Drupal Association South Africa Governing Board Elections

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Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

It's that time of the year again. Time to elect a new governing board for DASA (Drupal Association South Africa).

Here's a quick run-down of the schedule for the elections over the next couple of months.

For now, just spread the word. Discuss the options and consider if you are willing to donate some of your time to serve on the board.

19 August - 2 September: On the 19th of August we'll post again to open for submissions of candidates. Really, any member of the South African Drupal community may send an e-mail to be listed as available to serve. On the 2nd of September we close submissions and we'll then ask for a short biography of candidates and prepare to open the voting window.

9 September - 21 October: On the 9th of September we all vote for the candidates of our preference. Voting will be a post, here on GDoSA with a list of up to seven people, in significant order. You're welcome to vote for yourself in position 1, especially if you are confident that you will serve well. On the 21st of October voting closes.

We count only the one latest vote by any one person, so you can alter your vote simply by voting again. The first person in your list gets 7 points and each one following one less point up to the 7th, which gets one point.

Two appointed members of the current governing board will tally the results and submit them to a third member for confirmation.

Before 31 October we will publish the results.

Thereafter, at our next board meeting on the 18th of November, the new board thanks the old one and signs the Constitution. We then assign portfolios and off we go for what's bount to be one awesome new year for Drupal in South Africa.

You can find the formal procedure in our Agenda.

On a side-note, we have some informal plans too. Previously we tried not to have the same portfolios as the one held in the previous year so that we can all gain some experience in the various roles and can then have the person that previously held that position help us with what we do.

We also have term limits. So we cannot be on the board for four years consecutively. Considering that this will be the third year for some of us, two of us at least decided not to stand for key positions (portfolios) if we are voted to be on the board. This opens the way for new leadership and allows us to take a supporting role on the year before we cannot be on the board at all because of the term limits.

It's worth noting that anyone can attend the DASA meetings. You don't have to be on the board. It's just for voting on critical issues that the governing board is authoritative. Even the few times that we did vote on things, we just asked the people attending and the board followed that vote's result.

Kind regards,
Riaan

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Comments

19 August - 2 September: Call for Candidates

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

From today until the 2nd of September we open a window to call for candidates to serve on the Drupal Association South Africa governing board. These are volunteer positions, so of course, there's no monetary compensation; But you do know you're helping to build a wonderful community.

We meet once a month (you can join on Hangouts if you are remote) and each donate some of our time. Our agendas are online if you want to see what we get up to.

Once we have these submissions, we'll gather very basic biography on everyone and then proceed to open elections here on GDoSA.

If you are ready and willing to serve for a year, please send us a short e-mail to info@dasa.org.za.

Kind regards,
Riaan

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

Just a reminder today. You don't need to be nominated by someone else, if you are prepared to serve, you just have to summit an e-mail stating so to info@dasa.org.za before the 2nd of September.

Elections will follow soon afterwards.

Kind regards,
Riaan

DASA Board 2015/2016

Renate Ehlers's picture

Hi Everyone,

I would like to make myself available to serve on the DASA Board for the 2015/2016 term.

I am still happy to host/liaise the Drupal PTA meetup group.

I feel privileged to be part of this community!

Nomination

Gemma Morton's picture

Hi everyone,

Over the past three years I have served on the Board in the following positions:

  • Interim Chairman - 2013 Apr -> 2013 Nov
  • Elected Chairman - 2013 Nov -> 2014 Oct
  • Elected Secretary - 2014 Nov -> 2015 Oct

Section 7.4 of the constitution states:

Term of office: At least one board member of the Governing Board as a volunteer to do so, or failing that, designated through a vote by the Governing Board shall retire and will not be eligible as a Governing Board member for 12 months. No member of the Governing Board may serve for more than three consecutive years.

As this will be my 3rd consecutive year, I would like to nominate myself to be elected to the Board, with no portfolio and after which time, I will step down from the Board at the 2016 elections. Over the 2015/2016 period, those serving their 3rd consecutive year can hand over the reigns to new board members. It is with this in mind that we will need new nominations for this years' board so that there are people to take over from those who need to step down.

================= Some history and information ===============

DASA has achieved quite a bit since our first meeting in April 2013. Over the last two years the following has happened:

  • DASA was established with regular board meetings (Third Wed of Every Month)
  • DASA has worked hard to unite and bring together various companies in the community for better cohesion and cooperation
  • DASA has encouraged and worked with various individuals to speak at events and contribute to the community where possible.
  • DASA has organised a DrupalCamp JHB in March 2015, and DrupalCamp CT in Sept 2015
  • Meetups have been (or will be) launched and supported (for those new and already existing at the time):
    • JHB - Bryanston (First Wed of Every Month)
    • JHB - Parkhurst (launched last Friday - 14 Aug 2015)
    • PTA - Centurion (to be launched this Friday - 21 Aug 2015)
    • CT - Woodstock (Last Wed of Every Month)
    • DBN - Coming soon on 19th Nov 2015
  • DASA is currently exploring options to be present in other tech industry events. Find out more about these at our meetings or in the published agendas on GitHub. If you have any ideas or submissions regarding events we can be present at, please let us know.

It will be the responsibility of the Board in 2016 to further continue with these initiatives and to plan 2 camps for the same year (JHB and CT again). In addition, plans will start coming together to see if we can pull off a DrupalConAfrica 2018/2019.

================= Shameless plea ==========================
Please consider nominating yourself/someone you believe in (get their permission). We've worked hard with various members of the community and we feel that the time is right with ground work already setup to invite people to join on this journey and give it a burst of your own unique energy.

