kind of meetings is what are the problems that we are trying to address? And the main problems that we have been trying to address is that there's been a division in the project. people have felt that what used to be called NORC was a closed box, that they didn't have any insight into what NORC was doing, that NORC was a small junta of people that were just imposing decisions on the rest of the community. The barrio leads didn't feel heard. And then we had a system that was called the Meta Leads Committee that completely broke down and wasn't used properly, where it was supposed to be a very strong representation of the leads through their meta lead, but we never managed to fully staff it. And then we ended up in a situation where the, the management in place was, in practice, completely bypassing the Meta Leads Committee and just kind of doing what they want. So that's kind of the, the, the context that we've been through, and that's all the, the hurt that we're trying to heal here. So wh- what are we actually trying to address? That people feel that everything is transparent, and they know everything that's going on. And I, and I think everything. So I think working groups should, should have all the activity as public as possible, and that anyone can consult it, and it's kind of that daylight is the best, disinfectant, let's say. And then people, don't know, how to be heard. People want to feel heard. So reminding people, "Hey, if you're a barrio lead, if you're a project lead, if you want to become a project lead, not only is it possible, but you will have a vote, you will be heard." And so what we are calling governments now is, okay, how do we bring these things together with a power dynamic that is healthy, that doesn't leave, people feeling either that they're not heard or that decisions are being made without them? So, at this point, I feel like I would like, before anything is set in stone, I would like to more like bring a proposal to the, to the wider assembly because we should have a very plug-and-play system for people to feel empowered and to feel that they can con- take control of a project and not be second-guessed, not feel illegitimate, and not have someone tell them later, "Hey, you decided in the wrong way that I don't, approve of." So I would like to hear from especially all the, the different, leads now that we're not doing a Meta Leads Committee type of system, how they would like, to, to be able to, to interact with these kind of things. And, I guess at the end of the day, g- governance here for me is, how to connect the general assembly of leads with, with the board. That, that's how I'm seeing it, and, as, as horizontally and as smoothly as possible.

Celine V: Okay. Thanks a lot. That's very interesting, Peter. Thanks a lot for, sharing your perspective. I hear in general with these two questions. So do we formalize the working groups, right, with, this document, for instance? and yet, and also what is the, the function of the board? I think you, had some thoughts there. And also, Kate, you confirmed in the chat that I think this do-ocracy, is a, is a nice and good term. if I understood you correctly, Peter, you also pointed out that you would engage the community to somehow also define their needs on how this governance should look like, right? To you-

Peter K: The, the leads.

Celine V: The leads. Okay.

Peter K: Not, not the whole. Because actually my experience over the years at Nowhere is that the community at large is perfectly happy to not get- ... too involved in-

Celine V: Gotcha

Peter K: ... how the sausage is made- ... as long as the sausage is made. And we actually have a core group of people who, who actually want to, to, to look, you know, behind the curtain. What's important is that if someone wants to look behind the curtain, it's actually transparent and available, and it's not a small group deciding for everyone. But also, if you're given a project at Nowhere, you're already under a lot of pressure with a very small budget- ... et cetera. We don't have good documentation. We don't have good retention. We have a lot of challenges for the leads. We want the leads to feel empowered. And also a, a very big change from the structure before is we really insisted that barrio leads are leads. And because we really had a terrible, terrible divide between Nowhere organization and the barrio leads, which to me makes no sense because the barrios are the event. And, and production was supposed to be just a small practical office to deal with, providers. You know? Production was supposed to be, "Let's make sure we have diesel and ice." Production wasn't supposed to, to, to run the event. the, the people were supposed to run the event. So we, we're trying to heal these divides. And, so more than trying to hear from the whole community, I would like to hear from the leads, including the barrio leads.

Celine V: Yeah. I personally like this, suggestion to engage with them and make sure that, we hear their needs regarding formalizing working groups and so on. I think what would help is a very high-level proposal of, hey, we formalize, or we get legitimacy through just engaging with the whole community and, reach out, through polls and so on. does that make sense to everyone? I mean, it's of course something that we need to, to organize and see how we reach out to the leads, but does that make sense? Or are there any other opinions or suggestions?

