--- title: "Restructuring a sub-circle in a governance meeting" description: "Restructure a sub-circle without leaving a governance meeting: add a Restructure evolution to a proposal on the agenda item, then adopt the proposal to move roles and sub-circles in or out." category: structure-governance section: chart-and-circles type: Tutorial lastUpdated: 2026-08-05 locale: en canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/how-to-restructure-a-circle-in-governance-meetings --- # Restructuring a sub-circle in a governance meeting ## Restructuring a sub-circle in a governance meeting You restructure a sub-circle from the meeting itself, through a proposal on the agenda item you are processing. Moving roles and sub-circles in or out of a sub-circle is one kind of proposed change a proposal can carry, and adopting the proposal applies the move to the organisation straight away. Two things decide what you can reach: - **The meeting has to be in progress.** Creating a proposal from an agenda item is a live-meeting action. Before the meeting starts, the item offers **Link existing** only, so a proposal drafted earlier can still be brought in. - **The proposal has to sit on the parent circle,** and you have to be a decision maker of that circle. The picker offers the direct sub-circles of the proposal's circle and nothing deeper: to restructure a sub-circle of Services, the proposal goes on Services. ## Add the change to a proposal 1. Start the governance meeting and open the agenda item you want to process, in the **Agenda** section. 2. Click **Actions**, then **New proposal**. 3. Check the circle on the chip under the title. It is pre-filled with the first circle invited to the meeting. Change it if the sub-circle you want to restructure sits elsewhere. 4. Click **Create**. The proposal is linked to the item and appears in its notes. 5. Open it, then click **Add evolution** and choose **Restructure a sub-circle**, under **Change existing**. ![The Add evolution chooser, listing Create new cards for a role and a sub-circle above eight Change existing cards, among them Restructure a sub-circle described as Move roles and sub-circles in or out of a sub-circle](/images/structure-governance/how-to-restructure-a-circle-in-governance-meetings/01-add-evolution-chooser.png) The card is greyed out when the proposal's circle holds no sub-circle, and its tooltip says so. ## Choose what moves 1. Pick the target from **Select the sub-circle to restructure**. 2. Under **Move in**, tick the sub-circles and the roles that should move inside it. Both lists hold its siblings, that is whatever sits directly in the parent circle. 3. Under **Move out**, tick the roles that should leave it and return to the parent circle. 4. Click **Confirm**. ![The Restructure sub-circle form on a draft proposal, with a sub-circle chosen at the top, a Move in group whose role list has one role ticked, and a Move out group listing the roles already inside the sub-circle, above Cancel and Confirm](/images/structure-governance/how-to-restructure-a-circle-in-governance-meetings/02-restructure-sub-circle-form.png) Each box you tick becomes one entry in the **Evolutions** list, showing the circle the role moves **From** and the circle it moves **To**. Nothing has changed in the chart yet. Add more evolutions to the same proposal if the reorganisation also creates, edits or deletes a role or a circle. > **Note:** A role move is badged **Role invitation** on the list, and sub-circles can be moved in but not out. To take a sub-circle out of a sub-circle, use [Moving a role or circle to another circle](/structure-governance/how-to-move-a-role-or-circle-from-one-circle-to-another). Restructuring is also how you populate a sub-circle you have just created. Ticking roles while defining a new sub-circle names them on the proposal but does not move them, so add a **Restructure a sub-circle** evolution for the roles that should go inside it. ## Decide it in the room 1. Click the expand arrow at the top of the proposal to open it in full page. **Submit** lives there, not on the panel that opens over the meeting. The **Back** link returns you to the meeting. 2. Click **Submit**, then confirm. A proposal carrying no evolution cannot be submitted, and the disabled button says so. 3. The proposal switches to its meeting layout: the proposed changes on the left, now read-only, and the workflow on the right. 4. Advance through the steps with **Advance to next step**. 5. On the last step, click **Adopt**. Adopting applies every evolution to the organisation immediately. The roles and sub-circles you moved appear under their new parent, and the proposal moves to **Adopted**. **Reject** ends the process instead and changes nothing. By default an in-meeting proposal carries two steps, **Present Proposal** and **Decision**, so **Adopt** becomes available after one advance. An administrator can switch the organisation to the full validation workflow, which adds clarifying, reaction, objection and integration rounds before the decision. ## If the meeting ends first Closing the meeting does not apply the restructuring. The proposal keeps its changes and its position in the workflow, and you can reopen it from **Structure** > **Proposals** and adopt it there with the same controls. Organisations that turn on automatic validation behave differently: the proposal is detached from the meeting and then either adopted at once or sent into the asynchronous consent round, depending on which mode is set. Ask your administrator which one applies to you. ## What's Next? - [Moving a role or circle to another circle](/structure-governance/how-to-move-a-role-or-circle-from-one-circle-to-another) - [Transforming a role into a circle, or a circle back into a role](/structure-governance/how-to-transform-a-role-into-a-circle-and-back) - [Creating a proposal](/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-proposal) - [Bring an item to a meeting agenda](/structure-governance/how-to-use-bring-to-meeting)