GM everyone!
First, I am incredibly grateful for all of the time and patience donated by the Assembly members in these early days of structuring. The conversations and passion displayed in the Assembly channel and meetings shows how truly dedicated our community is.
As the lead author of AIP-239: Working Group Guidelines and Governance Working Group Charter, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some clarity into the Ape Assembly. It is the role of the three Governance Working Group Stewards to “ratify” the Assembly (or give formal consent to make it officially valid), and we understand that the Assembly needs further guidelines and help with setting expectations.
The Assembly needs to be autonomous, but we also need to first build or present a foundation upon which the Assembly will stand on its own. I’d like to provide some clarity on:
- What Working Group Initiatives are
- What the Ape Assembly Initiative is
- What the Assembly can do
- Roles and Responsibilities within the Assembly
- What the voting options in the #Assembly-Votes channel in Discord mean
What Working Group Initiatives are:
From AIP-239 Key Terms: Initiative: “Projects within the scope of a Working Group. This includes any individual(s) performing work for the DAO within the scope of a Working Group, using a budget ratified by that Working Group.”
An Initiative is designed to be a more flexible extension of a Working Groups’ operations. They are designed to be semi-autonomous but still accountable and subject to oversight and administration from their Working Group Stewards. This doesn’t mean “leading” anything, this just means level-setting guidelines and expectations, and holding people accountable.
What the Ape Assembly Initiative is:
From AIP-239: Governance Working Group Charter section 3.2: “The Ape Assembly is an Initiative to be established within the scope of the Governance Working Group, which will be tasked with facilitating elections for Working Group Stewards.”
What the Assembly can do:
With this understanding, the Assembly has been delegated one responsibility or mandate: “Facilitating elections for Working Group Stewards.” What the Assembly can do:
- Organize
- Write AIPs
- Elect temporary Governance Stewards if one is incapacitated or leaves
- Facilitate elections for Working Group Stewards and the DAO Secretary
- Set term limits for the DAO secretary
- Allocate their resources where they are not in conflict with an AIP
Roles and Responsibilities within the Assembly:
There are several tasks within the Assembly that need to be completed on a weekly, or bi-weekly, basis; including:
- Serving as multisig signers on the apeassembly.eth Gnosis SAFE, together with the Lead Governance Steward.
- Serving as Authors on the apeassembly.eth Snapshot space and authoring votes that accurately represent the sentiment and direction of the Assembly members.
- Allocating Assembly resources as needed, as approved by an Assembly vote.
- Writing the Ape Assembly agendas, ensuring they are available ahead of the meetings.
- Making Ape Assembly specific announcements, and keeping the DAO abreast of Assembly activity.
- Circulating a sign-up form in order to gather feedback and register time and topics onto the Agenda from Assembly members.
- Moderating and guiding the meetings, ensuring everyone who wants to be heard has time to be heard.
- Keeping conversations on track, and keeping the Assembly accountable to its deliverables.
- Managing the meeting recordings + playback process (uploading to Youtube).
- Taking notes, and sharing those notes for the rest of the Assembly members.
What the voting options in #Assembly-Votes mean:
As far as the current ballot goes, the Assembly is meeting again this Wednesday, 7/12 at 10AM PST to workshop these options together before closing the vote, but this is what we had in mind when we authored it:
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Committees - This is signaling that we do not need any internal representation right now at all. It would signal that we would like an Elections Focus Group to begin meeting as necessary in order to propose an adequate Nominations and Elections process to the Assembly, for the Assembly to vote on. If we vote for this option, further clarification will be needed on the specifics of how Focus Groups would request resources / time on agendas.
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One elected representative - This is signaling that we would like at least one internally elected individual to serve, in general, as a “speaker” or representative for the Assembly and take on some of the responsibilities the Governance Working Group is currently performing.
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Three elected representatives - This is signaling that we would like three internally elected individuals to serve, in general, as a “speaker” or representative for the Assembly and take on some of the responsibilities the Governance Working Group is currently performing.
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Task the Governance Working Group to manage the Ape Assembly budget and multisig + facilitate Working Group elections - This is signaling no real change in current structure, but would signal support for the Governance Working Group to take a more direct (temporary) role within the Assembly. This would signal that we would like the Governance Working Group to continue to perform the very same “default” roles and responsibilities it has since the Assembly’s inception, while also proposing a Nominations and Elections process for Working Group Stewards for the Assembly to vote on.
At Wednesday’s meeting, we will present the Governance Working Group’s vision for the Assembly.
If you would like to register time or a topic on the Agenda, please do so at this form: July 12, 2023 - Ape Assembly Meeting Queue
Thank you everyone! 