Community Meeting Transcript — September 10, 2026

Ellen K: Daniel informs me my clock is wrong, and it is five past, so let's start. [laughs] It's nice to see everyone here. Uh, I'm Ellen, if you've not met me. Um, today we have a short one. We've got an update on the date survey, the poll that hopefully everyone answered. We've got some updates from the working group, and at the end we have some time for, uh, any topics you wanna bring to the table, as well as some questions. So don't hesitate to jump in, uh, during the call if you have any, anything on your mind that you wanna share, any questions. I was gonna see if I could... Can I share my screen? Let's see. I was gonna see if I could share the beautiful website that has been put up, uh, with the survey results. Yes. Now will it blend? Hmm.

Daniel T: We can see it.

Ellen K: You can? Okay, excellent. I can't. [laughs] But... Okay, now I can. That's fine. Perfect. Uh, yeah, I wanted to show this because we've got about 950 answers to the poll, which I think is not bad for, like, a 2,000-person event, and the results basically show two peaks. Um, oh, this is gonna be very annoying. I wonder if, Danny, you could share it 'cause it, it actually won't show up on my end, so I can't actually scroll. [laughs]

Daniel T: Sure. I can. Uh, one second.

Ellen K: Thank you.

Daniel T: But then now, uh, this. So I... We want to look at the community, right? Do you want me to go into the, the detail responses, detailed responses? Full survey results. You see what I'm sharing, right?

Ellen K: Yes, I see what you're sharing, although it is bugging a little bit on my side. It really didn't like me trying to do that. Uh, but we could go over the, the overall results. Um-

Daniel T: Okay. Give you overview here. Yeah.

Ellen K: Yeah.

Daniel T: So by the way, you can find all this by just going to Event 2 thou- 2027 dates and click on Availability of Community here. Oops.

Ellen K: Yeah. So there's about 950 answers, and you s- kind of can see very clearly in this graph that you get two peaks. You get the first half of June, which is very much a peak, and then you get the early to mid-September dates, um, that are also the, the kind of most popular dates, with the least popular dates being around our current dates, so late June, early July. And out of this, the board has selected a, uh, a shortlist of eight dates. You can also go and see. You can see the board minutes online with the eight dates that have been selected, with voting on those dates that will happen on Humans. Uh, Danny, would you like to give some details on this? 'Cause I think I need to-

Daniel T: Yeah

Ellen K: ... log out, log in again 'cause everything [laughs] -

Daniel T: Yeah, so-

Ellen K: ... everything is frozen. [laughs]

Daniel T: So after selecting the mm, uh, the, like, which dates we... Like, so based on the conversations during the community calls, the, the vibe was that, uh, what made most sense for that was that middle option of the board selects, pre-selects a, a subset of dates that seem possibly commercially viable, and then, uh, the community decides between those dates. The, the Associados decide between those dates. And we selected... We ended up, uh, going for seven dates plus the current date. So you've got, uh, the mm, uh, fif- fifth, 11th of July, which we included for completeness. Um, and you've got three... We, we picked three dates in June and four dates in September, September. Uh, and then we went through each of those dates and voted, um, uh, for or against as board members, as individual board members, uh, to represent, so to give us another piece of information for people to, to assist people the opinion of the board members, uh, on, on the, on each of the dates. Um, so that's a different set of data than the, the community data. Um, and you may choose to disregard the, the board's opinion. You may decide that the board's opinion is incorrect, or you may choose to consider that as part of your, uh, decision if you're an Associado deciding on these dates later. Um, there's also the reasoning for each of the dates, a summary. You can see also if you go to the, um, uh, transparency page, uh, so the meetings page, and you look at the last, uh, board meeting, you will also see the detailed reasoning about each of these, uh, these dates from the four members who were there on Monday. But basically you've got a kind of breakdown of reasoning for why we're... like, the people who voted are for or against those. Uh, four people voted or like, you know, expressed their opinion during the, the call on Monday and three more on, um, WhatsApp, um, over, uh, o- over the next, uh, couple of days. Uh, but each of them, uh, basically thought, not from a personal preference point of view, but from a do I feel like it's vi- it's viable to have an event at this point? Do I think that the event will be a success if we hold it at this date? Again, these are opinions of board members, and of course, board members have been spending quite a lot of time thinking about this topic, so their opinions might be more informed or might not be. It's up to you to decide for yourself how much you, uh, think of the opinions of the board. But we provide that as in, as part of the information for the vote, uh, in which of course the board themselves will also vote. Um, but, uh, there will be another... I think there's about 120 something members now. So it will be a vote of, uh... Hopefully, most of the members will vote. We'll see. Um, is that what you wanted me to share, Ellen? Is there more you want me to share on this?

Ellen K: Yeah. I think that's excellent. Thank you. Now my computer's alive again. [laughs]

Daniel T: Is there something else you want me to screen share or-

Ellen K: Uh, I don't think so for now.

Daniel T: Oh.

Ellen K: So I think that as you said, everything is available online. You can see the survey results, you can see this summary.

Daniel T: Yeah.

Ellen K: And then the voting will happen on Humans.

Daniel T: Yeah.

Ellen K: Uh, and-

Daniel T: I, I, I wanna add also that, um, Celine has spent a bunch of time at tidying up the summary page. So now it lists only just the-- So the summary, uh, sheet or, uh, uh, table. And now it lists... Actually, there's an updated version of this, uh, here in multiple languages. Um, and it will be included as part of the vote. This will be the summary information, and then people who want more information can go on the subpages for like finding specific information. If they want to know more about bird nesting or about temperatures or wildfire risk or the, all, all that kind of stuff, they can go into the detailed pages. But this will be effectively the essence of the information pack that is provided to all associados to vote on. Um, this kind of summarizes weeks of data gathering, community surveys, and so on. Um, and, um, we're aiming to publish that hopefully tomorrow. Uh, I would have got more progress done, but as I mentioned at the beginning of the call, new puppy, I'm absolutely exhausted. But hopefully tomorrow the, the associado vote can go out. Um, so if you have any comments before tomorrow about a way to make this table even clearer, please let us know. Uh, once we publish the associado vote, it's too late to update that. But before we do, um, we can still make changes. So any feedback is welcome.

