where is the legal doc we signed with A4C? would be handy to find for future application
nlnet next steps
meeting on Thursday?
We will organise two online welcome meetups. Participation is obviously entirely optional, but we hope at least some of you will enjoy such an opportunity to learn about the rest of your cohort and the amazing things they will be doing. The agenda of the welcome meetup is fairly straightforward: we’ll start with a bit of context about NLnet, NGI and NGI Zero. After that we’ll have a rapid fire round of introductions for those that feel like it (1-2 minutes per human) - giving you a quick overview of who is embarking alongside you and what they will do in parallel to your project. After that we’ll explain the Memorandum of Understanding mechanism, and walk you through the various support services we will be able to provide to you together with partner organisations. Once that is done, we’re remain available to answer any questions you or your team mates might have.
sounds legitimate to me, we talked about breaking the silo and self-hosting
all good to me
Nick
self-hosting: worth reviewing the custom pages now, since there’s the CMS thing
propose to do a little survey of people using plugins (Bruno, Daniel, other from FSLUX) and try to surface the needs of self-hosting
Will’s backend plugin on CoopCloud allows for writing on language of choice but downside of not having access to Karrot’s database. potentially having access to other Coopcloud services
breaking the silo: in addition to public signup to have the URL preview, an item to be added, could be included in the public signup
another idea for the public signup, a little form with options
on usability: how that aligns with what Eszter may or may not do, since there’s very specific things on the milestones
things that came up and did not make it into there at all. Any useful things?
Nathalie
question of how long
A: usually one year, worth asking, there may be some flexibility/extensions
no comments to self-hosting and breaking the silo
about usability: whether the two first milestones are distinct enough, also the question of how it fits with Eszter’s work
not attached to adding anything, not proposing any changes
Bruno
self-hosting: work done so far, does it change anything or build up on that?
ask around, survey self-hosted instances
breaking the silo, good to keep
same reaction on usability part, don’t know in which direction Eszter will work, nice to coordinate, milestones still feel relevant, get Eszters opinion, does is make sense to have those
Proposal
do not decide on the MoU today, do the survey of self-hosted instance (Nick), get Eszter’s feedback on usability (Nathalie) and have a time-frame for a decision on MoU (three weeks hard deadline - 21/7)
comment Nick: curiosity on breaking the silo, whether it could be a mini booking flow, which might have different steps. A question to the group whether that would be great or too much
added as a discussion point below
Next steps
Duration of MoU, Extensions
follow-up from resource mosaic [E]
what came up in the last 2 weeks?
Philip thinking about his involvement in Karrot, not deeply involved in some topics and feeling awkward to vote about it. Do I have the capacity? On foodsharing.de the focus will be on the resource mosaik. Does it resonate with Karrot? Also encouraging Anton to become more involved
thinking about whether to step back from his role, or finding his way to contribute
has been distracted on the meetings on the other topics
Reactions
Bruno
resource mosaic interesting idea to work on, could be part of karrot
see two barriers: capacity to design and build it, usability of it - make it work with all the different groups and needs
I like the vision of the resource mosaic, sees a long road
thinking about development capacity
appreciate bringing up question of involvment
how to we bring in people, how do we slowly grow, not everybody needs to sit with all the questions in the meetings
Nathalie
been thinking about the resource mosaik, a good sign, because it was inspiring and thought-provoking
can see how it’s useful for local community organizing and how people could contribute, sharing as community building
experience from neighbourhood community, offering a “budget”, and Nathalie avoiding the buy-thing approach
one thing that was off-putting: drawing big conclusions from it. Maybe too much to present as a justice, power-sharing or conflict resolution. Resistance towards framing it as the only justice tool
regarding Butze’s contribution: how do we align as a team and what is the right time for doing what?
a bit hesitant to shift the focus, difficult to bring it together at this very moment
Nick
noticing more how organic sharing happens, quite a lot of those with the boaties, happening all the time through chat-based tools
when there’s a good community and trust network, people do it
smaller context: project with particular needs
there are different spheres for sharing, and the question is how to define the intermediate circle for sharing and how a tool can be helpful
a tool is more interesting in the project-based sphere, like a booking system which is more agreement-based and not like the organic type of sharing which is more trust-based
a technical tools is more towards the booking type
maybe the commons-booking platform intersects with it
endless topics in Karrot, but never enough capacity. Question of whether we will have that
get away from me camera!
