Weekly Swarm Sessions

OUR MISSION

"The SWARM is a community-driven "grass roots" initiative, supporting Cardano in its mission to build a universal decentralized system that provides access to a global society and economy."

CONNECT: We bring the community together to unleash its full potential.

INCLUDE: We build bridges to ensure the diversity of the Cardano community.

EMPOWER: We encourage everyone to act and lead by creating space to do so.

WHO WE ARE

"The SWARM is a dynamic organism. It is the result of its individuals and groups. Each new individual brings a new quality to the swarm. A healthy swarm is constantly evolving."

The active parts in SWARM are categorized in three groups that are related to engagement, trust and endurance. The Swarm doesn't give roles, roles are rather establishing themself over time in proved participation. For example: How do you become a birdwatcher? Well… by watching birds ;)

• Hive: The core team that is taking the highest personal initiative and responsibility in the total Swarm actions.
• Swarm Veterans: Highly dedicated supporters that have been constantly following the events over a period of time, taking action by hosting rooms and moderating sessions and discussions.
• Swarm Supporters: Engaged supporters who are repeatedly active in meetings and discussions.

WHAT WE DO

Swarm operates and interacts in and around the wider Cardano Community, focused on linking individuals, projects and communities to Project Catalyst. Our activities are characterized by the following qualities:

• Listen to the community and gather data and opinions from an unbiased perspective.
• Host different events and meetups where the community members come together, share their ideas, connect, listen and get inspired from each other.
• Reach out to underrepresented groups in the community, exploring ways to lower entry barriers and offer continuous support and advice.
• Integrate local communities to enrich a diverse, multi-cultural Catalyst Community.
• Moderate the community discussions in our events and Discord server in a way that empowers individuals to further engage.
• Explore novel ways for decentralized governance within our community, based upon research and practice oriented methods.
• Document and track our activity to build trust and transparency.
• Reproduce ourselves by creating new swarm groups to have a diverse co-existence and collaboration of several swarms.

I M P A C T

Detailed Problem Description:

A community-driven project like the Catalyst Fund needs organized events to connect ideas and initiatives, discuss and solve problems together, and initiate collaboration. Without moderation and facilitation, these efforts often come to nothing or the discussions go in circles without reaching a conclusion or being implemented.

Proposed Solution:

To address these issues, weekly swarm sessions evolved out of the community in April. Since then, we have held Swarm sessions every week on Zoom - with different breakout rooms at each event. The weekly topics are related to current issues and events in the community. For example, when it is time for the Community Advisor (CA) to assess proposals, the Swarm Sessions provide workshops for CAs, etc.

Impact on the Challenge and Cardano:

The 'Catalyst Value Onboarding' challenge is seeking ideas to increase meaningful participation in Project Catalyst. By providing and organizing different stages and furthermore moderating various discussions on our Discord server, the Catalyst Swarm directly addresses this challenge already for several months.

F E A S I B I L I T Y

References:

We have hosted 22+ weekly Swarm Sessions since April so far. Furthermore, we moderate a Discord Server with more than 500 highly engaged members.

High engagement and interaction

• Fair and open discussions
• Relaxed and friendly atmosphere
• Constant growth in participants
• Initiating ideation and collaboration
• Proposer-voter interactions
• Relevant content for Project Catalyst
• Flexible adjustments to just-in-time content
• Transparent bottom-up design

Core Team & Roles:

• Dominik - Hosting, finance and accounting, social media and marketing
• Felix - Hosting, outreach to new hosts and topics, organizing
• Filip - Hosting, organizing, finance
• Jakob - Moderation, hosting, organizing
• Simon - Hosting, website, GitHub, working on connected projects
• Stephen - Github documentation and tracking for transparency and trust building
• Tevo - Hosting, improving organizational structure, miro boards, website updates
• Victor - Hosting, organizing, creating content

More Details on www.catalystswarm.com

Budgeting: 

For facilitating 12 Swarm Session each Saturday (counting after successful funding)

Each event is calculated with $750 which covers following activities:

- Reaching out to ideas and hosts, onboard hosts

- Organize each event

- Market and communicate the event

- Document event activities for transparency

- Moderate and host the event

Calculation: 12 events for $750 each = $9.000 total 

A U D I T A B I L T I Y

Milestones, Key Deliverables

• Swarm session each Saturday at 17 UTC on Zoom
• at least 5-6 breakout rooms with facilitators
• different subjects and community initiatives
• place for members to moderate, share, discuss
• Onboard and introduce new participants to Catalyst
• Discord server moderation
• Connecting ideas to existing projects in the ecosystem
• YouTube channel
• Recording and uploading sessions with high interest

Measures of Success, Key Performance Indicators

• Monthly growth rate of our Discord Server by 10% per month
• Increase average number of participants in Swarm Sessions by 20% per month
• Number of Followers on Twitter
• Number of Video-Clicks
• Number of Followers on Youtube

Transparency

We are committed to transparent and open operations with all of our stakeholders. We have set-up a public GitHub repository where all ongoing tasks and actions are tracked daily. We hold 2 meetings per week, all meeting outputs are on Github, we open and close issues, assign them to each other and keep each other honest and responsible.