Hello, NEAR Community! 
With the first quarter of 2022 behind us and spring just around the corner, the @community-team wanted to showcase what we’ve been up to since we posted last as there have been some changes, internally and within the broader community.
Firstly, allow us to re-introduce your Community Team, now representing a sub-team within the NEAR Foundation Marketing Team focused on grassroots outreach and engagement efforts: @mecsbecs, @David_NEAR, @jcatnear, and @jlwaugh.
Here are some updates from us, and a look back at February-March 2022:
There are ongoing discussions surrounding the Guilds Program & Payout Process Changes:
- Join Wednesday’s AMA to discuss the future of the NEAR Guilds Program, hosted by Erik Trautman. Members of the NEAR Community Team and Guild Ops will also be in attendance.
- The Ecosystem Development DAO has now entered retirement as a Community Funding Vertical - read more here and let us know your questions below.
- A reminder that you can find the full Community Payout Process information here, and the respective funding guides for the Marketing DAO and Creatives DAO.
The incredible Community Moderators who lead the Community Concierge Initiative probably need no introduction, but in case you haven’t encountered them yet:
- Meet the Guilds Ops team (soon to be renamed)
- Meet the Project Ops team
- Meet the Channel Ops team & General Ops team soon with their own introductions on the Forum
They’ve been incredibly active in the wider Community, and have now hit their stride with their efforts supporting projects and community groups; moderating our Telegram, Discord, Reddit, and other community channels; and running the AMAs and quizzes, and other community campaigns.
Expect their reports on their March activities shortly here in the Community category, and each team will now have a tag for their use.
Shout-out to @erikaprepon @stanisnear @KriptoRaptor @Benz_Near @FritzWorm @Kemal @Jloc @bailey12 @jiten123321 @Kv9990 @mukuls9971 @HaiVu @simeon4real @Squazher @rahulgoel007 @GeorgePro1 @LarryLang @TheGo1denBull for all the work that they do as the Community Moderators of the @ConciergeTeam!
Community DAO - the ongoing experiment now features:
- A new purpose, vision, and mission;
- Groups within the DAO for anyone to join;
- Weekly study groups;
- and an active Telegram group for anyone to jump into.
And after shepherding these exciting opportunities for community self-governance and community leader involvement, among other things, we have an announcement to make: @jlwaugh will be moving on from his role at NEAR Foundation to pursue another opportunity.
He is looking forward to staying involved with our community, building on what we have learned / accomplished together. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to him with any questions, and remember, it’s only farewell for now. He won’t be going too far (for which we’re very thankful)!
Lastly, some awesome news regarding stable coins for Community Payouts!
We have gotten the go-ahead from NEAR Finance to start the distribution of stables on NEAR! We can begin with request amounts that are equivalent to USD $5K or less, and the following coins can be accepted: nDAI, nUSDC, nUSDO, and nUSDT.
We’ve been waiting for the introduction of stable coins for a long time, and it’s exciting to be able to now offer them as an accepted token denomination for Community Payouts!
Individuals requesting a payout from any of the Community Funding Verticals (Creatives DAO, Marketing DAO, Community Team) can now either request their payout in stable coin OR USD, which will be converted to $NEAR when NEAR Finance is executing on payment.
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You can look forward to monthly Community Team Reports posted on the Forum from here on out, and don’t forget to tag @community-team if you need us!
Or email the team at community@near.foundation.