about Butze’s membership: maybe a connection role, not feeling like being part of the team deciding things. Maybe a role that could be created for others too
like and subscribe
Philip
maybe we could fund it, to get more capacity
have to think about the role, about what his contribution would be
public sign up idea feedback
recap, feedback if that is featuretis
from experience of organizing events and needing the sign-up form
a form-builder feature
we’ve got mockups from previous design processes, but maybe not a form
is it out of scope to extend the feature?
a form maybe is not necessarily totally tied to the public sign-up feature, but could end up on a signup
Nathalie
what are the use case: a pickup, or a coordination event, for people outside joining for specific tasks
imagine there is some pre-defined structure and you pick a slot
answer: yes, out of scope
hard to get there, not events or specific tasks one is signing up to
a bit opposed to merge it in there
remember we kicked it out intentionally in the past
generally resistant to change a lot things in the MoU
feeling a bit hard to hold something together and now pulling on different directions
Q: we kicked out something?
A: did not include that work in previous application
maybe could connect to make it useful for events
Bruno
could be part of the design of that task
event is type of activity, what information is needed from the participants e.g. contact information
see how it fits with participant types
it’s about designing it, see how it fits in milestone task, how far do we want to go with this
hear more about how you imagine this
noticing a pattern: there is an interesting idea, but we don’t build it fully, build seeds for the future
agnostic about it
Nick
makes sense when there is a use case to connect to, maybe existing use cases
example: a public sign-up could be just one question, a minimal version
could also be integrated into bigger workflows
a bolder version: create something for others to adopt
explanation: booking system is like signing up to an event. Commons booking system is more about sharing and other things
conscious about his featuritis brain, but also being creative with development, likes to open up and create a potential to make it easier to add other concepts on top of it
any actions on it?
not really, there’s room in the MoU to work with it
Next:
how to bring together nlnet, strategy and Eszters work [D]
also related: engage with the topic of measuring/assessing commitments [Vas/ Nathalie]
form small group to bring proposal to group
Choice of issues/tasks from the board to work on [Bruno]
having a workshop together, have some building blocks, more hands-on workshop then, iterative design approach
check/review the agreement
Nick
seems good, outline is a workshop process, had one now another which will inform the design
NLnet is the most difficult for me now, we can feed it in the Mou but there is some time pressure with that, can schedule in some design interventions, 1-2 ppl a subteam, I would consent as it is now
find the 2 ppl of the subteam
Vas
quite clear,
5 consecutive days? yes, need to be August, prep workshop separate day
iterative way, do another workshop?
if its 5 days,: workshop - design - a checkpoint/workshop with the 2 ppl of the subteam - work more - amendments
happy with what I read
Nathalie
its a good document, has the clarity and the work can start
how it binds together with NLNet, revised MoU by next week? Signing can happpen quite soon and first workshop can be part of NLnet
focus on navigation is aligned with what we ve put in our NLnet application,
change the wording of our milestones
Bruno
agree with Nathalie, fits well to the MoU, can start the work afterwards, its about the wording
Q: first workshop? Try to include ppl from outside the Karrot-team? If so…?
Est: We could, one person could be (Nat & Bruno have these 2 hats!)
Eszter
agreement sounds good, timings: August (quite free)
Proposal: Agree to ”Karrot working agreement with Eszter”, term: end October, small group: Eszter, Nick, Bruno
We got consent
Next steps
schedule design workshop [Bruno, Nick, Eszter]
will be preparing the playground for the workshop
find a date? Small group can take of it:
Bruno: 1 week of August could work, second half of August more available to join a workshop
Ezster: beginning of August, could probs work for Bruno as well
Nathalie: August 10th onwards will be available
Vas: generally available throughout august
review nlnet draft (see below)
decide when to sign MoU, maybe even include workshop
MoU check-in - working towards a “new” draft [E]
Increase usability and interface refinements 9000 EUR
We want to reduce the complexity in user experience and improve overall usability for all groups facing the complexity of self-governance. Also, Karrot still has some legacy interface and navigation design based on food saving type of groups. As new types of groups start using and experiment with Karrot, we started to identify different needs that do not necessarily require a new set of features, but that could be satisfied by making some tweaks and improvements to existing ones.
1. would like to show 1) milestones to tech people for feedback
2. add to breaking the silo: link preview for 1500 EUR e.g. for posting karrot links in messenger groups
3. for task 3: use UX, delete bracket text
Round
Bruno
1st point sounds good, see what’s needed for change, if any change, just do it and submit it, so we don’t stall
good possibility wilhelm can continue contributing to karrot in the future, nice to keep him in the loop and keep engaged, has capacity, skills, and can work independently
2nd one, good to remember that, would be happy to have that included
3rd makes sense, totally
Vas
agree with all the points
do we need to update our internal deadline for MoU agreement?
