Nominations are now open for a Director, to serve until December 31,
 2014.

 Nominations will close at midnight, EDT, on December 31, 2012.  The
 polls will open at 00:01 EDT, on January 16, 2013, and remain open for
 two weeks, until 23:59 EDT, January 31, 2013.

 To be valid, a nomination must be accepted in this item by the nominee,
 but the nomination does not need a second.  Self-nominations are
 allowed and will be interpreted as also accepting the nomination.
 Nominations must be accepted by 1700 EDT, January 15, 2013, to allow
 time to confirm the list of nominees before opening the polls at
 midnight.

 Only members of Cyberspace, Inc, are eligible for Directorships, so
 nominees must also make sure that their dues are current by the time
 the polls open on January 16, 2013.

 While any one may cast a ballot, only the ballots of members will
 be counted for the election.  The voteadm will probably count the
 non-members' votes and report their results as well.

 This Director's term will officially begin January 1, 2013 but the
 winner will not be determined until February 1, 2013.

35 responses total.

Is anyone willing to help Grex by serving on the Board of Directors?
 
Put your nominations here.

Yes, I will run.  I am not currently a member.  If you'll tell me how to
become one, I will be happy to do so.

I have a specific agenda.  I want Grex/Cyberspace Inc. to merge with
Arbornet.  If necessary, Grex should disband and donate it's assets to
Arbornet.  It could then use either the general conference as it now
uses agora, or ask for the grex conference to be renamed 'agora' and
it's usage changed to duplicate the current Grex agora.

The purpose is that there are not enough people to justify two systems.
 Grex is not self-sufficient.  It has no staff other than tonster who is
the staff of both systems, and i who acts as cfadm on the rare occasions
when that is needed.  M-Net really isn't self-sufficient, either.  It
exists on the sufferance of tonster who keeps both Grex and M-Net in his
basement, and through the continuing efforts of tonster and Greg Russo
(who acts as cfadm).

Arbornet's bylaws currently allow for there to be one Board meeting per
year, and for that to be done on-line.

There is currently no Board for Arbornet.

At present I do not represent anyone.  I have not attempted to gain any
support for my agenda from either M-Netters or Grexers.

Beyond that agenda, I served on the Arbornet Board for several years,
though not currently.  I have been treasurer, vice president and
secretary.  I never missed a Board meeting, and I always promoted the
best interests of Arbornet.  I think I would be an asset to
Grex/Cyberspace as well.  I will serve if elected, even if my agenda is
not accepted, but I will persistently and energetically pursue that
agenda if I become a member of the Board.  I expect it to pass if I am
elected.

I am outlining my agenda to give others the chance to join or counter
it, not for the purpose of taking over the purpose of this item.

There are other staff members at Grex than tonster, though surely he
helps Grex a lot.  

We don't have many expenses and it doesn't take much money to keep Grex
operating.  Things like the domain name renewals, our assumed name
renewal, SSL certs, yearly state corporation update forms, our PO box,
and our annual IRS postcard take little money and a little time to
do.  We need staff to set up the conferences each quarter, people to do
the validating of new users, to answer help desk requests, to run the
elections, and to help with system operations.  We also need to keep
track of membership information and get monthly financial statements.
We have staff assigned to do all those things.

Our main issue is getting things like those done in good time every year
and I don't see that merging with M-Net and/or donating Grex's assets to
Arbonet would solve that issue because Arbonet has the same issue(s).

Why not have Arbornet dissolve and give its assets to Grex?

Grex is currently far from insolvent, so we can go for quite a few years
with things as they are, as long as bills get paid on time, and forms go
in on time.

By-laws can be changed with some effort, but I think the six times per
year Grex board meeting requirement was to keep the Board involved
in Grex's operations and to ensure necessary tasks are getting done.
Meeting once a year is hardly enough time to tackle much of anything
(including Board elections and future plans), and it has the potential
to leave tasks undone or ill-considered.

You are, of course, welcome to run and raise what you see as issues if
you are elected to the Grex Board.  Rather than throwing in the towel, I
wonder what you can do to keep Grex operating and improve its operation?

I don't support combining/merging the two systems (and cross, our other
main sysadmin has spoken against this as well).  I think they can
continue to exist separately, and I think both systems are happier
operating that way.  Overall, the maintenance of both systems doesn't
really take much from us and since we're moving to FreeBSD for Grex,
this becomes an even simpler task.  I can see the draw to combine, but I
still don't find it necessary.

Once again, I was outlining my agenda as a candidate, not beginning a
debate on the merits of a merger.

If you like things as they are, pick someone else.  I am not running to
preserve the status quo.  I'm telling you now what I will work for if I
win in the election.

One caveat: if I become the scoutmaster of my son's Boy Scout troop I
will withdraw from the Cyberspace election, or resign if I have already
been elected.  That would be a big job, and it would be much more
important to me than any other volunteer activities.  I plan to avoid it.