Ellen K: So there was a question in the chat about why the current date was kept but not the adjacent weeks. Do you wanna address that?

Daniel T: Yeah. Because we don't believe that the adjacent weeks are any better. Like, the reason why we need to change is because the wildfire risk is very high on 5th to 11th of July. We don't believe that one week before, one week after makes a lot of difference. If you look at, uh, if I open this, and I go back here and look at the wildfire evidence, you can see that, uh, the week before there was also a red plus, and the week after there was also a red plus. These, these three weeks are the ones where there were r- well, actually these four weeks are the ones where there were red plus alerts this year. Um, so including them, like shifting one week earlier will not make a substantial difference. Uh, so we didn't believe it was, uh, it was worth including them. And also they had low, um, votes from the community. So they were included in this one. Uh, we didn't include any week after because that would just likely make the risk, uh, worse 'cause the fire season continues. Um, but, uh, we did include the week before, and it had fairly low vote, especially from anonymous users who, uh, didn't, like, didn't want to come on this date. Um, it's worth noting that whilst identified users still some, like 40-plus percent still wanted to come, uh, still d-declared they would come, um, we have learned for the next time we do this vote that the way we phrased this survey, uh, made it, uh, more difficult for people to express that they don't like this date. Because, for example, for myself, I voted I will come on every single one of those dates, but that doesn't mean I think that these are the, the right dates for the event to happen. And I think a number of people voted in this way, and some others expressed, um, uh, uh, that they didn't like the current dates, especially in their comments. And why keep the current dates? We thought about it. We thought it would feel incomplete to not include the current date as part of the, the vote. That's the reason. We all voted against that date as a board. We think it's a very bad idea if we maintain that date. But we wanted that to be an option on the poll, so there's a way for people to say, "No, we reject everything." Um, that's up to the community then, up to the members to decide how they want to vote. Hopefully that makes sense. Is there anything else you wanted?

Ellen K: And did you mention, uh, did you mention when voting will start?

Daniel T: Um, like my intention i- was to send it out tomorrow. I've just received a WhatsApp message from, uh, Peter asking if it can go out a day or two later. Um, the m- I'll chat to Peter. I, I, my intention would still be tomorrow, but like let's put a, a slight question mark on that, that it might be a day or two later if Peter wants, uh, like if we, if we want to make some additional changes there. Um, but, uh, yeah.

Ellen K: Yeah. I mean, it looks really good. The information pack looks really good.

Daniel T: Yeah. The vo-voting would be a complex list of priorities. So the, [clears throat] the vote... Actually, I have a test, uh, ver- it does- well, it doesn't, doesn't open the drop-downs, but, uh, if I show you, uh, change my... Hold on. There's a window in the way.

Ellen K: I think the sh- the short answer is there has been some work done to make sure that this isn't such a complex vote as for the name of the event. [laughs]

Daniel T: It's not gonna be like the new name of the event. What there is gonna be is... Is this? Yeah, share this tab instead. Are you seeing this? Oh, no, that's not the one I wanted. Um, okay, maybe actually let me share this. Put this here then. So there's gonna be, like there's gonna be some, the, the info is gonna be up here basically, but you're gonna have the list of dates. And here, unfortunately, in the preview, I cannot open the drop-down, but the drop-down will show, uh, uh, eight, uh, like one to eight, or you can leave it unranked, or you can mark it as rejected. Basically, those are the options. You can, and you can mark multiple dates with the same rank if they're equal for you. Um, it's pretty straightforward. If you only wanna rank several dates, that's what you do. Uh, if you wanna reject all bunch of other dates, that's what you do. It's, uh, fairly, I think, fairly sensible and fairly flexible. Um, when is the next review? Next review will be Monday, which is in time for the, um, uh, the vote.

Ellen K: So the next review for associados will happen on Monday, and that will be the last one before voting.

Daniel T: Um, uh, well, uh, yeah, so like, uh, it-- like basically there's a, there's the system is that if, um, five of the board members vote yes on somebody, um, then, uh, the secretary can add them immediately. Um, if anybody votes maybe or no, then we have to discuss it in a board meeting. So anybody who's in the queue right now is because at least one person said maybe for some reason, which might not be a, a, a relevant reason, but it need, does mean that by our process we need to discuss it, and Monday is the next discussion point where the board will meet to talk about this. So apologies for the delay to anybody who's still in the queue, but Monday is the day when we talk about it next.

Ellen K: Are there any more event date questions? And if not, we'll move on, and we'll talk a bit about working groups.

Participant (unidentified): Yeah. Uh, did we-- are we gonna organize like a call preliminary, uh, preliminary to the associados voting for the, for the dates?

Daniel T: Are we gonna organize what? Sorry, you sound very muffled.

Participant (unidentified): Uh, sorry. Uh, last time there was an idea floating around that there's gonna meeting especially to discuss before sort of the vote of the associados.

Daniel T: That happened last week. Um, if you look at the community call from last week, that was the meeting.

Participant (unidentified): Mm.

Daniel T: It, it was announced I, I, I, uh, yeah, it was, it w- it was announced I think a week and a half in advance [chuckles] and-

Participant (unidentified): Yeah. I, I figured that was gonna be, uh, after we had the sort of like options highlighted from the, from the call. But okay. Yeah, fair enough.

Daniel T: Uh, i- if somebody wants to, like I think if I look at the dates, the... I mean, no, the 17th is a Thursday, so we're not gonna have time for another community call about this.

Participant (unidentified): Fair enough. All right. Cheers.

Ellen K: All right. Any other questions about dates specifically? Give it a minute.

Daniel T: And as usual, if you have any questions, um, I'm around on the Discord, I'm happy to answer questions. Uh, and multiple of us are there. Um. [notification sound] Ciao.