Daniel T: Yeah, I think it is, is make sense. Let me just rephrase, see if I understood. Like you're saying to reach out to the leads to, help define, help refine this proposal of how the working groups should, should work, like in short effectively.

Celine V: Yep.

Daniel T: I don't know if I can respond to Kate's, even though I didn't raise my hand. Like, she chatted something. Is it okay?

Celine V: Sure. Please, please go ahead.

Daniel T: like the thing where you say, like, you know, for anything that binds us at policy level, working groups or sort of advice process, plus other polls, as somebody having spent time in Holacracy, I mean, I, I, again, I, I love the advice process. But if you look at the way Holacracy is structured, the advice process is basically everywhere except at the governance level, where there is a more structured process because governance changes can have quite profound impact. They can create roles, remove roles, change... They can tell people how to do their work in a way that, like, cannot be just decided casually by somebody just saying, "Well, I got enough advice about this, so I think I can make a decision that Cantina is gonna run, like, you know, by, with their left hand tied behind their back." Whatever. I'm just, I know I'm making up a really silly example here. But the, the advice process is effectively how people are making decisions right now in the teams. The governance is the part that probably needs a bit more process, and in fact, we have a process right now, which is that vote for-- depending on, depending on what you define as governance. If governance is passing statute changes, there is a defined governance process, and it is more onerous than the advice process, but it does ensure that there's more thought that's been given to the governance changes before they pass. If we're gonna define governance as basically telling people what they're allowed to do, what they're not allowed to do, telling people how to do their work, that does feel like something that needs more of a kind of consultative process rather than an advice process to me. But I'm not sure what you mean by governance because I've heard different feedback about this, so I'm, I'm clear.

Kate B: I mean, I think if advice process is used well, it can be extremely consultative, and it kind of does try to say who is most affected by this? How can I get a deep level of information from the people that are most affected by it? And, with that, you don't, you don't have legitimacy if you make, if you ignore the advice, right? Like, the decision is kind of moot. And I'm curious because this is what the Borderland use at all levels, right? And at a very, in a, a very effective way, in that their kind of organization designers who designed their system chose this as, like, a way to avoid, like, death by committee or ending up in votes all the time, which does privilege people that have more time or have more knowledge of how, of AIs in order to analyze all the data or whatever. And I don't know if we wanna build the organization that looks like that. Whereas I think, like, something like a well-executed advice process could help us. And m-maybe, yeah, I agree that the things that are defined by the GAs that must happen in a GA, we can't move that. And that is, you know, changing a statute. And that's why I think doing something like even the new dates policy in a GA is an error, a category error, because we're effectively changing that in our laws, which seems to be the level too high for this type of decision. Like, obviously, it affects everyone. Everyone should be able to weigh in on it. The working group that has formed around this, the new dates working group, are doing a great job in getting the advice and the consultation. But I think it's like, bringing it to a GA is almost like it's, it's cool because there's all this energy right now to, to, to do things in that way, in a participatory way, and I h- I think that will continue. But if we use a GA as kind of like the hammer, I think that we avoid kind of actually getting the, the type of input we need for, for these types of decisions in the long term. Like in the, in the short term, I'm sure we'll get good turnout. But over time, if we bring too many things to a GA and we have them too often, I think we'll see participation fall down and it will be not sustainable.

Celine V: So my suggestion also to make sure that we get through the topics and, and make the next step with this one is I really like the proposal of engaging with the leads to maybe get some more opinions. And I think, Peter, you are quite engaged in the document. I have, I have at least seen your comments as well. So maybe you can kind of like just also be a contributor here and you make sure jointly, of course, as a group, with you, Kate, Anna, Bambi, that you get also some more feedback and some insights, with these two basic options, right? the, the formalization of the working groups more through the community or through an actual formalization through a document. And then I guess I find it at least interesting to ask about the, function of the board in the future, right? Does that make sense as a next step?

Daniel T: Who, who do you want to ask about the function of the board? The g- like, yeah.