Nathalie
all sounds good
had been thinking to write UI/UX, happy to use UX working + without text in brackets
link preview thing makes sense
have a concern with adding more money
patience with this is going down a bit, not sure how it works with nlnet
if it needs more process, then could take out a milestone to make the money less again
if we take too long, the timing might not work well with Eszters work
wondering about our balance and money
happy to make a decision now, and wait for feedback, if it doesn’t bring up issues then we can go forward
nlnet: “Note that the final amount of the grant will be determined in dialogue with you, also taking into account any new insights during the negotiations.”
Nick
got a way forward, need to make tweaks
likely to get consent
Next:
money circle and payments due
inc. willhelm/fs.se payments
how to bring together nlnet, strategy and Eszters work [D]
also related: engage with the topic of measuring/assessing commitments [Vas/ Nathalie]
form small group to bring proposal to group
Choice of issues/tasks from the board to work on [Bruno]
include changes in the development thread about plugins
quick round:
Nathalie:
MoU seems good
wondering about timing and eszters work fitting in?
ideal is still to use august appointment with nlnet work
happy to move forward
Bruno:
looks good! have to get head into it again, but went through most of it before
with the small tweaks looks good
Nick:
didn’t fully get my head into it, but as for just looking at little tweaks, seems good!
consent from Nick, Nathalie, Bruno, will check with Vas/others async
once full consent, ready to book nlnet call
also ask vas if he wants to join the call
money circle and payments due
inc. willhelm/fs.se payments
payments due
wondering which timeframes we ensure we get the payments done, we have a tendency to delay payments
have uncertainty about how much money there is
or at least check in twice a year to check payments
hypothesis is more regular payments makes it easier to keep track of
checkpoints to reduce complexity
once we have this done, could check in about numbers
round:
Bruno:
sounds good to go over payments, check status
have been unconcerned about it, have not been doing payments, but tracking fs se money
wondering when we plan to make fs.se payments, so we can make use of the budget
Nick:
curious to know the reason for having this
good to do in any case
did not invoice enough last time, noticed when Nathalie pointed out
tangible need: not get it wrong. We are probably not a 100% accurate
thinking of whether we can make a system for tracking it (spreadsheet? fancy formulas to pads?)
Nathalie:
with only opencollective + own spreadsheet was easier, now more complex, e.g. with fs.se
good question how to keep track of things well
how to get the data together?
what is need?
currently more money owed to Nick, so don’t like the in-debt solution
so more tangible question of “when can I get paid?” can I rely on it? when will the next nlnet money come in?
also unclarity about how the payments go
could the checkpoint part become a policy? once or twice a year?
curious where it comes from that people don’t do their payments? isn’t it in all our interests, why do we keep ending up in it? having to remind people to take money!
complex with nlnet, fs.se money, opencollective in theory would be that connecting piece, but doesn’t really work out that way…
an accountant job!! not sure there is interest for that role? so relies on everyone being aware, been a bit ad-hoc, working, but not optimal, can think about spreadsheets, etc… more of an accounting issue though, and payment routines
remembering what jay showed, tricky bit is we have different accounts to keep track of, ideally open collective data could be pulled in (karrot plugin?), mostly missing the history on the other accounts (fs.se), e.g. wills invoices, and personal accounts that receive nlnet money, so hard to know
3 graphs, and the sum
seeing that karrot money payments might come from different streams
money pad is an attempt to keep track of these things, from different sources
technical solution plus the maintenance of it
no accounting system when no money was involved, different accounts and mechanism of getting paid make it complex, can accounting tools map this kind of things?
have different accounts, used GNU cash, world of accounting complex
sociocracy style role definition, informally leans on Nathalie, could define a role for that (and also do other role definitions in the same go)
work on it in the co-working, 1h into co-working. 10am uk, 11am central europe
Next:
how to bring together nlnet, strategy and Eszters work [D]
also related: engage with the topic of measuring/assessing commitments [Vas/ Nathalie]
form small group to bring proposal to group
Choice of issues/tasks from the board to work on [Bruno]
design in figma also had strong black background for the text
worked will issue on the board, card design change needs more work
make it a bit darker?
remove thursday co-working slot?