Joao T: Uh, so if you wanted to have a discussion about this date or make a case about it, now it's Discord is the place?

Daniel T: At this point, I would say yeah. I mean, and you can, if you want to organize a call, like, you know, there's nothing stopping you from organizing another call and announcing and saying, "Hey, I want to have a, I want us, us to have a call about this after the vote opens." You're free to organize a call. Um, I don't think anyone will say, "No, you're, you shouldn't do a call about this." So if you wanna organize one, you can. Just, it, it feels to me like we've organized several, we've had several community calls about this, including one dedicated to convers- uh, like discussion about this, so.

Joao T: Right. Because, uh, I missed the one last week. I was attending a wedding, so I don't know if it was the last week exactly when... Because we had a call when I remember like Condo making a case of why September should be in it.

Daniel T: That was, that was last week.

Joao T: Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, no, yeah. Well, uh, but we still didn't really have the candidate dates for voting, right? So i- it just like, I don't know, for me, it felt like we're discussing before... And I understand there's lots of circumstances of why that might have been the case, but now that we actually have the candidates, uh, like, and then, I don't know, this complex system of voting, uh, might complicate the like... Well, I hope that in the end it, it works out, uh, if someone wants it in September, we're not gonna split the votes and, uh, because-

Daniel T: W-

Joao T: Yeah.

Daniel T: Were you there last week? Actually, probably. There were some people who weren't there last week. Would it be worth me quickly going through the v- the ranking system again?

Joao T: Uh, yeah. I, I think I only saw part of this call where, uh, Condo was making a case for September. That, that's what I remember of it because, yeah, I was traveling for the last few weeks. And so y- that's why I asked about the, the voting system because the, the one about the naming, I understand was very complex. And even like the one now where we pre-selected the dates was still complicated. And you said yourself that like even the way you voted would, uh, you felt wasn't really ideal. So-

Daniel T: Uh, no. So the survey, the survey was not ideal in the sense that we asked, you know, are you g- are you coming to the event? Are you coming for build? Are you coming for, for-

Joao T: Yeah. To have to choose-

Daniel T: Like, et cetera

Joao T: ... one, one option each line was a bit confusing.

Daniel T: In, in, in hi... Yeah. In, uh, in hindsight, I think what I wish we would have done, but we didn't know that like... So the reason why it was less helpful, I believe, and obviously everybody's gonna have their own opinion about this, but the reason I believe it was less helpful is because actually the, the build, strike, uh, barrier build and so on columns were not actually much more additional information. They were kind of reflecting the shape of who's gonna come to the event. So we thought we might find a date when everybody wants to come to the event, but nobody wants to come for build or strike, and that was not the case. Like the, the, the two were kind of proportional, so it looks like any date where lots of people want to come for the event, lots of people also want to come for build and strike. So this was less informational than we thought we, it would be. And also kind of obvious in hindsight, but we didn't figure that out before, the don't want column, Carlos, was the opposite of the, uh, like I said, I won't come column, was the opposite of I will come column, column. [chuckles] So, um, it was like basically only one column was particularly useful, and the other four columns were a little bit of a waste. Next year, if we do another vote like this or if we have another vote about dates at some point, what I would, um, go for is more a system where for each date people are asked just two questions: Will you come? Will you not come? And do you like this date and do you not like this date? That way it's really simple, it's really easy to answer, and we get the maximum amount of information about this date, both do they like it and like do they think it's a good date, and will they be able to come. Uh, which were the two really useful bits of information we got from the survey. So the survey design can be improved for next year. The, the vote is a ranked vote similar to how we've done the, the election, similar to how we've done also the name vote, except a bit better than the, the way the name vote, uh, worked. So João, I'm getting some echo from you. I'm getting some echo from you. I'm gonna mute you. I'm gonna mute you. Right. Um, so the, the ranked vote is much simpler. It doesn't requi-- And unlike the name vote, you don't have to rank 26 options and then re-rank them again in reverse. Uh, it's just very simple. You just, uh, for each date, you select which one you think is your top choice, your second choice, your third choice, et cetera. Uh, you can rank multiple dates on the same rank if you think there's two dates where you're like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm okay with both those dates." Maybe both of those dates are the first choice for you. And you can, um, leave some dates unranked, or you can actively mark some dates as rejected to say that you really, really don't like those dates. Um, so it's a pretty simple system, and you only need to vote on the dates that you, you want to vote on. And then the magic happens in the, the ranking, um, algorithm, which I explained last week, but I'll go through it quickly again. But if you go to Event Dates here, and you scroll down a tiny little bit here, you can see how the ranking method works. And there's a nice interactive presentation in multiple languages where you can go through this and understand how this ranking works if you want to understand that. And the s- the fundamental principle is the winning week is the one that would beat every other week in a head-to-head vote. Um, [lip smacks] and the only expla- extra explanation needed is how do you run these head-to-head comp, uh, uh, comparisons, and what if no week beats all the others? So if you've got somebody who votes like one, two, three, four, they put these two at the same, and they don't rank these, these two, um, then, uh, that-- So that's a way that you could vote, for example. And the way a week, uh, like the, the, the, the, uh, it's decided whether a week wins against another, uh, week is you take... In this case, there's, uh, 11 votes, 11 voters. Each of them ranked those four weeks. And you can see that, uh, week seven, uh, the 20th of September won seven times, and 4th of October won four times. So in this contest between those two, 20th of September wins against October 4th. And then you do that for every single pairing of weeks. And on the most conditions, you'll get one week that wins all the contests, and that's the winner. That helps, uh, deal with, you know, uh, split votes and clusters of votes and stuff. It's a, it's a very good algorithm. I'm not gonna go into detail of why, but it's selected to help with that, to reduce the chance of something that's actually the most popular choice ending up not winning because of some kind of weird ranking a- a- artifact. Um, the only extra complexity is if there's a cycle, a kind of rock, paper, scissor thing, where this week beats this week, this week beats this week, and this week beats this week. And the way the algorithm works then is that whichever is the weakest victory gets just basically removed from there, and that, uh, leaves, uh, a, a simpler graph, so to speak, to look at, and then this week ends up winning. Why it matters to understand this is because it could be if the June week w- uh, wins, for example, it could be that, um, uh, once we get, um, uh, the, uh, INAGA data about bird nesting, maybe we need to remove a week from the, from the ballot. Um, and what's slightly counterintuitive there is that because, um, the, the, the... because of how the winner is determined there, removing a week that's not currently the winner could change the winner. So if you think about this one, if this week is removed, then this week is no longer the winner because this one wins against this one. So if we remove 27th of September, the winner's gonna change to here because this one is no longer in the contest. Um, I think it makes enough sense once you look at the presentation, if you think about it for a bit. If you have any questions, feel free to ping me on Discord. I realize I've now sp- speaking about this for 30 minutes. Um, it's, uh, then again, it is a big topic that everybody cares a lot about. Um, yeah. And so if you want to organize another call about this, um, I'll happily join. Uh, I'll happily explain anything that needs to be explained. Just let me know when, hopefully not when I have another meeting or another commitment. But otherwise, uh, yeah, happy to help anybody who wants extra help understanding this. We don't know when we will get the info about bird nesting. If you look on the page... Where is my tab? Here. If you go back here and you click on Bird Nesting, you'll see there's a, uh, there's this kind of summary here, and then there's a whole bunch of research that's been done about both sites looking at, like, what is the data that we have? Like, how close are they to different, like, uh, protection plans and so on, which is public data that we could, could have. What we could not have is what is the, the reasoning that they use to make those decisions. Um, we don't have access to that. If there was a, a s- an INAGA report for, uh, Nowhere whenever it was authorized many years ago, that report has been lost. Nobody seems to have it. Um, so we don't know what the reasoning was for authorizing Nowhere during a breeding period that is actually a concern. Um, like, uh, where is it? Uh, somewhere there's... Like, so July is actually, like, a po-- like, it is a possible, uh, concern that, that area, uh, that, that date. So we don't know why it was authorized before. We don't have any more data. We've made the requests, uh, for all the dates, but it's the middle of the summer in Spain and Spanish bureaucracy. Um, we're, we're... Like, we'll get the answer when we get the answer. Um, and yes, if we get the info after it's decided, we might have to knock some dates out of the rankings, which is why we've done a ranked voting that enables us to do that. So that way, when we get the answer from INAGA, we don't have to then go through this whole exercise of doing a vote. We can immediately know what is the, the community's choice Based on the actual available votes, because we've had-- like we've done all this stuff. We don't have to wait another couple of months after that to find out the dates. And the reason for that is obviously that, um, the, um, uh, it's important for people to know when this event is gonna happen. People plan their year around it. Some people do. I certainly do. Um, and the sooner they know when it's gonna happen, the easier they can do their yearly planning. They can ask for holidays. They can plan like how they're gonna travel, which other burns they're gonna attend. And other burns also want to have that, that, uh, information so they can, you know, know what impact it's gonna have on them. I guess that's it.