Celine V: Or, yeah. I... You raised a question before, and I thought it's actually quite an interesting one. but yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe we also shouldn't, discuss that too, too broadly, right? But I think it would be interesting to hear some, some opinions here. Could be an interesting input, at least for the board, but we can also leave that out, to be honest.

Daniel T: I welcome that input, but, like, it's what you can actually get. Anna, you got your hand raised.

Anna T: Yeah. I'm just, sorry, trying to understand, Celine. When you're talking about the, the board, I'm sorry, I'm looking for which one. Define what the board role's, to be. Is, is that the, what you're speaking to there?

Celine V: It was a question that was raised by, by Daniel before, right? And I found it interesting. But to be honest, to make it easier and also, to, yeah, make sure that we progress on the document, we can just also focus on this to pr- and leave the second question out or what's your take?

Anna T: I... You mean in, in general from what we're, like, working on here? Because I mean, f- to me it, it does feel very important. It's something I've brought to the board on a couple of occasions and never had an answer actually. So as, as to like where, where do the... Yeah, what, what the role is, where it ends and things, and it, it feels to me like there's, there's a few,... I see Daniel's desire for it to be a kind of paper pushing and, at least one person who is on the board right now, I feel, has put in s- so much time, energy, and creation to the humans app. I'm talking about Peter, and thinks that... I feel like there's, there's,... Yeah, there's some, some challenges there, I think. like it's amazing what it's been made by someone on the board, but it means that there's a huge amount of dependency on that person. So I don't know if it's, if that's the kind of thing that you're speaking about.

Celine V: Yeah.

Anna T: But, yeah, yeah, yeah. This, this for me definitely feels like something to explore as a, as a community of like what- ... what do we want there. yeah. It's, feels, feels very important, so I'm happy it's on the list.

Celine V: Nice. Okay, then I would say if you're fine with that, and please, raise your hand or say quickly something if you don't feel like you're okay with that, Kate. And now Bambi and Peter, you would, get some input from the leads, and raise these two questions. And with that, we would then move on, if that's fine. Perfect.

Peter K: sorry, just to-

Celine V: Peter

Peter K: ... clarify a thing. Are we, are we still thinking about a general assembly in September? Because this is when I was thinking would be the z- the easiest time to bring, like, like you said, a high level proposal, but bring it only as a proposal, and this way we would have the attention of all the leads during this general assembly. Does that make sense?

Daniel T: So, just to answer the general assembly in September, and, sorry Celine and, or Peter, I've talked about it with you a little bit, but sorry Celine that I haven't had the chance to update you on this. I've been trying to get some feedback, from people. and actually also, Olivier, who's on the call as well. I have been trying to get some feedback from people about should we be doing the decision of the dates as a general assembly, or should it be, like, a strong input to the board? Like, I'm, I'm... Like Kate, you, you do make a good point that, like, should this be a board decision that's strongly informed by the community, or should it be a general assembly binding vote? I'm not clear on that. That's one of the topics I'm gonna bring to the boards tonight. Like, I had a sense that, like, I, I, I want the members to be in charge of the association, and one of the ways to do that is for them to be making decisions, like to be flexing that muscle, and maybe that's not the right way to flex that muscle. I'm not, like, dogmatic about exactly how. Like, my goal is for the members to be in charge, not to, as you say, Kate, drown them in, like, countless minutiae of decisions and stuff. this does feel like a, a decision that where broad input is very much required. Right now, we have had two votes calling a general assembly. that doesn't mean we can't say, "Okay, actually it's gonna be slightly different." But, r- right now there's a general assembly that is, will be announced for September 17th. That may change depending on conversations with the board later today, and conversations with, you and Celine and Olivier, after this one, since we have a call after this. So, and more input from the community. So that's the status. Unknown. Sorry.

Celine V: Yeah. No, thanks for sharing. I mean, totally fine, right? I mean, we need to make sure as a, as a working group there that, that we try to get to the best result. So fully on board with that. Good. So, but I think then let's move on. I think with the question of Peter, Daniel writes that we could bring this question then, in September. I think that should be fine, right? Okay.

