Decidim Association - Coordination Committee Extra-ordinary Meeting on Decidim Fest

Agenda

1. Diagnose problems and propose improvements in the democratic coordination of the project

Participants: Ali, Xabier, Antonio, David, Marta, Pauline, Ben

Approval tally after asynchronous deliberation

• Ali

• ​​​​​​​Ben

• Pauline

• ​​​​​​​Marta

• Xabier (I agree with the minutes as they stand today 17/11/2025 09:06 CET time)

• Txema (abstention)

• Antonio

• David

Issues raised

• Decidim has been growing in terms of technical development and capital (economic, symbolic, relational, etc.) in the last years, but may have been lagging slightly behind in terms of democratic quality and governance, in aspects such as the connections between the coordination committee, the community (and the assembly), and the technical office (with its various parts).

• This lagging behind may have long term causes and symptoms. However, we commented specific democratic deficits or issues around the internal regulation process, the roadmap co-creation process, the Decidim Fest preparation, and the day to day work of the committee, all during the last few months.

• We specially focused on the last of these points, which partly connects with the rest.

  • We noticed that the transition of the previous President to Director left the Committee with a void of democracy stewardship (the role of making sure the operation of the committee, including general dynamization, communication with other bodies --such as specific committees, product, etc.--, agenda keeping, minute posting, etc.). Nil remains the main person organizing CC meetings and setting the agenda, which goes against CC's agenda setting rules.

  • The committee's communications have spread across two chat channels, and its meetings have become less frequent.

• Due to these operational problems the CC is missing some of the holistic vision and leverage it was elected to have.  ​​​​​​​ CC members have been focused on issues such as the internal regulation, weakening availability for holistic assessments. This, combined with dynamization, communication and organization deficits means the raising of issues tendentially happens reactively rather proactively.

Agreements

1. In the short term, and in line with Chapter 7, Article 4 of the Decision making process of the regulations and following the hiring of the Communications and Community Coordinator, the CC will request the Technical Office for the Communications and Community Coordinator to step into its Community Duties, starting with monthly support time to help facilitate the tasks needed to run the CC and to connect it to other organs of the association (technical office, specific committees, etc.). 

2. The Coordination Committee will recover its previous frequency and will meet once per month

3. As stated in the Decision-making process of the regulations, chapter 7, articles 15, 18, 19 and 20, meetings will be available to be attended by members of the association

4. The Coordination Committee will use the proposals component of the CC assembly in meta-decidim to set the agenda for the meetings, further promoting the members of the association to submit their proposals and partake more directly in the governance

5. An integration of CC's internal communication channels will be ensured.

6.  In the long term, the figure of a "democracy steward" --a peer to the Executive Officer or the Technical Officer, a sort of Democracy Officer or DO--, able to help the project in systematically assessing and advancing democratic quality and collective intelligence in all its planes --technical, technopolitical and political--, should be looked after in the mid and long term.