Ellen K: Yeah.

Daniel T: I'll hand over back to you, Ellen.

Ellen K: Yeah. Um-

Daniel T: Yes. You're up. Sorry.

Ellen K: Last question. There's result of the vote is final barring bird nesting factor. The board would just use that.

Daniel T: The final-- Yes. Like, I mean, ultimately, like, you know, this is not the Brexit vote. Um, we don't have to like, you know, make a stupid vote and then stick with it for 10 years and destroy everything. Um, if we make a vote as a community and we come up, we suddenly realize for whatever new information comes up and realize, "Oh my God, this was a really stupid idea. It's just gonna like, you know, ruin the event," we can always make another vote and like do another decision and change our minds. Um, or [chuckles] like it, it's, uh, it's-- we're allowed to change our minds in this way if we want to. Um, but unless there's a reason to like, you know, go through this again, we probably will just use the results that we've expressed, uh, about those dates. I mean, you know, if, for example, if Inaga came back and said, "Actually, none of those dates are available for whatever reason," then we'd have to do another vote and figure out when else to hold the event, for example. But hopefully that's not gonna happen.

Ellen K: Yeah, it's a big topic. I mean, it is, uh, for sure, like the big decision of, of this month. And you can also see it, right? That, that there's a-- I don't think there's a single date where every single board member agrees. [chuckles]

Daniel T: No. And I think it's also worth pointing out that there's not gonna be any dates that we can change to or stay on the current date where everybody's happy. Um, any ch-choice that we make is gonna piss off some people, and they're gonna be very justified to be pissed off. It's not because they're being immature or something. It's gonna like, you know, for example, people who have or are impacted by the school year will be impacted by pretty much all the choices that are popular with the community. Um, and that really sucks. Like, I don't want to impact people this way. But at the same time, if we-- I sincerely believe that if we keep the date where it is now, and this is the belief of the board as well, we are very likely to be canceled or even to not be given a permit. So not having the permit or being canceled mid-event or forced to evacuate thousands of people from the site, in my mind is worse than, um, a few, a few people, like some, some, some people not being able to, to attend the event. And it's, it's a, it's a, uh-- there's, there's no perfect choice there, basically. And I think we have the maturity as a community to accept that. That's, that's life.

Ellen K: We have a last question maybe. Do you wanna go ahead, João?

