Nomination for Board - Andrew Robinson

[Andy_R]

As former leader of the party, and the author of the first draft of the constitution, I feel I would be well placed to work with the other Board members on keeping the constitution up to date, as the Party matures and grows.

In the past I have devoted a lot of time to the pirate cause, and although my outside commitments mean I cannot put in the number of hours that I did when I was leader, I'm still deeply committed to the Party I helped to found, and am very keen to take up a formal role once more, now that Loz has stamped his identity on the leadership.

In my previous role as party leader, and as parliamentary candidate for Worcester, I took part in hustings events and debates with members of other parties, appeared on television and in the press, and debated with representatives of the copyright holding industries as the public face of the party. I hope that my performance during that time demonstrated many of the skills needed for the constitutional and disciplinary parts of the Governor's job; the ability to calmly and effectively debate matters; to explain complex concepts in understandable language, and to see things from all points of view.

As one of the original officers who formed the Party (and since the party's registered address is my house!), I have always been in contact with the Electoral Commission, which I believe puts me in an exceptionally good position to ensure the constitution of the party complies both with the requirements of electoral law, and those of the Electoral Commission.

If elected, I would make it my priority to work with the other board members to keep the constitution concise, intelligible and fair, but also to ensure it keeps at least one step ahead of the growth of the party, especially with respect to the formation of local constituency parties, and the structural changes that may be involved in switching between a structure based on European electoral regions and one based on parliamentary constituencies.

Comments, questions (and, with a bit of luck, a seconding of my self-nomination) would be much appreciated.

[scuzzmonkey]

I was wondering when you'd be back - seconded.

[topperfalkon]

I think given Andy's history with the party, having him on the board would be a good thing!

[cabalamat]

I think given Andy's history with the party, having him on the board would be a good thing!

So do I.

[borgs8472]

Hi Andy

Like most, I think you're an obvious candidate for the Board. Given your history, regarding the ever ambiguous 'other governance duties', what do you feel you might add there?

[Andy_R]

Hi Borgs

That's a difficult one. At times it's hard to decide if an issue is an 'other governance duty', or something that the party leader 'owns'. I think it may prove useful to have someone on the board who has been on both sides of the divide, to help iron out those odd occasions where both sides (or worse, neither side) thinks it's their job to decide something. In the early days of the Party, I spent a lot of time (if truth be told, far too much time) on smoothing out internal differences of opinion, and trying to get the 'behind the scenes' stuff working smoothly, which I think will be relevant experience for dealing with the ambiguous bits of the job.

[Andy_R]

I was wondering when you'd be back - seconded.

Many thanks! I've always been around in the background, having unilaterally assigned myself the role of 'being on the other end of a phone if Loz needed me'. However, as I suspected, he's way more comfortable with the leadership role than I was, and doesn't need his hand held at all

[AndrewTindall]

Was wondering when you'd hop on, yay.

Incidentally, is the party ever going to get changed from your address?

[Gavman]

Was wondering when you'd hop on, yay.

Incidentally, is the party ever going to get changed from your address?

Done ^^

[Gavman]

Was wondering when you'd hop on, yay.

Incidentally, is the party ever going to get changed from your address?

Done ^^

I should also add that I will also be getting the webteam to update the address on the website too.

[scuzzmonkey]

My question is an arse, and is as follows - what do you think needs to be changed, or modified, out of the following, based on your view on what the Board _should_ be.

Please go on as much as possible.

Code of Practice

General
There will be monthly Board meetings, which all Governors will be expected to attend or to make apologies for. The meetings will usually be held in the #ppuk-board channel on the PPUK IRC server.

Six voting Governors are required for a quorum. A decision by the majority of those present is binding.

Making constitutional amendments
The process for making a constitutional amendment has seven steps:

Proposition of amendment to the Board. Anyone can do this* at any time!
Internal Board discussions.
Consultation with the NEC.
Post-NEC consultation internal Board discussions.
Consultation with members. This will usually occur via the Board of Governors forum.
Post-member consultation internal Board discussions.
Member vote.
These steps can be quite slow, but have seemed to work quite well so far.

You may, if you wish, discuss in advance with other in the members forum.

Discipline and arbitration
Disciplinary panels shall consist solely of 5 Governors selected on the Board's discretion, but subject to any further condition. Any Governor with a potential and significant interest in the matter before a disciplinary panel cannot sit on that panel.

A panel will be set up following an official request received by the Board for discipline of a Party member or arbitration of a dispute. The panel will sit for as long as necessary.

The panel will investigate all of the available facts, and come to a decision. The panel will act independently of the rest of the Board and of the NEC.

Decisions of the Board shall be binding on all members in the case of disciplinary matters, or on the appellant in the case of arbitration matters. The Board cannot be bound by decisions of a disciplinary or arbitration panel.

[Andy_R]

This is a quick reply, I'll expand on it later... btw, I note the code you quote is different to the published code.

One of the reasons we have a board is so that we have a panel of sensible people to turn to if and when we get into odd situations. For that reason, I'm not inclined to be too picky about writing a code that covers all eventualities (unlike the constitution, it's not actually required to be 100% watertight), so I'd probably have a general catch-all rule for varying the code of practice if we end up somehow backed into a corner (for example if we have a mass resignation of governors and can't get the 5 required to run a disciplinary procedure).

There is an 8th step in amending the constitution, which is actually amending the constitution and informing the Electoral Commission. It might be worth specifiying that amendments come into force immediately the vote results are declared, and giving the responsiblity of informing the Commission to someone - presumably the board, but we should check if it needs to be notified to them by one of the officers.

[Gavman]

informing the EC is legally the job of the Treasurer (sorry not necessarily related to the overall thread but just to pick up on Andy's last comment)

[scuzzmonkey]

the published code.

I got it off the wiki - I wasn't aware there was another version of it =/

And thanks for the response

[Andy_R]

informing the EC is legally the job of the Treasurer (sorry not necessarily related to the overall thread but just to pick up on Andy's last comment)

Thanks, I knew there was an obligation in there somewhere... in that case, the board's 8th step is to inform the Treasurer that they need to inform the EC, and 9th is to confirm that the Treasurer has informed the EC.

[Andy_R]

the published code.

I got it off the wiki - I wasn't aware there was another version of it =/

And thanks for the response

It's not vastly different, I just noticed the number of governors required for a quorum didn't match - it makes sense to have this as an odd number to avoid deadlocks.

[scuzzmonkey]

Yea, it was 7 - it was adjusted after GL's resignation because we were getting in to situations where we simply didn't have enough people present at the right time - iirc, Azrael made a post about it - and will most likely be reset as soon as these elections are over.

[Andy_R]

Having thought some more on the code of practice, there isn't actually a lot I think needs to be added - after all it's not a binding job-spec, and making it into one would tend to increase the possibility of the party taking itself into a corner constitutionally. Perhaps something about the board's position on how open it's meetings and inner workings should be would be a good addition, with a commitment to a minimum level of openness (probably with an exclusion for disciplinary panels)?

[topperfalkon]

I think that'd be quite a worthwhile addition actually.

[scuzzmonkey]

Perhaps something about the board's position on how open it's meetings and inner workings should be would be a good addition, with a commitment to a minimum level of openness (probably with an exclusion for disciplinary panels)?

such as...?