Opening Nominations for the Board of Governors

[azrael]

With Graeme's recent resignation as Governor, The Party are once again opening Nominations for the Board.

The Board of Governors is the body responsible for proposing amendments to the Party's constitution and is also the final body of arbitration, appeal, and discipline for the Party. The Board is comprised of up to 12 members who serve a term of up to five years.

See: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/party/how-we-work/board/ and http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Board_of_Governors

The work of a Governor is important, but is not as intensive as the work of the NEC members, so if you are concerned about how much time you can devote please don't let that put you off standing for the Board.

With various resignations over the past year the Board is at reduced strength with only eight sitting Governors. Today we are opening up nominations for the remaining four seats.

To nominate yourself for the Board please post a new topic in the Candidates and Campaigning forum using a subject similar in format to 'Nomination for Board for <insert name here>' - and then please post a reply in this thread noting your nomination and linking to your nomination thread. This way we can keep discussion on the nomination process here and questions to candidates in their respective threads.

many thanks, we look forward to your nominations

The Board of Governors

[azrael]

Also, if anyone is considering and wants to talk to a Board member about what the job entails, please feel free to contact board@pirateparty.org.uk or approach one of the Governors individually http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Boar ... #Governors

[Andy_R]

I have nominated myself for a position as Governor, in this thread.

[azrael]

I've noticed, that we haven't said when Board nominations will close. Very bad of us! The constitution requires 'The nomination period must remain open for a period of no less than 14 days, and normally no more than 31 days.' and we've normally just done 14 days. Following usual behaviour this nominations period will close on the 19th July.

edit: Extended to 30th July

[azrael]

John Barron has nominated himself for a position as Governor, in this thread

[JohnB]

John Barron has nominated himself for a position as Governor, in this thread

Thanks Az; and for the seconding; I had not yet got round to reposting the nomination link here before you, my apologies

[cabalamat]

I have nominated myself for the Board, here.

[azrael]

With Nominations due to expire today, and with us being in the middle of Nominations Officer elections, the Board has decided to extend the Board nominations period until 30th July.

[cabalamat]

With Nominations due to expire today, and with us being in the middle of Nominations Officer elections, the Board has decided to extend the Board nominations period until 30th July.

Has the board given a reason for this, other than the Nominations Officer election?

I must say, I do not regard it as particularly satisfactory to change the rules of an election, in the middle of that election.

[topperfalkon]

The rules of the election haven't changed, just the time allocated for nominations. It's still within the timebox allowed by policy.

I don't see it as unreasonable to postpone the start of an election when another election is currently underway.

[scuzzmonkey]

Phil: The reason for the extension was purely to do with not wishing to have the two elections periods overlapping for the Board and for NO.

Yes, it is unusual, and really we should have noticed this would have happened before hand, but NO was a rather snap election triggered by the resignation of JB, and was not considered during the initial talks when we were setting up the Board elections. Without going in to too much detail;

- we'd decided to have Board elections (on the 17th June)
- passed this on to the NEC (discussions finish on the 18th June)
- JB resigned (on 27th June, via email) - triggers NO nominations for 2 weeks to shut on the 11th
- We confirmed our intentions to have BoG elections - starting on the 5th July -> viewtopic.php?p=28473#p28473
- Voting for NO starts at 23:59 on the 14th July -> viewtopic.php?p=28588#p28588

[cabalamat]

The rules of the election haven't changed, just the time allocated for nominations.

The timing is part of the rules, as your next sentence implies.

Imagine if, during the 2009 general election campaign, on the day that nominations closed Gordon Brown had postponed the election date by 11 days. The uproar would have been enormous.

It's still within the timebox allowed by policy.

I don't see it as unreasonable to postpone the start of an election when another election is currently underway.

I would not have objected to postponing the BOG election, or of increasing the time allowed for nominations, if this had been done at the beginning. My objections to changing the rules during the election process. As Scuzzmonkey points out, John Barron resigned on the 27th June, and the announcement for start of nominations for the BOG election was posted 8 days later on the 5th of July, when it was already known that there would be a N.O. election.

On the 10th of July, Azrael announced that the nominations will end on the 19th. On the 14th of July, Azrael announced the start of the vote for NO. He must have known at that point that the elections would overlap.

Only on the 19th of July, 44 minutes before the end of nominations, does Azrael announce the extension of the nomination period, citing the overlap with the NO election.