Joao T: Yeah. Well, no, because, uh, uh, as you're saying, like again, this decision I think is quite different than the previous big decisions that we had to vote as a community. First, about whether the event is happening or not, and about the name, because now this decision will likely prevent some of people from attending, right? And then particularly because there's this bird nesting thing still, uh, floating, which is out of our control. But when you say that whatever you decide, we can still change it depending on factors, uh, I think we leave the door open for a lot of discussion and resentment that could happen based on small groups that might, for some reason, not e- be able to attend. And that could lead to, I don't know, just some political bullshit later. I'm just like kinda like, kind of brainstorming and trying to understand and like-

Daniel T: So I-

Joao T: ... makes it, we are doing this the best way that we can. We think-

Daniel T: I, I, I hear you that, yes, it is possible with any kind of community type process for the issue to be reopened over and over again. Um, I have the experience of a governance process of this kind with Holacracy in the company that I ran, where also like somebody can keep reopening governance processes and people-- every time people learn Holacracy, they're like, "Wait, but anybody can just-- Like, if, if I make a governance proposal and anybody can just make the opposite governance proposal next week, h- like, then we can just keep going back and forth and never resolve the thing." And in practice, what happens is people talk, and like I have high trust that most people are mature enough to realize that you can't get your way on everything all the time. Um, and so sometimes some compromises have to be made, and sometimes you lose out of the compromise that has to be made. Um, looking at the comments that people made in the survey, which you can find those comments, you can download. So all the survey data is also, if you go on the, the, the event date site, you can download the JSON of all the survey data, put it in your AI, get some analysis done, and so on. Uh, and like the people who said they were impacted by the school year, many of them also said, "But I understand that you have to move the dates." So, you know-

Joao T: It's like, I mean, my-

Participant (unidentified): Right. Just to-- Sorry. Uh, it seems there was a meeting. We missed it. We can make another one. Is the question answered?

Joao T: No, no-

Participant (unidentified): Can I move on?

Joao T: Well, it's just like my, my concern here is just on the point that Daniel made that like, oh, if we realize that we made a bad choice, we can still change it. I-

Participant (unidentified): Yeah

Joao T: ... um, maybe clarifying this that like it will be like extreme circumstances. It's not because a certain group didn't like it, and then let's make up a bullshit reason and then try to have another decision. Uh, like again, once we vote about this, the vote is gonna be like a final barring bird nesting. And like, I don't know, say that there's another Like legal reason or something on this level that will threaten the execution of the event, we could reopen this. But we're not likely to want to reopen this just for, like, minor reasons. Right?

Daniel T: Sorry, I, I cannot speak for the boards.

Joao T: Excuse me.

Daniel T: Like, each of them have their own opinions, as you can see in the votes about the dates. Uh, but my sense is that, um, th- this board is not, like, particularly keen to have this going on over and over again for frivolous reasons. So we're not going to be going and doing all this work to keep redoing, removing the dates, like, every month [laughs] or every couple of months. We want the community to have, uh, the, um, the clarity to know when the event is gonna happen. Um, some, some board members wanted to have the vo- the vote a bit later, but they were willing... Like, we ended up, like, coming up with the compromise of doing it about, uh, after about a month and a half. I don't, I don't s- expect... I think Peter is here. I don't know if any other board members are, uh, here, but, uh, at least I saw him at one point. Uh, I don't... Yeah, Peter is here. Like, I don't expect that, uh, many board members will be, like, keen to keep reopening this over and over again, unless there's a really, really good reason, uh, in which case there would be a really, really good reason. So, yes, I don't, don't think that we're gonna, you know, frivolously keep revoting on this.

Ellen K: Yeah. And again, like, please feel free to continue that discussion in Discord. If you weren't here for a call, like, let's have another one. Let's... Like, things can be organized, and you can definitely organize them. So feel free to, like, take that ownership as well in the days coming up. It's normal that it's a big decision and that it raises a lot of questions. I think we should head over to the working groups, our, our second theme of the night, 'cause I can see we have a few working group members. Um, and we have six to seven working groups that have registered to date-

Daniel T: Mm

Ellen K: ... which is not bad. They're described on the website, so you can see those little descriptions of what their objectives are, and there's, uh, channels on Discord that you can join if you're interested in the topic. Uh, we've got one from, for sound policy, for all of those people interested in making a, a better, clearer, more inclusive sound policy for next year. They've been doing a lot of information gathering from our own experience as well as from other burns, and this is a good time to join them 'cause they will likely have their first call after this event date vote. So if you're interested in sound policy, head over to the Discord. You can join them there. Uh, there is the new site working group, and they have no updates this week because of a flat tire. They were gonna go visit a new piece of land that they were interested in, and there was no visit 'cause there was a flat tire. That happens. There's a Middle of Elsewhere Improvement Group, uh, and they have been going over a bunch of, like, the takes that we had this year, of what we might wanna improve in the future. So if you're interested in that, go join them. Um, there's an org structure working group, and I can see Anna is on the call. And do you wanna give us an update on what you've been working on?

Anna T: Yeah, I can do that. So this is a new working group that was, uh, registered this week. Um, we have so far got a few, uh, people interested in joining. It's a project that Celine and I are coordinating. Uh, there is a, uh, document on, uh, Google Docs I can share if you like. I don't know if I can screen share on the call.

Daniel T: You can.

Anna T: Uh-huh. Let me try that. Cha, cha, cha. Ah. Should I click share with audio? Um-

Daniel T: You click on the little, uh, share screen button.

Anna T: Yeah.

Daniel T: Yeah.

Anna T: I got that, and then it says sh- I'll click share with audio, but if that means that I-

Daniel T: Yeah, yeah

Anna T: ... I know-

Daniel T: Unless you're playing YouTube, it doesn't really matter, but, yeah.

Anna T: No. Okay. So you can still hear, hear me then?

Daniel T: Yeah. Yeah.

