Hi @reeflings,
Team recruitment has been working on a proposal to adapt the recruitment in light of the current situation.
This proposal will be brought to the PM of 5/02/2026.
→ can somebody review the proposal?
Link to the proposal: Login – Nextcloud
Not sure how a review is being done (never did it before for the Reef), but I read the proposal carefully and took out some minor typo’s. It looks clear and well argued to me.
Thanks Sterre 
A review - for me - is
The overall goal is having a second pair of eyes by somebody not part of the team/helping circle to check if it’s a well prepaired proposal that is ripe to bring to the PM because we want to avoid big discussions/loads of concerns in the PM as PM time is precious.
Hello @reef-recruitment,
Thanks a lot for that proposal.
I personally don’t see the coherence between “we will organise the next two presentations” and “we will not organise any after that until it’s clear we are.” I will not object, but my concern is that bringing in people at this moment might be counterproductive, because it may give a false impression on the risks of our project. My personal advice would be to put everything on hold until the PV of the réunion de projet comes in, but I’m happy to go with the collective wisdom.
One point where I would like to bring in a concern is about the plenary meetings. I think it is a really good idea to make it explicit that we may have quite some “full members only” plenary meetings. The reassurance that I would like to get is that there won’t be any pressure (like we have had in the past) à la “we need to invite them because we owe it to them”. As soon as one person has a preference for a full members only setting, I think we should follow through on that. So I would like it to be made clear to the new members that we are not in a regular working methods mode, and that we won’t consider like we owe them access to the plenary meetings.
We are possibly going into the most difficult moment that The Reef will go through in its entire history, and I would like to have all the energy and liberty to take care of the current group without having to worry about Associate Members for whom we might not have a space anyway. Writing down my thoughts like this I am realising that if I’m really honest, taking on new Associate Members is actually a tad outside my range of tolerance. Thinking back of how difficult things have been 12 months ago when we were working on the plans, my appetite for doing that with people who might not even be able to join is close to zero. It’s risking to get really difficult, and I personally think that the benefits of pausing for two months are well worth it. I won’t be there tomorrow, and I reckon I’m a minority view on this topic, so I’m happy to stand aside as long as we can re-evaluate as soon as there is the slightest sign that the new members come at the cost of the current group coming to conclusions on the new plans.
Fully hear you and understand the need to stabilise the project that so many hours have been invested in @Lee with the established group at this uncertain moment. @reef-recruitment As the latest explorer-associate what I have said to @joannes (who buddies me) is that I am quite happy to wait around observing a while longer than usual until the permit issue & therefore remaining available units (if any) becomes clearer. I will trust that good decisions are ones taken by everyone together already and no problem if some plenaries are designated for full members as needed. Hopefully I can meanwhile bring some quiet optimism in the resilience of the Reef 
Will create a card with these tasks.
I have a question for @reef-recruitment : for the next presentations, do you think we should spread the word and actively promoted them on social media, or do you think a low profile makes more sense, given the circumstances?
What is the new expected date? We have 2028 on social media.
Diffucult to say now.
@Lee what’s your feeling/opinion?
I would need to look it up and I don’t want to make time for that now. If someone wants to do it (of the top of my head) it is in the Stekke Fraas folder > Project management > Planning > line +/- 130 => add 6-8 months. Or maybe easier: go to the 2025 proposals folder and look for the update on the planning => add 6-8 months.
From the top of my head I think (second half) of 2028 should still be feasible (but don’t take my word for it).
Thanks , i wanted to have your opinion on the delay to be added. I can find the planning files back.
So the outdated planning would have lead us to a move-in around 01/07/2028.
@MariaAM Adding 6-8 months lead to first trimester of 2029
hi @lee,
Thanks for sharing your concerns and sorry for the late reply.
