Civics Meeting Minutes July 31, 2025

Attendees:

Name	Attendance	Role	Voting Seat (Y/N)
Larisa Mcfarlane	Yes	Secretary	N
Nicolas Cerny,	Yes	Chair	Y
Ken-Erik O	Yes	Member	Y
Nana Safo	Yes	Member	Y
Alex Seregin	No	Member	Y
Randy	Yes	Member	Y
Thomas Lindseth	Yes	Intersect	N
Terence McCutcheon	Yes	Intersect	N
Taichi Yokoyama	No, Apologies	Member	Y
Reshan Fernando	No	Member	Y
Daniela Alves	No	Member	Y
Takeshi Ohishi	No, Apologies	Member	Y

Agenda 31.7.25

Welcome - Chair Update, Approval of minutes
Donate to your DRep discussion (CIP-149)
CC Update Committee GA
Working group updates: Governance Health Working Group (for objective 1) Governance Education Working Group (for objective 2)
AOB & Close

Decisions/Actions

Decisions

• Public Call for Working Group Members: The committee to use the Intersect newsletter to make a public call for new members to join both the Governance Health and Governance Education working groups.

• Next Meeting Rescheduled: It was formally confirmed that the committee will not meet next week due to the Rare Evo conference. The next meeting is scheduled for August 14, 2025.

• Proceed with CIP-149 Exploration: The committee agreed to formally explore proposal to provide grants for wallets to implement CIP-149 (Voluntary DRep Donations) as a data-gathering test.

Actions

• Develop CIP-149 Grant Recommendation (Civics Committee): The committee is tasked with developing a formal recommendation, including grant criteria (e.g., wallet eligibility, deliverable timelines), for the CIP-149 initiative, to be presented at the August 14th meeting.

• Finalize Governance Health Charter (Governance Health WG): The working group must finalize its charter document ahead of the public call for members on August 8th.

• Research Existing Educational Content (Governance Education WG): The working group's initial task is to research and map out existing Cardano educational resources to inform its strategy.

• Engage with SPOs on CC Vote (Nicolas): Nicolas will attempt to join the SPO community call to encourage them to vote on the "Update Constitutional Committee" governance action.

• Provide Historical Grant Data (Intersect): Intersect team will find and share information with the committee about wallets that previously received Intersect grants to help inform the CIP-149 criteria.

• Share BlockFrost Article (Thomas): Thomas will locate the BlockFrost blog post about Cardano keys and share it with Nicolas.

Topic	Discussion	Notes
Opening & DRep Voting Experiences	Members discussed the recent experience of voting on the 39 treasury withdrawals. Ken-Erik and Nana shared their experiences using different voting tools like Tempo and GovTools, noting that some tools had issues with recording rationales or were more time-consuming than others.	The voting process was a significant effort. Members used a variety of tools (GovTools, Tempo, SCV tools), with mixed results and experiences regarding usability and reliability.
GovTools Funding Status	The committee discussed the GovTools budget info action, which was at risk of not meeting its approval threshold. Terence from the Open Source Committee confirmed they are aware of the situation and are looking at other ways to support GovTools if the action fails, but a decision on the next steps for the GovTools team is still pending.	The GovTools funding proposal is currently below the required threshold. The Open Source committee is exploring alternative support options.
Agenda & Working Group Updates	Nicolas outlined the agenda, noting that the discussion on CIP-149 would be moved to the second half to accommodate Jack. He also acknowledged the Governance Education working group's first meeting and thanked Nana for sharing insights.	The meeting agenda was adjusted. Progress on the new working groups was noted as a key discussion point.
Governance Health WG Progress	The committee discussed the newly created Governance Health working group. Larisa has created a draft charter document. The plan is to finalize the charter and include a call to action for new members in the Intersect newsletter on August 8th.	The working group charter is drafted. A public call for members will be made in the August 8th newsletter, with the first official meeting planned for the week of August 11-15.
Governance Education WG Progress & Outreach	Nana confirmed it would be beneficial to also include a call for members for the Governance Education working group in the August 8th newsletter. The group plans to research existing educational materials (e.g., Cardano Academy, Olympus) to avoid duplication of effort.	The Education group also desires a public call for members. A key first step will be to map the existing Cardano education landscape.
Working Group Membership & Size	The group discussed the ideal size for working groups. Terence advised that there are no hard caps, but groups larger than 10-12 may limit decision-making to a smaller core group to remain effective. Consistency in attendance is key.	There are no strict limits on working group size, but practical considerations for decision-making exist for larger groups.
CC Election WG Update	Thomas reported that the "Update Constitutional Committee" governance action was successfully submitted to the mainnet on Tuesday. He noted that while some explorers had initial UI issues displaying the new action type, these are being resolved.	The governance action to update the CC is now live on the mainnet. Explorer teams are working to fix display issues.
CC Election Enactment Strategy	Thomas explained the timing for the CC update. To avoid conflicts with the ongoing treasury withdrawals, he has asked several large DReps to delay their votes to ensure the new CC is not enacted until the epoch boundary of 580/581.	A strategy is in place to time the enactment of the new CC to prevent interference with other governance actions.
SPO Engagement for CC Vote	The committee discussed the importance of SPOs voting on the CC update. Nicolas noted an upcoming SPO community call and offered to attend to encourage participation. He also arranged for a notification to be sent via the SPO newsletter.	Efforts are underway to mobilize SPOs to vote on the CC update governance action, including direct engagement and newsletters.