Anna T: Okay, fab. So yeah. So here is our document. You can also see this on the Discord channel. So on the Discord, under work- working groups, there's one that says organizational structure, organizational design. I can't remember, uh, which way. And so there you can see this, um, document which essentially we've put together just outlining the kinds of things that we're, um, exploring. So it's quite a big topic. Uh, essentially it's just... And it, it will involve a lot of talking to people. Um, so the desires we've kind of got in looking at this, in the first part is to look at, like, how we as an, as an organization are s- are structured because we had, uh, a, a previous organization, had ways of working, um, and a structure to it. And then when we formed the new association, we elected a board, and then very quickly had to make an event happen. So, and to, like, generate humans and all kinds of things like that. So essentially, this is then looking and saying, like, are we doing... You know, how do we wanna do things? It might be in areas very little change, but just saying, like, "Hey, this works." And in other areas it might be saying, like, "Hey, this, this doesn't have to be done like this. We, we want to explore a new way." For example, we kind of renamed all of the metali roles to coordinator early on, and then that's caused quite a bit of confusion for people as well. So part of the work is to work out, like, what, what do we wanna do? How do we wanna structure ourselves? What is, for example, the role of the board? Because we elected a board, but we're not actually very specific at the moment of what, what decisions are made by the board, how they're made, and this is, like, all being, uh, figured out as we go along. Which to a certain extent, like, designing this will still mean that we're figuring it out as we go along, but we've got a, a sort of sense, sense of it more. Um- It feels quite important to me to look at things like what the board roles are before we have more elections from members to the board. Because there's a very clear, uh, desire for diversity, for example, but it doesn't make t- too much sense, at least to me, to bring in more people without knowing kind of what, what the job description is. So that's ... Some of this is looking at ... And yeah, this is that. Looking at these things, um, potentially dividing up Daniella's, uh, activities into a few more roles. Um, yeah, making things more visible as well so we can all as a community see, for example, how the event planning is going rather than that being held in the minds of a few people. Um, having something that could potentially be just quite visible that we all sort of fill in. Um, anyway, there's, there's a lot of aspects to this, and the process wants to be, um, extremely, uh, collaborative, basically. So I'm really happy to be talking on the call because I would like to talk to a lot of people, talk to coordinators, leads, talk to whoever is interested, um, consult, workshop this at the ALM and find, find different ways that we'll kind of come up with, like, lots of l- lots of lists of questions to explore this. Uh, in line with that, we'll be having a meeting at, um ... Uh, can I check, Celine and Daniel, is it 4:00 PM that we meet on Monday? Uh, let me check. I'd prefer to get this right. [laughs] Yeah. I'll just double check. It's- It is 4:00 PM, yes. Yes. So on, on 4:00 PM ... This is not the only call, but our next call will be on, uh, 4:00 PM Central European Summer Time on, um ... And you can, can see it's gonna be posted on Discord. So here's an invitation. Anyone who's interested in creating this together and talking about it, um, and just saying what you want, um, like what you would need out of, uh, out of doing this, then that would be amazing. You can also ... The document is on, uh, the Discord. So you can go on the document and put your comments on for us to read. You can comment on the Discord thread. Uh, and you can also come along to that meeting and... So there's another part of it which also includes once kind of we've got the structure of this a bit firmer, like how we, how we get roles, how we, um, if we stay in roles, I put a, a little bit, like, about fixed terms. So the board have a, have a fixed term before reelections. But do we, do we want coordinators to be ... Like, how, how do we want the selection process of everything to be? What's ... What do we want? What's, what's practical? What do we actually have the capacity to do, um, in terms of us all engaging? Um, so this is another whole area of, like, yeah, how do we, um, how do we select people? How do we ... What do we kind of require of those who are selected, um, as a community? And do we have fixed terms for which roles, in that case? Would, would you do that? Um, yeah, what, what do we want? So this is all essentially questions of, like, how do we, how do we wanna do this thing? What do we want? Um, and I would love everyone's input who's got, uh, capacity and desire to bring it. And ...

Ellen K: Excellent. Are there any questions on this bit of the organizational structure work? And if not, how do people join you? They go on Discord, and they join your group?

Anna T: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so yeah, l- uh, it's a big topic. Let the questions arise when they arise. And when they do, you can go on Discord and write on the, um, working group. So, uh, on Discord, there's a, a tab, uh, channels, channel of working groups, and then a channel for this one, which is organizational structure. So you can go on that one, and you will find this document. You will find, uh, people on that. So, um, yeah, right there. Uh, and I'll post about the meeting on Monday. It won't be the only meeting, but that's, that's the next meeting. So yeah, welcome to join.

Ellen K: Excellent. Making some structure after all the scrambling to get the event done. [laughs] Thank you so much.

Anna T: Yay. Thank you.

Ellen K: Uh, there are, uh, two more groups that aren't actually working groups yet, but they might be soon. One of which is a big discussion on the temple. So there's been a lot of debate around, mm, looking into whether we can have kind of this closing ceremony moment and what a temple would look like. And that's also on Discord. And there's also big debate on the Discord that you can join, uh, about offline communications that's quite interesting. So I'm expecting that to take some space moving forward. I'm really hoping to feature a few Barrio Solutions in the next couple of months about offline communications. There's a very cool, uh, blackboard king communications thing at Glitch. I'm hoping to get Glitch on here, talk about that. Uh, we have about 50 minutes lest- left, and I think we should use those. If someone has a topic that we haven't raised or that they think they would really like to see debated, this would be the time to do that. And other than that, I think there's a question around how often we should try and do these calls. Uh, we have been doing them every week. It was really intensive moving up to the event. Now we're moving into another type of timeline where- Um, we're kind of gardening. We're setting things up. Um, and I think there's a real question about what's the right frequency, so I'd really like to have any opinions on that. I think I'm personally a kind of, maybe this is something we do once a month and then we make it a bit more frequent once we get closer to, uh, n- next year's event, but I'd be really happy to have anyone's opinion. And I can see Daniel is here. Come on, Daniel. Go for it.

