The results of the 1997 Board of Directors election are in. Out
of 96 eligible voters, 44 cast ballots. Totals:
aruba 41
dang 28
mta 27
scott 24
other 18
mziemba 15
llanarth 10
jared 8
So the winners are Mark Conger, Dan Gryniewicz, Misti Tucker, and
Scott Helmke. Congratulations!
Only members' votes were counted in determining the outcome. But
anyone could vote, and 43 non-members cast ballots. The unofficial
non-member totals are:
aruba 21
llanarth 19
scott 17
mta 16
dang 14
other 14
mziemba 11
jared 7
This was the first election in which it was possible to vote via
the web, and 17 folks cast ballots that way.
56 responses total.
Congrats Mark, Dan, Misti, and Scott! It was a pleasure campaigning alongside you!
exactly as I predicted...no non-incumbents ever had a chance
True, the voters did indicate confidence in the incumbents. The bylaws' term limit proviso (which, incidentally, you attacked as "undemocratic" a few years ago when you found out about it) will guarantee that some new people will be elected next year, though.
Why do you think incumbents should be thrown out, Richard, if the electorate thinks they are doing a good job?
they werent elected simply becaue they were doing a good job, but because more people with familiar with them. When was the last time an incumbent running for re-election didnt get re-eected...Im not sure its happened.
(I seem to remember beating a former board member last time. Granted, there wasn't an incumbent, because Rob had resigned, but...)
Richard, I repeat my offer: You write up an amendment proposal, and I will sponsor it.
Re #5: The last time an incumbent was not elected was 2 years ago, Richard. Thanks to everyone who voted for me - I'm glad to see you think I'm doing a good job. When I became treasurer my only experience with accounting was balancing my checkbook, so the rest I have made up along the way. (Not true, actually - danr gave me a very good start and told me most of what I needed to know. I still do some of the standard jobs the same way he did.) I'm glad that things have gone (relatively) smoothly for the past two years, and I hope they stay that way.
(And I'm sorry about all the nagging!)
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#5 is the usual cynical attitude of those generally opposed to any authority.
Richard, do you have any ghost of a shred of an element of evidence to support your claim in #5? Do you have specific, clear grounds for claiming that the incumbents weren't doing a good job? If not, kindly do others the courtesy of not telling them what they were thinking when they voted.
Ah, but Richard doesn't think they were bad candidates because they did a bad job - they were incumbents, and therefore Evil Incarnate. Just like Bill Clinton, right Richard? Or is it okay to re-elect an incumbent when it's someone you, Richard Wallner, approve of?
My, the first item I look at in coop in far too long and I hear Richard's bleating. It's a new constant in the universe, I think. Congratulations to all.
Is it worth responding to that sort of thing?
In past board elections, lots of people, including me, have gone on about what a wonderful slate of candidates it was, how all of them were good, and how hard it was to make a decision. That's usually been mostly true, but in the last few elections I have been able to decide fairly easily who to vote for, despite being firmly convinced that it didn't matter of some of the other candidates won instead. This election, on the other hand, was a very difficult decision. There were some of the new candidates who I really thought should be on the board. At the same time, all the incumbants had been good enough board members that I didn't want to vote against any of them. In the end, I pretty much had to close my eyes and pick some candidates, almost at random.
Stop putting words inmy mouth! I never said the incumbents werent doing a good job (I wish some of you would re-read your own responses sometimes because you do get carried away and read toomuch into things) I simply see being on the grex board as a cool activity and one that other people should have the chance to participate in. I dont think non-incumbents have an equal opportunity to participate because they dont (as a practical fact) have an equal opportunity to be elected. They just dont. Why cant there be a rule that at least *one* seat in each election HAS to go to a new member. This way even if the top four vote getters were all the incumbents, the one with the least votes would stand down in favor of the new person who had finished fifth. It is fair and it allows for the board tobe guaranteed newblood every election. That is a healthy thing!
Well, I hate to sound like a guidance counselor, but being on the board is more than just a "cool activity" - it can be a lot of work, and it demands a lot of time and responsibility. Having said that, I agree that it's nice to have new people on the board now and then, if for no other reason than that people get burned out. But I am skeptical that your method is a good one, richard - it could easily seem bitterly unfair to someone that they lose an election even though they got more votes than someone who won.
I would have liked to see some of the new candidates elected, and voted for several, but I'm pretty satisfied with the board members we got.
Anyone can attend board meetings and participate. How much cooler can you get?