Nick: have not used the co-working slot for a long time.
some people think it happens and might want to join
proposal to remove the slot
Jay
makes sense, also feels a bit sad
can always add one back in if we want it
why keep it if nobody is attending it
agree
Bruno
same here, noticed it hasn’t been very frequented
can embrace max one co-working per week at the moment
thursday slot never really suited me, don’t feel affected
Nathalie
haven’t been joining, sometimes have other things scheduled at that time
also feel a bit sad
wonder if I’d like to replace it with something? would another time slot work better? coming a bit back to Karrot work after summer, want a bit more time designated for Karrot, and co-working massively helps to get things done
Nick
no one is using it, extra infrastructure we keep up
once nlnet work is underway think about another one
Consent from Nick, Nathalie, Bruno, Jay
waiting applications to karrot group
a few waiting, talked through it
how to bring together nlnet, strategy and Eszters work [E]
also related: engage with the topic of measuring/assessing commitments [Vas/ Nathalie]
questionnaire? timeline? agreements feature?
form small group to bring proposal to group
Nathalie
things feel they are coming together, seeing as we integrated eszters work with nlnet
did not come back to our strategy bubbles
assigned myself to do some of the bubbling ideas, but haven’t followed through yet, and doesn’t come up in the action items
strategy work seems further away now, given we have nlnet work
Nick
trouble that we have some topics and then they float away, another example is AI policy
tracking some things a bit more, when someone commited to it
not add more systems, we have the board, issue trackers, simple and clear enough, excalidraw
finances, money tracking also came up as a topic
work pad?
Bruno
regarding eszters work / nlnet, maybe a bit too soon to know, waiting for workshop to see the scope of the work… assuming it will fit nicely with our needs and strategy, improving usability.
then see if outcome of the work would be presented as a milestone, and see if she is interested in participating further/in money circle
evaluating strategy
separate question to think how to evaluate ongoing work and strategy, need to get mind back into it, in the excalidraw, are we on track? are we progressing?
Jay
eszters work seems like it’ll come together nicely with the strategy
sometimes I wish nlnet was cohesive with the strategy, don’t always come together with same objectives and tasks
apps and tools, sometimes seems we think to have more tools/apps, but also maybe we have enough? in enterprise settings they have apps that cover a lot of things, not sure if there is an open source version to have one main tool with everything? understand not wanting more tools, but also needing more features…
does feel we’re leaving the strategy a bit behind, but something does linger, perhaps at the back of our mind, so not useless just because we’re not looking at is every week
when we were in gothenburg we did have some ideas, now I’m struggling to find what’s up with each idea, lost track of many ideas we had at the time
Next:
Choice of issues/tasks from the board to work on [Bruno]
we had a call with Victoria from nlnet, fairly new there
very nice call! not that technical, and good in grasping what karrot is about
potentially interested in using it for some activism projects, nice base to talk from
went through all the MoU tasks, all fine content-wise
about money, we have a higher amount than our original application, she will ask if there is space in the budget to increase the funding, otherwise we’d need to go down again… but could ask 2/3 through the funding period in that case
we can start doing the RFP work, since we got the good tidings email, so from 16th June
ending is less than a year, 1st June 2027 is final deadline, unless nlnet get extension from EU, which they always got before, but still pending…
she had her checklist of things, they have an AI policy, if don’t use it easy, if you do, make it transparent where you use it, they fund very few AI-related projects
also have NGI services, there is a design/UX one, and a technical writing ones that she recommended
maybe we just start working with things we definitely do, less so the optional ones
split between excalidraw or coming up with a new way
thinking about strategy talk and the bubbling ideas, using the nlnet approach
would be good to have a unified system, where nlnet tasks are part of our other tasks
maybe we fit nlnet into bubbling ideas
do we need more space to chat about tasks and track detailed progress?
