Election for board of directors

Hello all,

as Damien pointed out, we will have an election for the board of
directors at FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels. Magnus Hagander and myself
developed some basic rules for the first election. At the end of this
mail you will find a text copy of the rules or you can use the following
link:

http://www.pgug.eu/election.txt

We encourage everyone (not only people from europe) to send suggestions
for your candidate(s) to the mail address given in the rules.

Kind regards

----- election rules -----
Rules for election 2008
Board of directors European PostgreSQL User Group

- We elect 3 members for the board

- Candidates must be citizen of a european country or have a registered
main residence in a european country
- Candidates are not required to be present in Brussels at FOSDEM 2008

- Voters must be citizen of a european country or have a registered main
residence in a european country
- Voters must be present in Brussels at FOSDEM 2008
- Voters must present a photo-ID to get their ballot

- Everyone can suggest candidates, just send a mail to election(at)pgug(dot)eu
Include the name and email address of the candidate
Please specify if you want your suggestion to be handled anonymously

- A person may suggest him/herself

- For definition of "Europe" we go with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Europe&oldid=183951112 )
This especially is not limited to "European Union".

- Every voter has 3 votes which can go to one, two or three candidates

- The election is anonymous

- The 3 candidates with the most votes win

- If one candidate does not accept his election, the next voted
candidate
will be asked

- We will provide printed ballots

Timeline:

- All suggestions up until 2008-02-17 (GMT) will get accepted

- If we don't have 3 accepted suggestions until 2008-02-17,
the election will be canceled

- All suggested candidates are asked if they accept the candidature
and are asked for a short profile

- The list of candidates is mailed to the -eu and -advocacy list
on 2007-02-20

- Election is scheduled for sunday evening 2008-02-24
https://www.bsdwiki.de/FOSDEM_2008

- If candidates not present in Brussels are elected, they are asked
by mail if they accept the election. The answer must be given until
2008-02-28 (GMT)

- The result of the voting is mailed to -eu and -advocacy list

Magnus Hagander, Andreas Scherbaum
----- / election rules -----

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:

> - Election is scheduled for sunday evening 2008-02-24
> https://www.bsdwiki.de/FOSDEM_2008

Ads,

At least three of us will be on a train home on Sunday evening, and I
wouldn't be surprised if we weren't the only ones. Can we schedule
this for Saturday or Sunday daytime?

Regard, Dave

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> as Damien pointed out, we will have an election for the board of
> directors at FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels. Magnus Hagander and myself
> developed some basic rules for the first election. At the end of this
> mail you will find a text copy of the rules or you can use the following
> link:
>
> http://www.pgug.eu/election.txt

Glad to see Russia is in the list :)

>
> We encourage everyone (not only people from europe) to send suggestions
> for your candidate(s) to the mail address given in the rules.
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> ----- election rules -----
> Rules for election 2008
> Board of directors European PostgreSQL User Group
>
> - We elect 3 members for the board
>
> - Candidates must be citizen of a european country or have a registered
> main residence in a european country
> - Candidates are not required to be present in Brussels at FOSDEM 2008
>
> - Voters must be citizen of a european country or have a registered main
> residence in a european country
> - Voters must be present in Brussels at FOSDEM 2008
> - Voters must present a photo-ID to get their ballot
>
> - Everyone can suggest candidates, just send a mail to election(at)pgug(dot)eu
> Include the name and email address of the candidate
> Please specify if you want your suggestion to be handled anonymously
>
> - A person may suggest him/herself
>
> - For definition of "Europe" we go with:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
> ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Europe&oldid=183951112 )
> This especially is not limited to "European Union".
>
> - Every voter has 3 votes which can go to one, two or three candidates
>
> - The election is anonymous
>
> - The 3 candidates with the most votes win
>
> - If one candidate does not accept his election, the next voted
> candidate
> will be asked
>
> - We will provide printed ballots
>
>
>
> Timeline:
>
> - All suggestions up until 2008-02-17 (GMT) will get accepted
>
> - If we don't have 3 accepted suggestions until 2008-02-17,
> the election will be canceled
>
> - All suggested candidates are asked if they accept the candidature
> and are asked for a short profile
>
> - The list of candidates is mailed to the -eu and -advocacy list
> on 2007-02-20
>
> - Election is scheduled for sunday evening 2008-02-24
> https://www.bsdwiki.de/FOSDEM_2008
>
> - If candidates not present in Brussels are elected, they are asked
> by mail if they accept the election. The answer must be given until
> 2008-02-28 (GMT)
>
> - The result of the voting is mailed to -eu and -advocacy list
>
>
> Magnus Hagander, Andreas Scherbaum
> ----- / election rules -----
>
>

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
Internet: oleg(at)sai(dot)msu(dot)su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83

On 13/01/2008, Dave Page <dpage(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
>
> > - Election is scheduled for sunday evening 2008-02-24
> > https://www.bsdwiki.de/FOSDEM_2008
>
> Ads,
>
> At least three of us will be on a train home on Sunday evening, and I
> wouldn't be surprised if we weren't the only ones. Can we schedule
> this for Saturday or Sunday daytime?