I just think that if grex wants to encourage more people to become members, and encourage more members to become involved, it has to demonstrate that the opportunities are there. Let's face it, most of the people who vote dont go to the meetings, and dont have a true idea if one person is doing a better job than another. So it becomes a social thing. You end up voting for those you know personally, or are most familiar with, which gives incumbents (as is the case in all political elections) the advantage. What you end up with is the same people being elected, and then when they can't run again, those who served before them are rotated back in to serve again. You get the same people over and over and over. No new people ever get a chance. The Grex board is an exclusive club, seven seats that have continually rotated among the same ten or twelve people. Why not designate all "open" seats, which is to say those where there is no incumbent because that person has served two terms and cant run again, as seats for new members. Say only new members can run for those seats. Everyone else, present and past incumbents, can run for all the other seats as usual. You have two separate elections on the ballot, one for the "open" seats, and one for the non-open seats. This would guarantee a much healthier turnover on the board, and guarantee that many more people get to participate. It will send the right message about grex, that grex is inclusive and not exclusive.
<bites tongue hard>
(thanks to remmers for enabling vote-casting over the Web!)
or why not expand the board to nine seats, and say that the two new seats are "newbie" seats, one-term only seats designated for those who have never served before. These two seats can be contested separately, and would guarantee two new faces every election. Those who serve as "newbie members" cannot run for re-election to those seats, but could run at that time for the regular seats. This would give more people a chance, a fair chance, to serve on the board.
Was that carson? I think I just had a heart attack.
I believe some member volunteered to sponsor a bylaw amendment on your behalf, richard, so take some time and put those two ideas into (separate) legislative forms, and ask him to sponsor one or both. Or become a member, and sponsor it yourself. I think debate on one or the other (or both) of those ideas would be healthy, and, pass or fail, give us a better feelin\ about the way our board is selected.
Yep, I'm just a'sittin' here waitin' for a proposal. (Story of my life, eh? >8)
rob, I'll take you up on the offer if i get enough positive feedback. I know you just want to see me embarrased by one of my proposals getting swamped, but my ideas arent all bad. In fact, I honestly believe some of my ideas dont get a fair analysis, because Im theone making the suggestion. But what can I do?
Hmmm... None of the people I voted for were elected, except one. And it wasn't me. Still, I'm happy enough to do the work.
I'd almost be willing to bet money that that one was aruba, since almost everyone that cast a ballot cast one for him !!! :-) P.S. Feel free to neither confirm nor deny my guess, esp since you'll then be telling the other winners that you did not vote for them, either.
There are basically 3 problems with recruiting people to a position of "trust" in a small organization, such as grex: (1) the person has to be interested in doing the work. (2) the person has to be capable of doing the work. (3) other people have to know, and trust, that person. A lack of any one of these abilities spells disaster for the organization. Someone who isn't interested obviously isn't going to do any work. Someone incompetent is obviously only going to botch it up. These problems are simple, but the last problem is more complex. Because people are selected by other people, if nobody knows that person, nobody is in a position to evaluate whether that person is really interested or capable of doing the work. It is also possible that the candidate is known to other people, and known *not* to be interested or capable. Trust is where things get really complicated, because trust has so many different angles. For instance, if we had a person on grex who was capable, interested, but also power-hungry, and known to be power-hungry, then it is very probable that other people on grex would not trust that person. (This is not true of all organizations, but it *is* true of grex.) There is one more element of trust that bears mentioning: trust is not *just* a selection/representation issue, trust is an integral job duty of the board. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the treasurer; the guy who receives *your* mail and pays grex bills with it. If people did *not* trust this person with their money, grex would die in no time at all. (Some of m-net's current financial troubles are due directly to user distrust of past treasurers.) It is not just a question of whether people trust the board members - it is also necessary that board members trust other people. For instance, if grex staff tell the board that some certain thing needs to be bought for grex, it's necessary that the board be able to trust the judgement of staff. Unfortunately, a fundemental problem of small organizations, such as grex, is that there are simply not *enough* qualified people. Some of this is simple economics. I'm sure if we paid our board members, there would be more people interested. Some of this is a simple matter of apathy. In this past election, around 50% of the members didn't even bother to vote. That means, right off, half of the people eligible to serve on the board almost certainly fail qualification (1) - being *interested*. One of the most important duties of the board is to work with the users of the system to make good decisions. Some of the candidates who ran for this election entered detailed campaign statements in the vote program, and answered questions here in coop. Other candidates did not. The candidates who did so also did much better in the election. This is a good example of problem (3) "candidates should be known/trusted" in action. Since it's important for the board to be able to communicate with users, it's also reasonable to suppose that the people who did well in the election are also likely to do better at (2) "capable of doing the work". Now let us look at Richard's proposals. In #5, Richard says "they...elected...because more people with [sic] familiar with them." In fact, this is point (3) - people *have* to be familiar with the candidates to know if they're capable of doing the job, and worthy of being