Daniel T: there was some feeling on the board that the... if there's gonna be an event dates vote, it should be the only item on the general assembly, list- ... for that, that, that, that vote. I- if not, it could also just be a month later at the ALM, - ... discussed there, and there can be a general assembly scheduled shortly afterwards. there's varying opinions about whether the general assembly-- the ALM itself should be a general assembly. I think that's still a conversation in progress.

Celine V: Okay. Good. But then I would say should we give a brief update from our side regarding where we are at with the, date selection? I mean, you already gave the kind of like high level one, but maybe we can just briefly share. should I go ahead, Daniel?

Daniel T: Yeah, I think the date is wrong there. It's September 17th, 003, but, yeah.

Celine V: Sorry, which one?

Daniel T: Just the, the, the cell above-

Celine V: Ah, okay

Daniel T: ... it says September 8th.

Celine V: It's the 17th-

Daniel T: Yeah. No, go ahead

Celine V: ... right? Okay. okay, so date selection, basically what we did last week is think about the different cr- criteria. We already public- published a table, so kind of like a summary table of all these criteria, on the webpage that Daniel has created already actually, I think the week before. and we also thought that we would structure it in two different, votes. So we have a broad community vote where everybody who is interested in, - In the event can vote. And then we have a second one, which you can only access via the Humans app. so this has slightly more weight because it's, of course, the people that, have already been at the event. and we would add these two as an information then for the final general assembly vote. So this is how we, wanted to structure it, and so this is the one that goes to the broad community, so you can send it to all the burners you know and, the whole community. and we have a short explanation about, the criteria and so on, and they can even get more information, through the link. pasting, the picture was... I wasn't very successful, at least in Google Forms. but anyways, yeah, I think that's, that's the first draft, and we will discuss that in detail following this call. So if you have some feedback, I think you can, you can of course, stay or also reach out to me, personally or bilaterally, and we can figure out how you can give your input. But yeah, I guess that's just, like, the short summary where we're at, and we're trying to progress and go on with this topic. If no one else has a question, then I think we can briefly move forward to this topic that I have kind of, like, briefly announced before, Daniel. I think it's a bit of, like, a collection of topics, right? I don't know if you wanna briefly explain it as a summary. I think it doesn't fit into I guess 10 minutes, but,...

Daniel T: I, I, I don't wanna inflict my explanation upon, eight people unless they actually want it. So I'd wait for somebody to request some explanation before saying anything here. And maybe somebody has something more urgent that they want to discuss in the next nine minutes.

Celine V: So one thing we should definitely discuss is our, next meeting. Maybe we can do that first because it's something that,...

Daniel T: And, and, and to be clear, some of this list did come from a conversation with Anna or, like, she- ... so, so kind of joint, like, we were talking about what's needed to be done.

Anna T: is it,... So this, this is a, a new thing that's been added on by you, Daniel? Sorry, just trying to understand.

Celine V: No, I, I put it-

Anna T: No?

Celine V: I put it on. I think it's a, a collection of a couple of, notes and thoughts. If I understood Daniel correctly, it's might be also some of your thoughts and notes.

Anna T: Yeah, so and what, what we'll be looking at together. And if I just say I was also having a conversation with, Daniela, who I think will have a lot to bring to this. She's, she's a little bit burned out still after the whole event and, Borderland, so she's kind of coming down and getting, getting into these things, but I think she will have a lot of input of, like if she's, coordinating the coordinators meetings and, and production and, and eventually wants not to be employed, but to find a way of how everything she does could be divided up into more, more ro- more roles, more, more projects. So, yeah, and just to add also, I think Frank is a person to talk to that I am gonna see, soon because he's, I think the, the recruitment, the work- working on the, the ways in which coordinators leads are, are recruited and, and work- working on, on this. I don't know if anyone else has... Yeah, that's right, Ben. Yeah, 'cause we, Ben and I were looking at this a little bit, much earlier in the year, and then it's,... Yeah, I've just kind of brought that up again with Frank to see if he can come in and participate on that as well.

Celine V: Yeah, so maybe it's a bit of a bigger topic, if I understand you correctly, Anna, right? So we maybe need Daniela as well and some additional people to, put it into kind of like some actions. so should we skip that for today and go more into detail on another occasion, or what would be your suggestion opening up to everyone as well?

Anna T: Yeah, totally. It's, it's really just that, I think it's a fantastic list for us to look at and just noting that there are already people who are working on these things. So, to, to invite their, their input.

Celine V: Okay. No, thanks a lot for, for providing these inputs, and I think we can once go through a little bit more structured and see, yeah, where and what we can still contribute as this working group. So for me, the next question is, I mean, we will have the follow-up call regarding the date selection, and we will continue working, on this. for the other topic, right, we still need, a little bit of time in the sense of getting this feedback from the leads. so it's a bit a question mark for me, if we should do these biweekly meetings, these update meetings. for me, it's totally fine. Kate, if I'm not mistaken, your feedback was that this meeting slot wouldn't work as a regular one, right? but please correct me if I understood that wrong.

Kate B: I think I've changed my schedule a bit, so it can work.

Celine V: Okay. Okay.

Kate B: Yeah.

Celine V: Nice. Perfect. Then actually, if this, meeting slot then works for everyone as a biweekly one, then let's, let's use it for that. I can send out the invites, and I think we can always keep it short if we don't have too many updates, right? Maybe that's the aim for the future, and, - Yeah, please make sure to also add your topics to the agenda, and if we don't have anything, we can even cancel. yeah. Does that make sense? I do think until September we will have anyway some date, date selection updates. so this is for sure a topic. Good. Then, I mean, we talked about it last time. I don't think it's the top prior topic, but we have this... Oh, sorry. Kate?

Kate B: I was just wondering from like, on this question of like what is the governance working group like? With the dates work, it seems to me like that's its own thing, and I'm curious, like it's, it's someone using governance even though we haven't quite defined it yet, like get it, like doing the work and, and going. But I, I don't know if it makes sense to discuss it in this call where we're like trying to live... to structure what governance is. That feels like it's like a very discrete use case of someone actually using the imaginary governance framework that we haven't made yet, and then prototyping how it would be done, like making the booklet and consulting the people and like- ... but that's like a separate thing somehow.

Celine V: I just think we're back at this again, at this question, do we formalize the working groups, right? Because the, the, the, there is the opinion that we should choose to work and get legitimacy through the community, which is basically what we're trying to do right now with the date selection, or do we formalize it? And I would say as there is some urgency, I think it's a bit similar as the last year. We will just proceed with the work now, and if we decide on something differently or something, some different input comes up from the leads, we would have to adjust, I guess.

Kate B: I mean, I agree that we're circling, but I do think it's a different topic. Like, my point is that this, the governance, the, sorry, the dates is like, a piece of work that I'm, like, a few people in the governance group may have like no input on at all- ... because it's like, it's its own work stream, basically.

Celine V: Agreed, but there is some, like the, the, the voting for instance is governance, right? And how we provide information maybe is also close to governance. But I, I get what you mean. it's not that I disagree, but I think there is a certain overlap. so if you don't mind, we can get some feedback here, but not make it a prior topic. Yeah.

Kate B: Okay. That sounds good.

Celine V: Good. perfect. Last topic, I mean, what I did after, our discussion last time is, adding my, role and skills here. I think, yeah, Julian, you have to, done that as well. I, I think it would be nice for us as an overview so we know who is doing what. Feel free to add your, skills and role here. also this I don't think is the highest prio.

Daniel T: I, I think ironically in that proposal there is the requirements to, for people to document like their themselves as part of working group. but yeah.

Celine V: Yeah, I think it, it can also be informal for now, right? So, so just in the sense of like who would like to contribute where, but yeah, we discussed it last time, so feel free to, to add your skills if you, if you feel like that's a good idea. Perfect, but then I think we can close the call on time. If nobody has anything to say, I would just send out the invite for in two weeks, and we can gather there again. Yeah? Then thanks a lot for your time and, see the data, the, date selection people in a minute.

Daniel T: See you soon.

Celine V: See you soon. Bye everyone.

Daniel T: Bye-bye.

Celine V: Thanks a lot for your time. Bye-bye.