It's an exciting time to be part of DASA. A lot of ground work has already taken place. Meetups have started with a few more in other areas already planned and research being conducted. DrupalConAfrica is on it's way and you don't want to miss an opportunity to be part of that. Training workshops and various skills development programmes are being considered, which we require volunteers for. There are a number of areas that each and every person in our community can contribute to. Even if you feel that your people skills aren't up to scratch or that you aren't technical, there will always be something for you to do. So don't let that stop you! Join us, and help create a Drupal South Africa that you can be proud of in our rainbow nation.

Meetup Pretoria

Renate Ehlers's picture

Hi there everyone,

I would just like to clarify that the first Pretoria Meetup will be held on 28th of August.

Please feel free to join us! For more info and to sign up please visit out Meetup Group:
http://www.meetup.com/Drupal-Pretoria/

Thank you for your post Greg!

Call for Candidates now in the open

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

My sincerest apologies. Greg just reminded me that the call for candidates should also be open, we do try to keep everything as open as possible. So if you already e-mailed your availability, please also post a reply here on GDoSA and if you haven't yet and intended to, please make it a post here.

To keep things easier to follow, please keep your post of intent separate from a long discussion.

Kind regards,
Riaan

I'm available to serve

Riaan Burger's picture

I'm available to serve on the board for 2016.

Willing to serve

Journosergio's picture

Hi folks,

I'm willing to make myself available as a non-portfolio member of the DASA Board for the period 2015/2016 and offer my services wherever needed.

This will also include assistance towards the Cape Town Drupal Meetups if required and where applicable.

P.S Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Cape town Drupal Camp! :)

Available for the Board

Jason Lewis's picture

Hi all,

I'd like to make myself available, to serve on the DASA Board, as a portfolio member for the period 2015/2016.

This will still include the organising of Drupal Cape Town meetups.

Thank you for your consideration.

Non-Portfolio

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

It's worth keeping in mind that we have 7 positions in the end, and have five essential portfolios to fill. Even when Greg and I say we want to stand aside and have others serve in those five essential roles, things like chairman, treasurer etc, we are still fully available to work (likely harder than before) and cannot decline, pre-emptively refuse to serve as such at all.

the idea was that we both had pretty central roles and we wanted to make sure to spread leadership experience in the community. Securing those main roles by making sure we have more trustworthy people with experience serving in them. So if you're available to serve, like Greg and I, you're available to serve on the board (and by extension in a portfolio).

If you have a reason benefiting the community for not wanting to take a central role as we did, you can state that you don't want to and why, but considering we need five of the seven people voted in, to hold essential portfolios, if Greg and I do manage to get voted onto the board, and your reason is even better for the community than ours, we'll end up having to serve again ;-)

Really, perhaps we started something weird here by making our intend public. When elections are done, we have 7 people, 5 need to serve in essential portfolios. Everyone needs to be completely ready to do so (serve in portfolio) to be able to stand as electable, we just mentioned that we would prefer not having one of those key roles so that new leadership can take the lead. If more than two people say that it can obviously not be a commitment that can be fulfilled.

Kind regards,
Riaan

Nomination

dubois's picture

I'm available to serve on the board for 2016.

I'd also like to volunteer to

Gomez_in_the_South's picture

I'd also like to volunteer to serve on the board for the coming year.

Keen to get involved

inky@inky3d.com's picture

I am keen to start getting more involved in the community, so please consider me available for the board for 2016.

Candidates to Date

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

We currently have the following candidates as of Monday the 31st of August:

  • Renate Ehlers
  • mckeen.greg
  • Riaan Burger
  • Journosergio
  • Jason Lewis
  • dubois
  • Gomez_in_the_South
  • inky3d

Call for candidates willing to serve close on Wednesday the 2nd of September, this Wednesday!

Final call

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Everyone,

Today is the last day you can make yourself available as a candidate for elections, if voted in, to serve on the governing board of Drupal Association South Africa. Before midnight at the latest.

Kind regards,
Riaan

Greetings ... I would like to

leenx's picture

Greetings ...

I would like to offer some of my free time, by throwing in my hat for the next year.

Hope we can do even more great things coming.

Thanks
LeeT

Candidates

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello everyone,

Candidates are:

  • Renate Ehlers
  • mckeen.greg
  • Riaan Burger
  • Journosergio
  • Jason Lewis
  • dubois
  • Gomez_in_the_South
  • inky3d
  • leenx

We'll now gather some short bios for everyone, enough so that we know who they are ;-) Then we'll proceed to voting on the 9th of September.

Your Profile for DASA Elections Please

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Candidates,

I also sent this to you all directly, but to show what we're doing and just in case you missed the direct contact, here it is again:

Please e-mail a short text description of yourself for the DASA elections. We need this before voting opens, so before Tuesday will be great. Start with "I'm ::your name::,…" where ::your name:: is the name most people address you as in real world conversations. Keep to less than 80 words, which is the cut-off for this bit of content. Try to keep it clear of commercial interest and speak about yourself, Drupal and the community. Please also link to your Drupal user profile.

Here's mine from 2014, I'll likely keep it the same, less work ;-)

I'm Riaan, 41-year-old ex teacher, lecturer, nightclubs owner, small business owner and free (libre) software and community advocate. Started using Drupal in version 4 having built own CMSes and tried several others before and switched exclusively to Drupal until the last few years revealed so many great front- and back-end frameworks to compliment Drupal. I hope to continue to contribute to building a local South African Drupal association with national value for all local Drupal users.

https://www.drupal.org/user/53372

Send to info@dasa.org.za which will go to our current Secretary, Greg.

Kind regards,
Riaan

Quick reminder

Riaan Burger's picture

Hello Candidates,

A quick reminder to send your profiles to info@dasa.org.za by tomorrow.

Cheers,
Riaan

Now open

Riaan Burger's picture

Voting is now open in this thread:

https://groups.drupal.org/node/479073

South Africa

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