trusted. If we rephrase Richard's question in terms of #3, richard is asking us to elect people who are *not* well known, and may well not be trustworthy, in preference to people who are better known, and known to be trustworthy. Richard is correct in supposing that it is important to have *some* turnover on the board. Bad things do in fact happen to small organizations that don't have any turnover. The people in place can burn out over responsiblities, it is easy to end up with a "generation gap" between the board members, and any potential new blood, and all sorts of bad stuff can happen. *HOWEVER*, bad things can *also* happen if there is *too much* turnover. It is easy to lose information when there is turnover. Note that here, aruba credits a lot of his success to danr. This is the way things *should* happen. If we look back at M-net, we can find fairly good rumours, at least, of past treasurers who weren't able to do their duties, because they weren't given *any* information on how to do it, or even the raw materials (ie, the financial records such as they were) to do a good job of faking it. Student organizations usually have a lot of turnover. It can be particularly fascinating to talk to the treasurer of a student organization, because they almost always can tell real horror tales of mismanaged turnovers. So, in #21 and #24, we see Richard exploring several different possibilities of how to *change* grex's current turnover system (which does exist, and was referenced by Remmers in #3). In both of those proposals, Richard invents a kind of seat that can only be filled by a newcomer. What this would do, in essence, is to invent a kind of "choke-point" after that first election run, that would tend to discriminate against newcomers after their first election. By discriminating for freshmen, we'd be discriminating against sophomores. This is almost *exactly* what we should *not* want to do, if we want people to think that (in Richard's words), Grex is "inclusive and not exclusive". In #24, Richard further asks that we expand the board. This is a problem, because it starts to stretch the available pool of candidates. (For instance, if the # of candidates is exactly equal to the # of open seats, the election produces almost *no* information on voter choice.) Having an operating board that much larger would also complicate it operationally. It is already somewhat difficult for the board to find a convenient meeting time for enough of its members to make quorum.
Well, I have to say that I appreciate the support I received in the election, and the willingness of all the candidates to run, but I'm also happy with the results. I can say, without a doubt, there are things about all the candidates that ran this time that I was, and continue to be, impressed with. As I see it, there will be plenty of chance to see someone new in the next two years, due to current term limits. Sure, I would've like to have gotten a seat, this time around, but I'm very proud of the people who ran, and the people who were selected.
Besides, in each of the next two elections, multiple seats will hit the sunset clause.
(However, people hit by the term limits clause next year could run the following year. The term limits apply only to consecutive terms.)
Why not say that those who cannot run because they've hit the "sunset" clause, must sit out a full term (two years), not just a year, before they can run again. "Any board member who has served two consecutive terms, may not run again for the equivalent of a full term or two years" This would at least incrementally increase turnover. I'm afraid that down the road some of grex's current core group will leave or move on, and it will be much more difficult for new people to take their places because this place has been fairly exclusive for some time. If you arent used to bringing in new people, you lose the ability to *trust* new people.
Had we had that rule in place already, it would have done nothing at all, because none of the people who hit the sunset clause have run for the board again. Get your facts straight, Richard.
well grex isonly five years old so notthat many people are going to be affected yet. But since certain people (i.e. Valerie for instance) are on theboard now and were on the first grex board five years ago, they must have served two terms, satout a term, and then runagain.
I am not at all disappointed that I wasn't elected. I think it would have been a good and interesting experience. I also think it might have imposed an alteration of priorities which might have caused me some difficulty. However, since this was not a certainty, I chose to run. I think that the notion that Grex's board elections are popularity contests are only valid in so far as that generally, the members of Grex would be likely to value and appreciate those who reflect the characteristics which would make them better board members.
I hit the sunset clause a year ago and left the board. The year I spent as a non-board member convinced me that I did not need to return. There are others who can do a good job, and I have too many frying pans in the fire.
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i think we should have an amendment which forbids current board members from entering more than ten responses in co-op in a week. this is the only way we can guarantee that the incumbents don't monopolize the conference, and let new people get noticed here so they can be elected.
ROFL. <set humor = on> Proposed amendment: NOone can enter more than ten responses in co-op per week. THis is the only way we can guarantee that the active participants dont monopolize the conference, and let new people get noticed here so they can be elected. <set humor = off>
Do you think that's humor? GOD!!! what place on Earth am I living?
Re #41: but the new people *must not be active*, or they would be forbidden to enter responses - right?
Heh. I'll agree to abide by that one if Richard will.
#41 does raise a good point - non-incumbents have nearly as much opportunity to become known to the voters as do board members, since everyone can post their opinions in coop with equal status. Grex elections are very different from government elections in that respect.
join coop talk ok done chat
Sort of sums it up.... :)
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darn, i didn't win the popularity contest.
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Me, too.
guess that explains *my* standing in the polls... <smirk>
Tempest in a teacup ...
Re #54: Is it not often so, when human beings are involved?
Indeed.
You have several choices: