(this page will grow with instructions and manuals)

Circles?? We can not use old top down governance models to manage a successful ‘commons’ project. We have no CEO, no directors, no executives. We carry this project together, and we organize in circles, following the principles of sociocracy 👇🏾

Sociocracy is a system of governance that aims to achieve collaborative decision-making and inclusive participation within an organization or community. It is based on the principles of equality, transparency, and effectiveness, and is designed to ensure that the voices of all members are heard and considered. Key features of sociocracy include:

1. Consent Decision-Making: Decisions are made by consent, meaning that a proposal can only be adopted if no one has a reasoned and paramount objection. This is different from consensus, which requires agreement from everyone. Consent focuses on whether a proposal is "good enough for now, safe enough to try."
2. Circle Organization: The organization is structured into semi-autonomous circles or teams. Each circle has its own domain of responsibility and makes decisions within that domain. Circles are interconnected through a system of double-linking, where at least two members participate in the decision-making of a higher circle, ensuring coherence and communication across the organization.
3. Double-Linking: To ensure feedback and representation, there is a double-linking structure where two people from each circle (usually the leader and a representative) participate in the next higher circle's decision-making process. This maintains a flow of information and accountability between levels.
4. Elections by Consent: Elections for roles and responsibilities within the organization are conducted using a consent-based process. Members nominate candidates, discuss the nominations, and choose individuals by consent, ensuring that those selected have the trust and support of the group.

Why sociocracy?

The Commons Hub will be a space where we practice commoning: we share the available space so that we can all benefit from it. That requires quite some coordination, listening into everybody's needs and wishes for the space and cocreating it together. In other words, we do not only share the space, we also share the coordination, responsibilities for maintaining the space and the navigation of daily life at the CHB.

Sharing and distributing responsibility, and with that more evenly distributing power, and the workload requires a plan, a framework that will support the community and all its members to feel a sense of ownership, agency and belonging. We want the CHB to be a living, dynamic, system that invites people into contributing to a whole that is bigger than themselves, and that is resilient and adaptable when the environment or the context changes. Compare it to a human body, where every cell has a unique purpose but because of the deep connection between all different parts and the ways they all communicate with each other and with the environment, it somehow works and seems to be one entity with a clear inside and clear outside and a pretty good idea of what it needs to operate on the inside and what it needs from the outside.

A model that has proven to be quite successful in supporting processes like the one we want to build is sociocracy. It provides a set of tools, values and principles that will help us share responsibilities and provide a path into well organised and meaningful contribution to make sure the CHB will become the thriving place we want it to be, connected on the inside and connected to the environment it operates in.