Daniel T: Hello. Uh, well, first of all, thank you so much for, uh, taking over the call this week. Uh, it's, uh, really helpful. Like, um, uh, I have obviously been, uh, hosting these calls for... well, since the event, and hosted many of the calls before the event. And, um, I think it... like, as somebody who has hosted a lot of these calls, it is a lot of effort, a lot of mental effort to, like, think ahead and try and make sure there's, uh, like, content that's interesting, make sure that the, the, the time of people who join is, is well used. Um, and I, I think, as a human, doing more than one a month is a lot of mental load. Um, and so I would suggest not having the same person hosting. You know, even if we do calls, uh, more often, not having the same person hosting, uh, more than, uh, more than once a, uh, more than once a month. Maybe twice a month when there's something really important that they're, they're hosting and so on. That said, I also think that whilst we could say like, "Yeah, okay," like, you know, it's, the event is still a while away and so on. There's nothing to... like, we don't need to have calls so frequently. There's actually a lot of stuff going on, I think. You look at the, the stuff that Ana just talked about, the governance, uh, the event dates will just happen now. After that there's gonna be some stuff that, like, we're gonna be talking about what we're gonna talk about at the ALM, maybe preparing some topics for that. And the, the habit, I think, uh, has been maybe, uh, to sort of not do very much, like, in the months following the event, and then so pick it up again in January and, like, up the frequency at that point. I think there's something to be said for having that regular touch point so that there is a kind of coming together, like, around the fireplace of those people who do have some energy to put in, into this and want to keep the momentum running, and therefore, you know, we can see that there's like, you know, 26 people on this call who care enough to be on a call in September. And, like, it's, it feeds as well, um, uh, my sense of momentum to see that there's other people who care. Um, and I think there are enough topics going on that we would want, like, calls every week. That's my opinion. Other people may have different opinions, and if nobody hosts the call, then it doesn't happen. Um, so that's one way that this, this problem kind of stabilizes itself. Um, I think there's enough topics going on that it's worth having o- a, a call a week. Looking at the last few weeks so far, guessing at the next few weeks, the next few months, I think there will be stuff to talk about. But it's also okay if there's a week where we're like, "Okay, there's actually nothing going on," then maybe we don't need to have a call. Anyway, that was my opinion. I'll shut up now.

Ellen K: Do we have any other thoughts? I think there's Joao saying that, "Does anyone think we need to do it more than once a month?" But that sounds like Daniel does. I think there's a case for, for a twice a month call as well. Um, just keeping the, that... I mean ob- there's obviously always gonna be news, and the question is to what extent do we want that news to be worked on by a working group, and to what extent do we want that to always be debated in the weekly meetings? Um, and I think there's cases to be made for a bunch of different solutions. I'll leave the word to Heather. If you're talking, you're on mute. Heather has raised a hand but is still on mute. Okay. Am I to understand Heather has put her hand down? No. Not, no raised hand. Okay. [laughs] I, I'll give the word to Joao, and Heather you'll let us know if you are managing to unmute.

Joao T: Yeah. Well, I, I didn't fully understand what Daniel's opinion was in the end because in the beginning I thought that he was making the case that it makes sense that it's once a month due to the, the work that it is to, to carry out. Uh, and from my perspective, like, given, like, the cost of, like, creating and running the meeting is, is not trivial, I do understand that there's lots going on and, like, as we could see on the, the last few weeks, uh, there is, like, I mean, even in the downtime that is now, I think that maybe now as we are still kind of coming out of the event, there are still, like, some debriefs happening and then we're preparing for the ALM, and the ALM is gonna happen, then there's gonna be a debrief for the ALM, and, and then we're then in the beginning of the year, and then, like... I don't think that we ever have a super downtime, but, uh, I think that, like, once a month will be okay. Maybe then every, all the week we have a newsletter with updates from working groups or anything else that is happening. Because w- I think the bigger cost is actually having the community show up, uh, when we call the meetings, and then there's the fact that, for example, if something was discussed last week and I missed it, it's not gonna be discussed on the week that I actually can show up. And then, like, the actual important, uh, discussions that we need the community to come together and listen and participate, we're gonna dilute the thoughts of the community through more meetings. So, uh, it's not like things are not gonna be happening, the board's- It's not gonna be meeting or working groups or this call is not gonna be going on. But I think that the cost for putting on these meetings and have the community show up together at Thursday 8:00 PM is high. So, like, I'm actually surprised that we managed to still have a fairly high participation, uh, all these weeks. But I'm sure that there are people that would like to be hearing this and, like, giving their input here. They are just not able to be here every week. Uh, so if we make this less frequent, I think that while working groups are happening, the boards meeting, and then maybe, like, a newsletter goes out every other week. And I understand that someone's still gonna have to produce that. So, uh, like, again, someone's gonna have to collect updates from all the people and put out a newsletter that still we need to make it meaningful so that people bother to read them. Because, uh, like, I understand that the usefulness of this newsletter is often low because people, like, 90% of them is nothing, uh, urgent or relevant. Uh, but then the relevant things get missed because if you don't read any of them, you're missing everything. So I think that the attention of the community is actually the, the more precious resource that we need to protect. So when we call a meeting like this that requires people to join at a certain time on a certain date, we can't do that very often. And so I would say that once a month is probably okay. And definitely, like, I think that it helps publishing the agenda in adv- in advance, maybe like a week in advance, particularly if you're doing it, like, once a month, so that people can actually know and choose, "Oh, this is gonna be discussed. I wanna participate in that. Oh, that is gonna be discussed. I don't think that I need to be there." But then people are actually informed about when things are being discussed or things that are happening, and then they, uh, have the information to choose when they are showing up or not. So I would say probably once a month is what I think makes more sense.

Ellen K: Yeah. There could be a sort of working group on, uh, community outreach and, and how we think about that, with maybe a group of interested people joining in and seeing what form that takes. If that takes the form of a bit of a newsletter or an update on the website, and then a, a more regular call but maybe less frequent. I mean, that could make sense. Daniel, would you want to answer that?

Daniel T: Yeah. I, I, I've been thinking some more after, uh, like, while Joao spoke and, um, one of the things that occurred to me is like, you know, why do these things happen? Like, everything that happens, um, in a, a burn context happens because somebody cares to make it happen. That's the primary driver. Like, somebody feels like, "This is important. I wanna see it happen." Whether it's the middle of elsewhere or the toilets, or the war zone, or the, um, uh, gate or whatever, or, like, some barrier, somebody cares enough to make something happen. And so looking back, clearly I've cared enough to make this happen for the last few weeks. And so I ask myself, "Why did I care enough to make this happen?" And that's my reason, and it doesn't have to be a reason that anybody else shares. But I feel like the reason I've cared enough is because there is some kind of sense of momentum that gets built in these things. There's, um, a sense that, okay, we are active. There are things going on. There's a sense of transparency that happens as well. People can ask questions. They can raise topics. Um, there's, um, like, a sense of togetherness that I think comes up in these calls. Okay, like, there is, there is a thing going on here. And thinking for myself, and this is not necessarily everybody else's answer, and that doesn't mean it's the right answer, but thinking for myself, when I think, "Oh, like, there's only one of these calls a month," I feel like that's missing, like, that's lost. Something important gets lost. And yeah, not everybody needs to join every week, and that's okay. And I don't think we should [notification sound] present these community calls in a way that, like, makes it look like everybody needs to join every week. It's okay not to join every week. It's okay to look at the recording. It's okay to join, like, to, to, to, uh, look at the minutes and so on. Um, yes, it would be definitely better if we had more agenda foresight. Like, that's something that I've, I've said many times. I'm not very good at planning ahead, like, forwards and so on. So, like, setting up the agenda two weeks in advance is not something that I- I'm super good at. Um, but I, like, I, I personally have felt the kind of value of these. And like I see, like I... Looking back, I see why I cared to do this. And I think there would be a different vibe in this community if there hadn't been those weekly calls for the last few weeks. So I wanted to add that into the pot there.

Ellen K: There's also a comment in the chat from Peter saying there could be a primary meeting with other, um, smaller ones, maybe with more niche topics. Could also be a way of thinking about it, that there's one which is kind of a decision point, where we have things like the event date debate, which is the one major one where we really want everyone to gather, and then more of a forum type, uh, call. Um, and Ans is saying Ans could help with newsletters. Excellent. To me, this is starting to sound like a working group. Is there anyone else who would like to have a comment on this topic? I can see Joao has a hand up.

Joao T: Yeah. If, if, if anyone else wants to speak, I'm happy to let them speak before, but I would like to respond to Daniel's point. So if no one else, uh, raise it. Uh, so Daniel, yeah, I actually, like, I think that what you said made me change my opinion as well, uh, that... And I see that, like, for example, there is value knowing that every Thursday at, uh, 8:00 PM, if I'm not hanging out with the Nowhere crowd, I can join the call and there's gonna be some faces here. But I think that, like, we cannot, like, maybe it's, like, in line of what Peter said, is that, say the first, uh- The first one of the month is where we give the updates of everything that happened in the last month or stuff like that, so that if you can only attend one, you attend this one. And then the other ones are just like whatever's been happening this week or, like, uh, checkpoints of working groups and stuff like that. Because, uh, I think that is not fair with the community to expect that if someone misses one of these calls every week, then they, "Oh, oh, like, I mean, we discussed that last week, so we're not talking about this this week." Uh, or like, "Oh, no, this decision was taken last week, so if you didn't show up, you missed the vote." But at the same time, as long as there's one person that, like, couple days before, um, bothered to offer to host or combine agenda and say they're gonna host it on Thursday, we have it on that Thursday, and then people can have this, uh, gathering moment every week to, like, just see what's up, see some familiar faces a- and all that. But we do keep the, like, on the first week, like, Thursday of the month, for example, uh, we will have a, a bigger one where we have updates from different groups a- et cetera, and, like, the bigger, more or like a recap of what happened. So, like, uh, while I think it's, it's key is not depending on the community that they show up every week, otherwise they miss things that cannot go back. But at the same time, if we can make it happen, there's no downside.

Ellen K: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. The... I mean, it sounds like there could be more ways for us to reach out, and there could be a bit more structure. And I think that's something we've been talking about, and this has just been an effort that's been, like, held on Daniel's shoulders over the past six months. And we're grateful that has happened, but I kind of feel like now is also a time where we should kind of move that forward a bit and, and, and spread that load a bit so that we make sure that, uh, no one is carrying too heavy and that we can all participate. So on that topic, if it is now 9:00, so let's round off. But if anyone feels like hosting the next community call, come on, join us. Go to the Discord. Show up. Send an email. You're welcome. [laughs] Let's do it. And then next week, Thursday, will be the official, uh, assembly and the vote. "I'm just here to fix toilets once and for all. Who should I speak to?" Uh, you should come to the Discord [laughs] and speak to Marcus. Speak to Shitshow.

Daniel T: Yeah, speak to Shitshow and possibly Daniela, but mostly Shitshow, I think.

Ellen K: There's an L&T channel on the Discord.

Daniel T: And, and Peter.

Ellen K: Yeah. If nothing else, then we are 9:01, and we can round off. Sounds like we're good. We need some outro music too, Daniel. We have nothing to vibe to.

Daniel T: Can anyone, uh, do some beatboxing on their microphone?

Ellen K: [laughs] No beatboxing on the call?

Participant (unidentified): We need Inspector Norse music.

Daniel T: Hmm?

Participant (unidentified): We need Inspector Norse music on the loop.

Daniel T: Oh, God.

Ellen K: [laughs] Yes, please. I mean, anything is better. I think so. I'm go for it.

Daniel T: I'll try and figure something out for the next one, whenever that is.

Ellen K: Oh, thank you. Or someone else could. Or someone else could. [laughs]

Daniel T: Right. But I have the system, I have this app called Loopback, which I can use to, like, play things on, on Google Meet-

Ellen K: Oh

Daniel T: ... which is, like... And it's an app that costs, like, 50 bucks or something. So if you send me the thing you want played and I happen to be on that call, I can play it for you basically.

Ellen K: Nice. Yeah, send Daniel all your music. I'm sure we have musicians in here. And other than that, I'm gonna wish you a good rest of your evening, and see you next week perhaps. See you, guys. [audio logo]