Thanks Doug. I understand the intention. I'm simply seeking to achive clarity about how it will operate in practice.

I hope this is decided; I agree it's a good move in terms of how decisions are made. There is one caveat I would add, echoing Aaron's point "I don't think major decisions will be raised and decided on in the same meeting, but more likely proposed one month and then taken to members before a decision the following month" - this is a small but important feature that we should build in as a rule, I think, to ensure that discussion (and democracy) can always reach the 'grassroots'. Otherwise the danger is that (however well-intentioned) the Decision Making Circle might act without reference to the wider membership. ('Group Think' is a real phenomenon, even among the nicest people, as in this case :) )

This sounds great to me - I really enjoyed being part of the discussion on the first day, and am excited to see this proposal come out of it. One of the things we discussed was having a "facilitator" and "secretary" role in the circle - the latter would be responsible for circulating the agenda and making sure that people had enough time to contribute to it.

Perhaps a circle meeting could be held in person at a gathering where appropriate, so any interested folks could observe and see how things are working?

I fully support this proposal. Many thanks to @aaronhirtenstein and everyone at the Sheffield gathering for putting it together.

In the comments there's been a suggestion that proposals should be made in one month and only voted on the following month. Do we need as much as a month notice for proposals? Could we not use the same one-week notice we currently use for decisions on Loomio as described in the constitution by publishing the agenda a week before each meeting?

The first proposed call is on Wednesday at 4pm, see https://wiki.coops.tech/wiki/Sheffield_2019/_Cotech_governance#When

Where are we creating an agenda for the calls, on the wiki?

I'd like to add the suggestion of running the next Workers Co-op Weekend as a joint Co-ops UK / CoTech event to the agenda https://community.coops.tech/t/co-operatives-uk-workers-co-op-weekend-may-10th-12th-2019/1227/11

Should we push it back on month for the first call? I doubt we will be able to let all the co-ops know the call is taking place before the 29th May. It would be good to have high turnout for the first meeting.

I think we should proceed with the proposal that was agreed in Sheffield:

The circle will meet at 16:00 UK time on the last Wednesday of every month. The first meeting will therefore take place on 29th May 2019.

See also the Discourse thread.

Sounds great @chriscroome . I'd be keen to attend - purely as a supporter and observer, as I am not a member of a CoTech coop. But I don't know - maybe there might be objections to that?

Attend the first one and suggest adding "Are we happy with non-voting observers on these calls?" to the agenda of the call? I doubt that anyone would object.

We do have a bit of a concern about the types of decision that are made on these calls. 1/3 quorum is not necessarily that high, and we are a little worried that key decisions that would change the fundamental nature of CoTech might be made by this minority. For example, allowing on non-worker-co-ops or implementing a membership fee. We feel that there ought to be a higher quorum or another way of consulting on these decisions. However, we're voting yes in the assumption that these details can be ironed out once we get going. Thanks.

Ditto to Polly above

The notes from the first call on 29th May 2019 have been posted to the wiki. A quorum of 12+ (there are 36+ CoTech members) does seem like quite a lot of people to have in a online decision making call to me, but of course I agree that any fundamental decisions should be open to wider consultation and agreement and would expect this to happen.

I like the idea of separating (important) proposal rounds from decision rounds by at least one month/call, to give people a chance to think and also notice to attend. Perhaps changes to the constitution should be subject to this criteria at least (that would address the specific concerns @polly had on non-worker-coops and membership fee, for example).