The Forge Hearth Charter
A small circle is three to six people who meet often enough to remember each other’s worlds. What kills one is almost never a lack of ideas — it is that nobody ever said out loud what the circle was for, so it quietly becomes a book club, then a group chat, then nothing. The charter is one page, filled in together at the first meeting and kept where everyone can see it.
What we are building
one world, or several?Be specific enough that someone could tell whether tonight went well. “A shared world” is a direction; “a shared city and the four families in it, by December” is something you can be early or late to. If each member is building their own world, say so here and say what the circle lends instead.
What we agree to
four lines is plentyThe working agreements, in the circle’s own words. Write them as things you will do rather than things you will not — “we say when we are borrowing someone else’s idea” holds better than “no stealing”. Revisit them when one stops being true; a charter nobody has amended in a year is a charter nobody is reading.
How we hold what we make
credit, canon, and who decidesThree short answers, because these are the questions that surface at the first disagreement and are much worse to settle then: whose name goes on an entry, what happens when two entries contradict each other, and who has the final call when the circle cannot agree. Naming a keeper here is not a hierarchy — it is a tiebreak.
The question we open with
ask it every timeOne question, asked at the start of every meeting so the circle lands in the same place before it starts building. It should be answerable in a sentence and different every week — a good opener is a door, not a test.
Why a one-page charter beats a good intention
Most circles do not end. They thin — a person misses twice, nobody notices, and the third miss ends it. What a charter changes is not enthusiasm but legibility: everyone knows what the circle is for, when it meets, and what they personally agreed to bring. That is enough to make an absence visible, and a visible absence is one somebody can ask about.
The two sections that earn their place are the ones circles skip. How we hold what we make settles credit and contradiction before either is contested, when it is an abstract question rather than a personal one. The question we open with gives every meeting the same first move, so a quiet member has a fixed place to speak from instead of having to find one.
Keep the charter where the circle meets and amend it out loud. When you do, print a fresh one — a charter with crossings-out is honest but hard to read, and the point is that everyone is holding the same version.