maybe forum thread to put updates
nathalie
back on the task management topic
we have the board on the forum, which comes with a forum thread per task
when is it a bubbling idea, when do we put it on the board? design processes would definitively go in the forum
would like to assign people to tasks, like the lead + support (or team) for them
also putting it onto a timescale, given the documentation comes after the main work, worked nice last time
felt nice, handing tasks off to people to do the next bit
jay
agree with nathalie, would be great to assign people
might be leaving work, and doing more on karrot, and starting to pick up more tasks, including taking lead on one part, e.g. breaking the silo, public signups, improving knowledge of code, and full stack skills
bruno
assigning method we used last time sounds good
open question, should be use board, or excalidraw, excalidraw is less clutter than board and visually appealing in timeline
agree with nick to connect with bigger flow/tasks/strategy that would be nice, advantage of using the board for that, a collection of all the pending idea/tasks, and have forum threads
don’t feel very invested in finding the best method, but happy if somebody has an idea, can go with the flow
would be interested in UX/design-related tasks to get involved somehow
should take a moment to reflect upon Eszters role, and check with her what she is doing and how it fits
Proposal: use excalidraw timeline, as we did last time for nlnet, plus the addition of a forum topic on the board per task
Nick to incorporate the feedback/comments to rework
Bruno:
reflecting on previous comments, would like a karrot policy to reflect my personal ethical commitment about AI, doesn’t need to be totally aligned, don’t see much of a need myself to use AI
very unsure about that, not sure how I’d use AI in my personal life
have been looking into less harmful options, e.g. sustainable energy powered
not sure if there are specific models, more privacy focused
where to draw the line? particularly with new contributors
what about playing with AI to have some ideas? is that a learning purpose?
so undecided on personal position, trying to understand it by using it
Jay:
idea to read/reflect on the other ponderings from Karrot people about AI
Bruno:
could include suggestions about more ethical/positive AI solutions that could be used…
Nathalie:
concern it could get watered down by cases that aren’t very practical within Karrot
can look at the new proposal and give opinion
Next:
Choice of issues/tasks from the board to work on [Bruno]
Date: 2026-09-15 on Karrot
Facilitator: Nick
Minutes: Vasilis
Participants: Vasilis, Nick, Jay, Nathalie, Bruno
1. Opening
10 min Check in
attendance (fill in above)
duration: up to the hour and then see
information? any (non-karrot) announcements? unavailabilities?
next meetings:
co-working:
Wednesday: Vasilis, Jay, Nathalie, Bruno
weekly: Nick, Nathalie, Bruno, Vas, Jay
pick facilitator for next weekly meeting: Vasilis
2. Consent to agenda
2 min
3. Review last week’s Actions/Outcomes
check in about “welcome new people” topic [Nathalie, Bruno] I
yes!
play with some designs/mockups/ideas on supporting users self-identification [Jay] XIV
done
start work on Stickers [Vas (lead), Jay (support)] XI
remove all members from migrated group (id 10) on karrot.world [Nick] II
reply to questions from playground application, on the wall now [Nathalie]
done
add issue/task for automatically closing conversations to factor in messages too [Nick]
do the timeline for nlnet on excalidraw
put nlnet tasks on the board [Bruno]
will do on co-working
incorporate AI feedback into Draft to bring it to a proposal [Nick]
yes, done
comment on AI policy [Bruno]
done
4. Discussion points
no updates
Present users self-identification feature [Jay]
had a demo of the mockup features. Background for the feature: a group that requires a legal name and how to display it
comments/clarifications
vas:
q: wondering how to know if the organisation wants to know the official name?
a: Luxembourg group won’t accept application without legal name in profile
a: “more” button is to keep legal name a little bit less visible, in an simple/easy way
bruno:
liked it, good enough, doesn’t affect the flow of singing up, keep/think of desig consistency when it comes to ‘more’ buttons, like the discreetness of the ‘more’ button
have in mind what gets displayed in each group
nathalie:
clarify the initial sign up fields, display name goes there? yes.
make legal name not required (hardcoded) but it depends on the group
what data we collect as Karrot as well? We as the software we do not need the legal name per se
check that the more button is readable (contrast from the backround).
overall nice success story, helpful and nice!
nick:
overall is a good addition
complexity software vs the group rules
future extensions to make it more customisable based on group’s priorities/rules
round of consent
proposal is what we saw/discussions, with modifications:
field will not be required in the database
a helper text will be added to clarify to the user what it means
don’t get the “redirection of funding/investment”, “economic bubble”
switch funding to AI
economic bubble: AI companies will have a crash at some point
Bruno: no more comments, good enough
Nat: like tha addition, discuss with the Karrot-team, very last sentence….ethical approach? Why we say that? whats the purpose of it? Can it ever be ethical?
Jay: I like how its balanced, not saying hate/love AI, adresssing the exact problems AI is making
I mostly agree with Nat, conflicted about, what others think of the ‘ethical’ part ?
Nick: I d go for removing the ethical part and turn in into: “ We also see that it is a changing technology and will continue to evaluate our position as the situation and context evolves.”
proposal, adopt policy as in pad, with a 6 months term
part of a PhD student checking this an another website (Switzerland and Brazil, about bikes) to see how the culture influences the design and use of a sharing platform
Money Flow
:black_large_square: