Seed Worker Organizing is a grassroots mutual aid project of seed growers working together. We don’t have funding or legal entity status. We are all volunteers in this work, doing our reasonable best.
We use a consensus-based, open organizing model of governance that balances the need to stay open and bring in new people with the need for continuity in our work.
Our structure is as follows:
-We have regular monthly or bi-monthly open planning meetings. These are announced on the Seed Worker Organizing email listserv, which can be joined here.
-The format of the planning meetings consists largely of report-backs from working groups, plus any needed logistical, scheduling and topical agenda items. Much of the work we do takes place in working group discussions between planning meetings.
-During planning meetings we use modified consensus for decision making: Someone makes a proposal or suggests a course of action; we discuss it and hear concerns and friendly amendments; we modify the proposal if needed; we test for ongoing objections and/or for agreement. For smaller and easier decisions (scheduling for example), this all may be done somewhat informally. In the case of impasse we ultimately fall back to a 2/3 majority vote, after making an effort to discuss and address concerns.
-Quorum is needed for making decisions. This consists of at least four people who regularly attend meetings (this number will need updating as we grow), including at least one representative from any working group affected by the decision.
-Major decisions, for instance changes in governance or initiation of major new projects, generally require more than one meeting to finalize, and may also merit discussion and writing between meetings.
-We welcome hearing from new people, but ask that they hold off on blocking proposals or participating in voting until they have been to a few meetings. Likewise for people who are coming back to the project after a period of disengagement.
-At each meeting a facilitation team is chosen for the following meeting. The team is responsible for announcing the meeting, soliciting agenda items, and circulating a proposed agenda. The agenda will be finalized at the beginning of each meeting. Meeting facilitators are empowered to support the process of a positive meeting environment. They handle meeting announcements, invites and reminders; online meeting account logistics, and note-taking (which can be done via a transcripted recording).
-Meeting notes/transcripts are posted in a shared folder.
-Working groups operate independently but are ultimately accountable to the larger group. Currently we have three content-oriented working groups: online meet-ups, seed source transparency, and seed contract document.
-The SWO listserv exists as a tool for announcing meetings and other events, for onboarding new people, and for discussion of seed related topics. The listserv is not for organizational decision making.
This governance document was co-written by David Catzell, Steph Warr, Craig Boychuk, Lindsay Klaunig, Heron Breen and Edmund Frost, and finalized on July 7th 2025. This group will continue to put effort into growing a productive, functional, open and collaborative project, and will serve as an interim steering committee in this capacity.