Running meetings in Nestr

Meetings are the heartbeat of self-organising teams. In Nestr, structured meetings help your team coordinate work, process tensions, and evolve your governance — all in a focused, time-boxed format.

This guide covers everything you need to run effective meetings in Nestr: circle (tactical) meetings, governance meetings, and role meetings.

Types of meetings

Nestr supports three types of meetings:

• Circle meetings (also called tactical meetings) — for operational coordination: project updates, checklist reviews, metrics, and processing tensions into concrete next actions.
• Governance meetings — for evolving your organisational structure: creating or modifying roles, circles, accountabilities, domains, and policies.
• Role meetings — for processing work within a specific role. This meeting type is optional and must be enabled by a workspace admin (see below).

How to start a meeting

Starting a circle or governance meeting

1. Navigate to the circle where you want to hold the meeting.
2. Click the Work tab, then select the Meetings sub-tab.
3. Click New circle meeting or New governance meeting from the actions menu.
4. A dialog will appear with a title field and an optional due date.
5. Click Start meeting to begin immediately.

It is also possible to start a meeting using the '+ Create' button in your navigatiuon bar on the left.

1. Click the '+ Create' button
2. Click the Meeting option.
3. On the pop-up, select/change the circle you want to run the meeting in.
4. Select the type of meeting (structure/circle) you wish to start.
5. Click Start meeting.

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If your workspace has both circle and governance meetings enabled, you may see a meeting type selector with radio buttons to choose between them.

Scheduling a meeting for the future

Instead of starting a meeting immediately, you can schedule it for later:

1. In the new meeting dialog, set the due date to a future date and time.
2. The button label will change from "Start meeting" to Schedule meeting.
3. Click Schedule meeting to save it.

Scheduled meetings appear in your Meetings tab with a countdown showing "Meeting starts in..." and a Start meeting now link if you want to begin early. Team members can add agenda items to a scheduled meeting before it starts.

Starting a role meeting

Role meetings are not enabled by default. A workspace admin can enable them by navigating to Workspace settings → Applications and toggling on role meetings. Once enabled:

1. Navigate to the role.
2. Click the Work tab, then Role meetings.
3. Click New role meeting.

Preparing agenda items before a meeting

You don't have to wait until the meeting starts to add agenda items. Nestr lets you prepare tensions (agenda items) in advance:

1. Navigate to the circle.
2. Click the Work tab, then the Meetings sub-tab.
3. Click Add agenda item from the actions menu.
4. In the dialog that appears:
   • Give your agenda item a short title in the "Name your agenda item in just a few words" field.
   • Optionally add detail in the "Describe your agenda item" field.
   • Choose the type: Circle meeting tension or Governance tension.
   • Select which role is sensing this tension.
5. Click Create agenda item.

Prepared tensions appear in a Prepared tensions list section below the agenda during an open meeting. You can add them to the active meeting by clicking Add to agenda, or remove them with Remove from agenda.

The meeting flow

Once a meeting is started, Nestr guides you through a structured set of tabs. Here's what each step covers:

Circle (tactical) meeting steps

1. ‍Check-in: A round-robin where each participant shares how they're arriving. Click a person's name to mark them present or absent.
2. ‍Checklists (if app enabled): Review recurring responsibilities tied to roles. Each role holder confirms whether checklist items were completed.
3. ‍Metrics (if app enabled): Review key performance indicators owned by specific roles in the circle.4
4. ‍Projects: Review project status across the circle's roles. See what's current, waiting, or done.5
5. ‍Process agenda: Process agenda items one by one. For each tension, capture outcomes: actions, projects, or governance proposals assigned to specific roles and people.6
6. ‍Reflect: A closing round where participants share reflections on the meeting.7
7. ‍Close meeting: Finalise the meeting. A report is saved and emailed to all participants.

Governance meeting steps

Governance meetings follow a similar structure but with a different processing step:

1. ‍Check-in: Same as circle meetings.
2. ‍Process agenda: Process governance proposals: create or modify roles, circles, accountabilities, domains, and policies or hold elections for electable roles. Includes clarifying questions, reactions, objections, and integration.
3. ‍Reflect: Closing round for reflections.
4. ‍Close meeting: Finalise and send the governance meeting report.

Processing agenda items during a meeting

The Process agenda tab is where the real work happens. For each agenda item:

1. The facilitator opens the tension.
2. The tension owner explains what they need.
3. Depending on your meeting process (Sociocratic, Holocratic or other) the agenda item isprocessed into operational or structural outcomes..
4. Use the Add outcome button to capture each outcome:
   • Choose a type: Action, Project, or a governance proposal type.
   • Assign it to a role (or select "Individual action" for personal actions).
   • Assign it to a specific user using the "Select User" dropdown.
   • Describe the outcome in the text field.
5. Move to the next agenda item. The agenda header will show your progress: "(X done, Y to go)".

Closing a meeting

When all agenda items are processed, click the Close meeting tab to finalise:

• A meeting report is automatically saved with all agenda items and their outcomes.
• An email summary is sent to all circle members.
• Unprocessed agenda items can be discarded or moved back to the prepared agenda items for the next meeting.

Note: If a meeting is left open for more than 8 hours without activity, Nestr will automatically close it and send the email report.

Elections

Elections for governance roles (circle lead, facilitator, secretary, rep link) are handled as part of governance proposals. During a governance meeting, you can create a proposal with the election label to nominate and elect someone into a governance role. The election follows your workspace's configured governance process (Holacracy IDM, Sociocracy consent, etc.).

Meeting process customisation

You can change the available steps for your meeting by navigating to your Workspace settings -> Labels, fields & tabs. There you can select the Circle or Governance meeting label and change what tabs are visible or add custom tabs.

Tips for effective meetings

• Prepare tensions in advance — Encourage your team to add agenda items before the meeting so everyone can see what's coming.
• Use the facilitator flow — The step-by-step tabs keep meetings structured and prevent tangents.
• Capture outcomes immediately — Assign every action or project to a specific role and person during the meeting, not after.
• Review checklists and metrics regularly — These recurring items build accountability over time.
• Keep it time-boxed — The tension review is designed to process items quickly. Each item should result in a clear next step.