Adding a bit my personal vision on things + what was said in the plenary and related to what you write…
As Lucia said when presenting the proposal:
I follow you on this. There should be no pressure on not limiting a PM to FM only. A proposition from Sarah in the PM, is to make the PM by default FM only. So the message is in a way ‘more positive to AM’ when they can join, and the pressure that we need to invite them because we owe it to them becomes less. I propose we launch - for each PM - an anonymous poll where we ask all FM to indicate if they prefere it to keep FM only.
Julia proposed another idea, of opening all PM to FM and AM but say that in certain meetings the AM don’t take part in the circles, but in that way they can learn how we work.
I am not sure if Julia’s proposition would work with all FM. R&O will check with all FM whether this could be an option. If one FM doesn’t feel good with this approach, we will stick to the original idea.
Personally I don’t think there will be so many ‘full members only’ PM. (I might be overoptimistic). I don’t think we can compare this exercise with the one we did a while ago. The first exercise learnt us a lot and this knowledge will make this time better.
No problem for that, if you or any other FM think the new members have a negative impact on the current group coming to conclusions on the new plans, please signal it to R&O, so we can discuss and adapt.
Does this work for you?
Maybe a small clarification - my thought was a response to the idea floated in a round that by default the plenaries are made FM for now. I was observing that one benefit of making the full members only a choice for specific meetings, is that in the meantime AM get to know everyone and vice versa by participating, and get familiar with governance. I was not meaning there should not be FM only plenary where there is a clear sense of need for that.
My concern still stands, though it has slightly evolved. Based on the last two plenaries that I attended, my experience is that it takes a great deal of time and emotional energy to make sure that all Full Members get to understand the situation we are in. The way I see it, this is because there is a hell lot of elements to take in - going from the legal and procedural stuff but also on things related to the history of how we got here - in combination with emotions running higher than usual because of the high stakes. So the idea of having Associate Members in the round asking questions or sharing opinions I currently find difficult to picture, because I would really like us to use all of our energy into making it through this difficult phase as efficiently and as peacefully as possible.
At the same time I really resonate with what Julia writes above. Plenary meetings are a great opportunity to get to know each other (mutually), so excluding Associate Members by default I would also find a pity. Can it be an option that we ask Team Governance & Working Methods to come with a proposal on this, but that in the meantime we communicate to future Associate Members that we might limit their participation in topics related to building, legal or financial issues?
Ok for me.
Just to clarify: You mean that exploring members should be excluded from all PM , or they follow the same as AM?
I don’t mind observers all that much (for now), so I’m fine with Exploring Members doing their exploration. Just to be clear though: I was not saying I would like to exclude Associate Members from plenary meetings. When I said “limit their participation” I meant to say “limit their participation in the rounds” (i.e. none or limited only).
After reflection, this doesn’t sit completely ok with me. R&O started a proposal, a request was done to evaluate, which we accepted (see post above + next online FM meeting where we included a moment for evaluation).
I would prefer to keep this responsability in R&O (continue/finish what we started), try out ‘evaluations/adaptations of proposals’.
But maybe I am not getting what you want to put in the governance proposal you have in mind, so still open to that possibility.
thank you ! it’s clear. in the past we have been “selling” full memberships packages without any idea of the rooms availiable. and that’s fine because people were part of a community and that also matters ! concerning the EM participating in Plenary meetings, we have the example of last sunday, @maria_caballeropons was there as exploring member and this did not prevent a highly emotional , high energy meeting happening. it accelerates decision making from exploring members.
but, my personal opinion is let’s not complicate things and make all plenary meetings open by default
hi lee, i checked with Sarah if that would work for her too, as I sensed some possible sensitivity from her side too during the meeting when this proposal was presented, and also based on sth you said.
Sarah got back to me tonight at 18:00 saying this works for her as well, so all good to proceed like this for the coming plenaries till a new proposal is consented to.
@reef-facilitation : for the coming meetings: could you clearly state - when the topic deals with building, legal or financial issues - that the participation in the rounds is only reserved for FM only.