Adopt Version one of the governance charter: "Working Principles of the ECA"

Terms of membership need to be discussed -next?
EG Is membership based on values agreement or geography? (Writing as a UK citizen mostly living in New Zealand...)

Most people don’t have the time (nor really want) to read these types of documents. Reminds us too much of (Brussels) bureaucracy. Minimise text and use understandable language (and please NO abbreviations like ECA!!!). The less you write the more time you have to make it comprehensible. Most of what is written in the Charter is superfluous. A well-written mission statement, vision and strategy (3-5 lines in total at maximum) should cover all of it just fine.

But that is the main problem: it’s missing and it shows: the Charter seems contradictory to what is written on https://europeancommonsassembly.eu/call-for-a-european-commons-assembly/.

The European Commons Assembly is described there as a European lobby for the promotion of common initiative’s interests at the European Union level. Yet the Working Principles describes it to be “shared space for trans-local collaboration on commons”. Ergo quite a different animal and in need of total different organisation models. What's it to be?

I'd like to pick up and take forward the helpful comment above by @geraldlindner

First, I'd like to express appreciation for the drafting of the "charter". While reading, I can sense my head nodding in agreement! :)

However, it is not clear to me what the Charter is needed for, and this is how I relate to Gerald's comment.

What, exactly, is the need for a charter, and what is its role? i would certainly caution against having a Charter "because that's what people do". In fact, it's just that sort of assumption-following without question that can get us all into awkward corners.

Hopefully that is not what is happening, and someone can explain, for the proposed charter, (1) WHY? and (2) what is the function of this charter envisaged to be?

Where I live, in a cohousing community, issues about our "vision" come up which I think are related.

I'm copying a commment from NIcole ALIX who is having some trouble wiht loomio atm: 1. We conceive of the ECA itself : I do not know who can be a member of ECA, so what is the “ECA itself”? if it is the list “commonswatch”, it should be said: as a commons. We are a community (of activists, researchers, students, teachers, citizens etc.) who steward our shared space for trans-local collaboration on commons which is the European Commons Assembly. Who can be considered as a member of the community ?Here, we outline our governance.

1. The ECA is a non-hierarchical, peer-to-peer space for collaboration, rather than a body of representation.
   Individual participants cannot legitimately speak “on behalf of” the Assembly as a whole.
   They can however claim that ideas or work “emerged from” the ECA, or identify as members or “part of” of the Assembly.

2. We work through self-organized Assembly Groups that hold responsibility for carrying out initiatives, or "actions".
   All groups should inform, communicate and share their actions with the broader ECA. How? How do they know about the broader ECA? Is it the list?
   At the beginning of an agreed-upon action they they=you mean the groups? should clarify and document a mandate that describes and contextualizes the action and provides relevant information for the rest of the ECA.

3. We strive for consensus when making decisions and taking actions at all levels - individually, within Assembly Groups, and for the ECA at large.
   All initiatives and decisions should cohere with the following principled criteria:
   Be recorded "publicly" before executed (i.e. on loomio or on the list - not in private email conversations)
   Minimize harm
   Enhance freedom – opens up more rather than closes possibilities for the Assembly you mean ECA?

May I just check my reading of this? I read Nicole ALIX as asking
* "Who can be considered as a member of the community?"
* "How" groups should inform, communicate and share their actions with the broader ECA?
* "How do they know about the broader ECA? Is it the list?"
* who is it that "should clarify and document a mandate..." -- the groups?

Yes sorry you read it right, the bolding didn't keep from original email and I didn't have enough time to re-do it

Thanks, Nicole. Maybe we need to have a better discussion over this topic of Membership. Completely open membership may be OK for a while, but doesn't it too often end in abuse? Interestingly, getting people to understand and sign up to (the values expressed in) a governance charter may be one possible function of this charter. Maybe then we would need to agree a method of -- ah, what? -- I don't want to say "enforcing", or "sanctioning", but it is important to guard and hold the common "Assembly" spaces to keep in line with the values of the commoners who want to assemble -- or better still, to collaborate.

Hi Simon, this is exactly what I mean. thank you. Nicole

I will reply to the earlier question on why we are doing this charter tomorrow. Thanks for input everyone!

thanks for moving allow, it's be a longer process, though. First of all, I'd like to say that I think, that a kind of "principle - document" or a charter (not Manifesto, nor a bureaucratic rule thing, is what I consider to be one of the most elementary building blocks of whatever enduring social process. After all, it is no coincidence, that nation-states have constitutions. Commons need sth similar yet different: a foundational spirit, a social code, a Charter; a set of commonly agreed upon basic principles. So, IMHO working on this is key if we want a common spirit come into being. However, I understand @Gerald Lindner s comments very well; it's more I felt like I could not adopt the first version as it is not yet ready to be adopted.
Incidentially I have just been working for the last 6 months on a similar thing in the context of mapping; we finally came up with version nr. 0.5, which might meet this need of "short and sweet"

This Chartera includes a short intro describing the purpose (this might be helpful to answer some of the questions raised in this discussion) and it consists of only 12 principles (fitting all on one page - not more than 2 lines each. Each principle/ paragraph will somewhen be accompanied by a HOW TO to make these principles "easy to apply" for mapping projects all over the world.

So; here is the link: https://hack.allmende.io/intermapping-charter

Hope this is usefull.
On to version 2.