To find out about membership and how to become a member of Grex, see
http://grex.org/memfaq.xhtml.
 
Candidates must be Grex members by the time the polls open on Jan 16,
2013.  See the item text for timing details.

re resp:6: It doesn't list the requirement to be eligible to vote or
run.  I paid for a 1 year membership.  As I recall, the requirement is 3
months at $2 per month.  The 1 year rate is $18 in case anyone else
wanted to know but didn't want to adventure through the WWW site.

BTW, also, there is no way that I saw to update the amount to pay the
Paypal fees.  I clicked on "pay by the year".  There was also a "pay by
the month" option but I didn't see a way to "send a membership plus a
little extra".  I was going to send $20.

The eligibility to vote bit is in there (memfaq.xhtml):

"So the real answer is, the main thing you get is the satisfaction of
supporting a great community, and a great community resource. You also
get the ability to vote in Grex elections, so you can help decide Grex's
future. (You have to pay for three months or more before you can vote.)"

Eligibility to run for the Board, etc. is in the bylaws.

Anyone else want to self-nominate?  Or do you know of someone
else who would be good?  Nominate them!

I nominate TS Taylor for this position.

Nominations close at midnight EST Dec. 31, 2012.  So nominate someone
now! They'll have a chance to accept or decline.

Has he been informed of the nomination? I don't know if he'll log in to 
see this between now and midnight tomorrow

Yes he has.  Nominations can be accepted after the date according
to the item text.  We won't put anyone on the ballot unless they
accept (self-nominations are assumed to be accepted).  
 
Do you want to run Denise?

I guess you'll need to wait a year, though.

I don't rem3ember how long we have to wait after serving 2 terms to be 
eligible to run again; is it 2 years?

I have some health issues that I may be having surgery for sometime in 
the next few months. So though I hope it won't keep me down for long, I 
haven't seriously considered any long term commitments until I find out 
the status of this surgery is.

Yes, 2 years (one term out after 2 terms in).

I nominate Dan Cross for this Board position.

re 10 - i accept.

... and i would keep grex and m-net separate if such a potentiality would
arise.
  

Thanks, TS!
 
Nominations are now officially closed.  No more nominations will be
allowed for this election.  If you have not accepted, you have until
17:00 EST Jan 15, 2013 to accept or decline.

Thanks to all the nominees who have accepted! 

Dan Cross has declined to accept the nomination at this time.  We
have two candidates for the Board seat. Thank you for being willing
to help Grex!
 
You should be hearing more from our vote admin (Joe Gelinas) about
how the election.

Regarding the waiting period to re-run: My recollection of the term limit 
provision is that a person who hits it only has to wait one year before 
being eligible to run. I'm too lazy to look this up at the moment however.

Yes, that is correct according to the by-laws.  Most people in the past
seem to take a 2-year term off, though.

I've set up the files for the next election.  If I've done all correctly, the
voting booth should open at 00:01 on 16 jan 2013, with two candidates, both
of whom have already accepted their nominations: jep and tsty.  The others
who were nominated have refused the nomination,but they can change their
minds.  If they do so, I'll update the files appropriately.

Again, if I've done all correctly, the voting booth will close at 23:59 on
31 Jan 2013.

Thanks, Joe. I'll put a link on the grex web page for this.

This response has been erased.

Did the voting start as of today?  I logged on via putty and tried
"vote" from the command line and from "bbs" but neither worked.  I don't
see any announcement in the login bulletin.  I've never officially voted
here before.  How do I do it?

Yes, the voting did start, but it isn't registering votes as far as I
know.  One way to get into it is from Grex's main web page and the
click on the most recent announcement about the election.
 
Or go to https://grex.org/votelist.html
 
You may/will need to authenticate.
 
I've sent an e-mail to our vote administrator (gelinas) about the
issue.

Thanks Kent.  I am sure there will be plenty of time for everyone to
vote once this is straightened out.

The Grex voting system has a couple files that define the start and
end of each election so they can start and end on time.  We may need
to extend this one a day or two so that the full voting time is made
available if we can't enter votes.  I think I may know what the
problem is, but gelinas is the vote admin, so I don't want step on
his toes if he's going to fix it.
 
I've added the https://grex.org/votelist.html link to the motd.

And I've now fixed it.  I also extended the voting period to the end of the
day, February 2nd.

I received the voters list today.  I've now counted the seventeen votes, nine
cast by members and eight by non-members.  The members voted five for tsty
and four for jep.  The non-members voted three for tsty and five for jep. 

So tsty has been elected to a two-year term as a Director of Cyberspace
Communications, Inc, to serve from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2014.

Congratulations, TS!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the election as a voting member,
guest voter, staffer or in the discussions.  I appreciate the support of
those who voted for me, and the chance to run in the election.

Jep, thanks for being willing to run for a seat on the board.

 
tnx jep .. and voters ... 
  

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