I note that the Party has in the past conducted multiple overlapping votes (for election of officers, for policies, and for changing the constitution), with (to the best of my knowledge) no-one objecting to the overlap. So why now?

[tuoni]

Part of the reason for this is the officer being elected is responsible for elections. Another reason, I presume, is the lack of people putting their names forward for the board.

Yes, this is a far from ideal situation; however it doesn't break any rules and, frankly, makes sense to me.

[topperfalkon]

I'm with tuoni here...

If the Queen had died during nominations for the 2010 General Election, the election would have been postponed wouldn't it?
Certainly at least until there was a coronation, as the Sovereign still has to give their blessing to the new government.

I think that in a normal situation this would be an issue yes, but scuzzmonkey has already pointed out that the resignation of the NO wasn't really expected and required...

I certainly don't believe the Party will suddenly fall apart if we spend another couple of weeks without an additional governor.

[azrael]

Actually I am inclined to agree with Cabalamat here. It is rather bad form to change things mid-flow. It was sloppy to open nominations without a delared end point, and then inconsistent to change it at the last moment. The initial declaration of an end point was a reactionary in light of realising there wasn't an end point - and I accept that it would have been better to spend more time thinking about making the right decision than making a fast decision.

I do however think that this fast decision was the wrong one.

All the information was to hand - so there are no excuses - but with the deadline approaching we faced certain realities. With a vote currently active for NO, and with the NO normally the person to manage the admin of votes, it made sense to not open Board voting until the NO was in place.

No announcement tied us to any particular start date for the Board vote. It would make most sense to open the Board vote after the NO vote had closed - and would not have been a change of any rule or previous decision.

Given those circumstances we either closed the Board nominations as scheduled and then wait to open the vote, or we extend nominations. Given that we we only have 3 nominations and that extending the period *might* give us more - and thus provide members with a wider choice and better competition, a decision was taken by the Board to extend the nominations period.

I do realise that this potential for increased competition doesn't benefit the candidates - but I strongly believe it benefits the wider party and as such I stand behind the Board's decision - while at the same time strongly apologising for my own reactionary and ultimately incorrect decision when previouslly declaring the earlier close date.

[scuzzmonkey]

As Azrael said (and I did too in my post ^^^) this is hardly ideal, and not something that we actually wanted to happen - it was an oversight, a mistake, and one that have attempted to rectify.

Also, and I am sure you are aware of this fact, we have 3 current board nominations, and there are 4 positions. In the interest in having a Board as close to full strength as possible (and make the elections actually needed) my personal belief as a member (separate from the Board) is that keeping the Board Nominations open for another week, or another month, is only a good thing, as it can allow more nominations.

[Andy_R]

Scuzzmonkey makes a good point - with 3 nominations and 4 vacancies we are in an unusual position. Given that the objective is to keep the board fully populated with people approved by the members, I would have advised closing the nomination period for 4 positions on the date announced and immediately reopening nominations for the 1 position that cannot possibly be filled given the shortage of candidates.

[topperfalkon]

Against my better judgement, I have nominated myself here

[intrepidfox]

Hi. I have posted a new thread nominating myself for the board of governors here http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3438

[azrael]

Nominations for the Board have now closed. We have the following seconded nominations:

* Andrew Robinson seconded by Will Mac
* John Barron seconded by Stephen Ogden
* Philip Hunt seconded by Infektor
* Harley Faggetter seconded by Ed Geraghty
* Graham Hope seconded by Will Mac
* Chris Monteiro seconded by Ed Geraghty

I am very pleased to see that we have a good field of candidates that provides real competition for the election. Given that we have a last minute nomination (which is perfectly acceptable) I am curious as to the fairest way to proceed. In the past there have been debate about how appropriate it is for elections to open as soon as nominations close, and giving candidates (especially last minute ones) little time to campaign and little time for members to question candidates (or rather not giving other members who might vote early the benefit of seeing answers that might have changed their opinion).

Given that there is no requirement for voting to open asap after the close of nominations, and that members and candidates might wish there to be a period of campaigning, I would very much welcome the opinions of candidates and members as to how they feel we should proceed.

Do we want a campaigning period before voting opens? If yes, how long do we want the campaigning period to be?

I should note that another benefit of a campaigning period would be to allow the newly elected Nominations Officer (who is traditionally responsible for administering elections) to settle in prior to a new election starting.