Vote is now open

The member vote for the new party Treasurer is now open.

One candidate, Gavin Meredith, put himself forward for the vacant position of Treasurer, and has been seconded.

As there are no other candidates, the options will be to confirm Gavin, or to vote to re-open nominations. The vote will run for two weeks, until 19:00 Monday May 16th.

Election monitors appointed by the board for this vote are Stephen Ogden <s.ogden@pirateparty.org.uk> (Governor, South-East RAO) and Phil Cooke <p.cooke@pirateparty.org.uk> (Web team leader).

If you have any questions or are unable to access the vote page, please advise either myself <j.barron@pirateparty.org.uk>, or either of the election monitors, and we will try to resolve the issue.

Nominations have now closed for Board and Treasurer

The nomination period previously opened for party positions have now closed.

Board vacancies

No candidates put themselves forward for election to the Board at this time. A further nomination period will therefore need to be opened at a later date.

Treasurer

One candidate, Gavin Meredith, put himself forward for the vacant position of Treasurer. His nomination was seconded by scottishduck, who is a current member and so the nomination is valid.

Gavin Meredith will therefore go forward to a member vote to become our new Treasurer. As there are no other candidates, the options will be to confirm Gavin, or to vote to re-open nominations. This vote will be opened as soon as possible, and I presently hope to start this on Monday 2nd May, followed by announcement on the blog and by email notification to members.

Nominations are now open for a number of PPUK positions

We are happy to announce that according to the constitution adopted in March, and at the request of the Board, nominations for a number of internal positions within the party are now open, for the next 14 days until 19:30 hours on Monday 25th April.

The elections will be held as soon as reasonably practical following the close of nominations, and will be organised by the NEC with oversight by Phil Cooke (tempest3k) and Stephen Ogden (azrael), who have been appointed by the Board to act as election monitors.

Board vacancies

There are presently 3 vacancies for Governors of the Board.

The posts previously held by Lucas Abedecian and Loz Kaye have become vacant as described by the Board following the adoption of the constitutional amendments. Andrew Tindall has resigned his position.

Peter Brett has chosen to remain a Governor and to step down from the NEC in due course following the May elections, and has been granted dispensation by the board to remain on the NEC until then.

If you wish to stand for Governor, please post your self-nomination to the Member Discussion forum.

Treasurer

Following the result of the Vote of No Confidence in Peter Liddell he has been removed from post. As a result, the formal Treasurer responsibility presently falls on Loz Kaye, in addition to the leadership, with day-to-day Treasury matters having been handled by Miah Gregory in an acting capacity since Peter Liddell was removed.

Nominations for Treasurer are now also open on the same timescale, and if you wish to stand for this position please post your self-nomination to the Member Discussion forum.

Seconding

Please note that according to our constitution nominations for these positions must be seconded to become valid, and there are some restrictions e.g. on multiple seconding, as follows:

• The following elected positions require the candidates be seconded by at least one Party member: Party Leader, Treasurer, Campaigns Manager, Data Controller, Nominating Officer, and Governor
• Nominations may only be seconded by Party members in Good Standing. Members standing for election themselves may not second other members. Members may only second one candidate per position.

Another good idea which we can copy from sister parties is the Pirate Crew, the first I heard of this was from a German Pirate in Australia, where I understand it's been successful, and it's one of those things which seems to make instant sense once it's been suggested. It apparently works particularly well in large cities, where you have many people, Berlin and Brisbane were mentioned as examples, so there should equally be plenty of scope here to do this.

During the conference, party members spoke to me and others about building our organisation from the grass roots up, in addition to what we have to do to run a national party, and local crews provide a possible way of doing this. In many ways, Pirate Crews follow on from the Three Pirate Rule which was declared after the conference.

What is a Pirate Crew?

Reduced to essentials, the concept is as follows:

• A crew is a self-organising entity of the pirate party at the local level. It serves primarily for social networking, consensus building and transfer of knowledge to new Pirates.
• Each pirate is generally in no more than one crew.
• A crew consists of five to nine pirates, so you can sit at a table, and hold a common conversation. If the crew grows above nine members, it divides into two new ones. If it shrinks below five active members, it dissolves or merges with another.
• Each crew selects an anchorage for regular crew meetings in a public place (eg pub, cafe, library...). They will meet as often as the members see fit, but at least once a month.
• Crew members should generally live in the same approximate locality in which the anchorage lies, so that regular meetings are possible.
• Each crew chooses a concise piratical name, to make it recognisable and avoid confusion with other Pirate teams.
• When decisions need to be made, a consensus of the whole crew should be achieved. If that does not work, the majority decides. The minority either accept majority decision, or form a new crew.
• Each crew maintains its own Wiki page, which contains the names of the members, the address of the anchorage and the dates of the crew meetings.
• Each crew elects a Captain and a Navigator. They have no additional decision making power. The captain moderates the meeting and represents the crew to the ...

As promised before New Year, voting is now open for the position of London regional administrator, which should be accessible here:
https://www.pirateparty.org.uk/vote/
https://www.pirateparty.org.uk/vote/9/

We had hoped to open this more immediately after the New Year, as it was already delayed somewhat by the Christmas and New Year break; however it should now be up and will run for one week, closing Tuesday 25 January at 7.30PM. Results will be posted as soon as possible, and certainly by Wednesday 26th at the latest.

Please note you will only be able to access the poll if you are correctly recorded in our database as eligible; if you are a current London member and you can't access the member vote, please let us know either to myself j.barron@pirateparty.org.uk or Peter Liddell p.liddell@pirateparty.org.uk and we should be able to sort it out for you.