Circles exist to make shared work easier, not to add committees. A circle that has nothing left to do is closed. Each one is described in a short charter: what it exists to do, what it may decide on its own, what it must bring back to the larger group, and when it will be reviewed.
The Founding Circle
The Founding Circle is the cooperative's central circle, made up of the Members: the coffee shops that run the cooperative. It looks after the mission and the trust between the shops, and it holds the decisions that are bigger than any one project or any one shop.
Under the draft charter, it may:
- approve, revise, pause or retire circle charters, and create or close project circles;
- set a project's scope, budget limit, review date, shared measures and public claims;
- agree to shared expenses, dues proposals, sponsorship limits, grant applications and partner commitments;
- invite new shops, partners, advisors and funders;
- review who is in good standing, and recommend changes to someone's participation;
- decide when legal, accounting, insurance or fiscal advice is needed;
- resolve tensions a project circle cannot settle on its own.
Its limits matter as much as its powers. It does not run any shop's operations, staff, finances, brand, menu, suppliers or premises. It creates no debt, recurring charge, contract or legal obligation without the explicit approval of the shops affected, and it publishes no shop's data without that shop's consent.
Project circles
A project circle runs one piece of shared work inside limits the Founding Circle approved. The first is the ROAST circle, which runs the cooperative's proposed waste-tracking pilot (see ROAST).
In the draft, a project circle's charter holds:
- a purpose, and a domain: the practical work the circle may coordinate on its own;
- a spending limit of nothing until the Founding Circle approves a budget, and new or recurring costs always going back to it;
- a rule that no shop takes on a workflow that does not fit its space, staff or operations, and that each shop may opt out of a particular pathway and stay in the cooperative;
- a short list of measures, collected without overloading staff;
- a review date, and a final recommendation to continue, revise, scale, pause or stop, or to turn the pilot into a permanent program.
The draft also names circles the cooperative may need later: one for funding and sponsors, one for shared purchasing, one for communications, one for a shared dashboard of results, and one for welcoming and training new members. None exists yet. Each starts when there is a clear need, a person to lead it and enough capacity to review what it does.
Who decides what
A domain is the area a circle may decide about. Writing domains down is what stops two circles doing the same work, or one circle quietly making a decision that belonged to everybody.
| Reserved to the Founding Circle | A project circle may handle, inside its approved scope |
|---|---|
| Creating, pausing, revising or closing circles. | Routine coordination of the project and updates to its workplan. |
| Approving shared expenses, dues, sponsorship limits, grants, contracts and legal commitments. | Small operational adjustments that create no new cost, obligation, public claim or burden on one shop. |
| Changing membership classes, good-standing rules, or who becomes a Member. | Recommending who should hold a role, or what support the circle needs. |
| Public claims, shared metrics, shared branding, and any public use of one shop's data. | Collecting internal data and drafting summaries for approval. |
| Legal structure, equity and profit-sharing rules, and formal financial arrangements. | Flagging legal, financial or data questions for review. |
Above both columns sits each shop's own authority. A shop keeps control of its staff, space, operations, brand, suppliers, menu, customer experience, money and data, and a shared decision applies to it only if it consents.
Roles in a circle
A circle fills the roles its work needs. One person can hold more than one in a small circle.
| Role | In a phrase | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| Circle lead | Keeps the circle moving | Tracks open work, makes sure actions are followed up, prepares updates, and keeps the circle inside its domain. |
| Facilitator | Keeps meetings useful | Keeps time, guides discussion, checks for consent, and helps objections turn into better proposals. |
| Secretary | Keeps the group's memory | Records decisions, actions, owners, due dates, attendance, review dates and open questions. |
| Circle member | Does the work | Takes part in proposals, tasks, decisions and the review of results within the circle's domain. |
| Delegate | Carries news between circles | Brings a project circle's tensions, requests and decisions to the Founding Circle, and the answers back. |
| Site coordinator | Connects a project to one shop | Handles setup, staff instructions, data collection and fit at that shop. |
| Data steward | Protects and summarizes data | Collects the agreed measures, keeps them light, and prepares aggregate summaries. |
Meetings
During the pilot phase the Founding Circle meets once a month for an hour, with short written updates in one shared channel between meetings. A meeting usually covers a check on purpose, the open actions, each project circle's report, the decisions needed, the next actions, and anything unresolved.
Project circles meet as often as their work needs and no more: a launch meeting, short check-ins while something is being set up, and a review meeting at the end. The draft warns against long standing meetings with nothing to decide, because the owners attending them also have shops to run.
Published October 5, 2026.