Matrix Governing Board report, November 2025

Hello lovely Matrix people,

Another 6 months have passed, and November is once again here - and that means another Governing Board meeting, and another report. What's been happening in the Governing Board?

🔗Structure, process, and engagement

Since the last report in May, we've had elections! This was important, since it's the first time we've added new folk to the existing Governing Board - last year we were all new. So, it took a little time to figure out how we do onboarding (and offboarding!) and getting the new folk up to speed.

In the meantime, the processes we've put in place around Committees and Working Groups appear to be functioning. Remember, if you have an idea for something to get done, you can propose a WG yourself! There are reports from these in the minutes below. On a side note, Nico and Kim from the Governing Board also shared an overview of these structures and processes surrounding the Governing Board and Working Groups at The Matrix Conference, which can be viewed on YouTube and media.ccc.de.

The work those groups do can range from the very-visible (Events, I'm looking at you 😛) to invisible work going on behind the scenes - but it's all needed. Since the last report, we've onboarded 2 more WGs, and have discussions in play about several more. This is exciting to me, because this is what we're for - giving the passion in our community a way to gain momentum.

As usual, I'm posting a lightly-edited version of the minutes from the meeting below for your reading pleasure... or you can skip to my conclusions at the end.

🔗Governing Board Meeting Minutes November 2025

• Introduction and context setting
• Committee Reports
  • Governance:
    • Mostly internal process stuff, new vice-chair, and work on allowing non-board members to contribute to the governance discussions
  • T&S:
    • The Room Directory WG is up and running, working with the Foundation T&S team
    • The Research & Documentation Working Group also has new members
    • 2 more Working Groups under considerations
  • Community:
    • Website & Content WG
      • has been happily running TWIM
      • There's been some improvements to the website overall, such as the homeserver section (which is likely to get the "experimental features" policy added to it soon).
      • Discussions over moderation with T&S
    • Events WG:
      • Matrix Conference
      • The conference appeared to be successful in acquiring volunteers to help spread the load of WG work - lots of interested folks looking to join the WGs.
      • Currently planning for FOSDEM26
      • Volunteer management tooling to make both conferences and stand management easier is being explored
    • Public Sector WG proposed
  • Finance:
    • After a slow start, this is finally getting regular meetings now
    • Lots of talking points to get through, especially as many of the previous actions were on Robin (who has now left)
    • Getting financial reports out is a priority
• Discussions/Votes
  • Proposal to make the Foundation website the canonical repository of Committee & Working Groups charters.
    • No objections raised, currently under formal vote
  • Proposal to adopt an AI policy for the Website WG, inspired by the Forgejo policy
    • Other areas of the ecosystem (e.g. matrix-rust-sdk and matrix-js-sdk) are having similar issues
    • Joined up thinking here is probably a good thing
    • Agreement to try this policy out on website repo, and other repos are welcome to volunteer to test it too
• Foundation report
  • Amandine is acting as MD in the wake of Robin's departure, and gave us an update on her priorities from a Foundation point of view.
  • Much of this was for Governing Board consumption, however the themes were around finance, the structure of the ecosystem (i.e. how the Governing Board, SCT, and Foundation interoperate)
  • We also discussed how to improve the Working Group processes - can we make it easier to ask for one, clarify what it means to be in one, how they interact with the Foundation, and set out how we expect people to progress within the community
  • I also added that I'm trying to set up regular meetings between the Governing Board Chair (i.e. me) and other parts of the ecosystem so that we can make sure cross-party work gets addressed in a timely way
• Closing remarks

Once again, lots to say! As expected from last time, the reports phase was a little quicker this time (we're getting used to the process) which gave us more time to dig into understanding where we're at.

🔗Future plans / personal reflections

We're at the halfway point for this election cycle, so there's lots more to accomplish yet. I want to see even more Working Groups, as they're the beating heart of the Governing Board, as well as the source of new Governing Board members in the future - do suggest one if there's something you're passionate about. There's a lot of scope for that, I think - there's no shortage of work to be done. From docs, to research, to governance, there's plenty of things that need input.

If you want to come chat with us, there’s always the Office of the Governing Board room you can drop into, or swing by the Ecosystem Office Hours (on Wednesdays 17:00 Berlin time in #ecosystem.forum:matrix.org) for a chat. See you there!

Until next time!

Greg “Gwmngilfen” Sutcliffe (on behalf of the Governing Board)