Actually, having looked further at the schedule I see our definitions
of 'evening' differ. 5:30 6:00 should be fine for us - our Eurostar
train leaves at 8:59PM.

That said, is there any reason this needs time on the schedule at all?
We could just have issue ballot papers to people throughout the two
days and collect them at any time. We'd just need a list to ensure
noone gets two papers and that their ID is checked.

/D

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 12:14:32PM +0300, Oleg Bartunov wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>
> >Hello all,
> >
> >as Damien pointed out, we will have an election for the board of
> >directors at FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels. Magnus Hagander and myself
> >developed some basic rules for the first election. At the end of this
> >mail you will find a text copy of the rules or you can use the following
> >link:
> >
> >http://www.pgug.eu/election.txt
>
> Glad to see Russia is in the list :)

That was actually one of the explicit requiremetns when we looked for a
good definition of what should be included.

//Magnus

Hello,

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 11:12:48AM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On 13/01/2008, Dave Page <dpage(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> > On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> >
> > > - Election is scheduled for sunday evening 2008-02-24
> > > https://www.bsdwiki.de/FOSDEM_2008
> >
> > At least three of us will be on a train home on Sunday evening, and I
> > wouldn't be surprised if we weren't the only ones. Can we schedule
> > this for Saturday or Sunday daytime?
>
> Actually, having looked further at the schedule I see our definitions
> of 'evening' differ. 5:30 6:00 should be fine for us - our Eurostar
> train leaves at 8:59PM.
>
> That said, is there any reason this needs time on the schedule at all?
> We could just have issue ballot papers to people throughout the two
> days and collect them at any time. We'd just need a list to ensure
> noone gets two papers and that their ID is checked.

Yes, at least for me there is a good reason:
We (Magnus and i) took over to prepare the election. But none of us is
confirmed by the community to do so. Because of this i want to avoid any
question afterwards.

How would you ensure that nobody get's two ballots into the box? For
counting the ballots we need some time anyway. So we decided to take
half a hour from the schedule and use this time for the election. We can
check the ID before and even hand out the ballots, that should not be
a problem. But i want some eyewitness for the election ;-)

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

On 14/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> How would you ensure that nobody get's two ballots into the box?

Have the people manning the table issue numbered papers to people when
the check their ID. Or ask folks to pre-register for a paper by email
so they can be pre-printed. I don't see that it needs to be a secret
ballot.

> For
> counting the ballots we need some time anyway. So we decided to take
> half a hour from the schedule and use this time for the election. We can
> check the ID before and even hand out the ballots, that should not be
> a problem. But i want some eyewitness for the election ;-)

Eyewitnesses can be arranged anyway... but, I don't feel strongly
about this - it was just a thought.

/D

Dave Page wrote:
> On 13/01/2008, Dave Page <dpage(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
>> On 13/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:

> That said, is there any reason this needs time on the schedule at all?
> We could just have issue ballot papers to people throughout the two
> days and collect them at any time. We'd just need a list to ensure
> noone gets two papers and that their ID is checked.

Not to be a stickler but it seems that the votes should have to be
verified. Perhaps you could pick one person to be a recipient of those
votes via email, even better pgp email?

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> /D
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 11:57:59AM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On 14/01/2008, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum <ads(at)pgug(dot)de> wrote:
> > How would you ensure that nobody get's two ballots into the box?
>
> Have the people manning the table issue numbered papers to people when
> the check their ID. Or ask folks to pre-register for a paper by email
> so they can be pre-printed. I don't see that it needs to be a secret
> ballot.

I would prefer it to be a secret ballot, since it concerns people. I'm
not trying to be pessimistic, but when writing by-laws, you should assume
the worst. When everything is fine, noone will even think about them. But
when things go sour, eg clashing personalities in the board, people start
nitpicking them.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind if it is known who participated in the ballot, but
let's keep the actual votes anonymous.

> > For
> > counting the ballots we need some time anyway. So we decided to take
> > half a hour from the schedule and use this time for the election. We can
> > check the ID before and even hand out the ballots, that should not be
> > a problem. But i want some eyewitness for the election ;-)
>
> Eyewitnesses can be arranged anyway... but, I don't feel strongly
> about this - it was just a thought.

Another thought: since it is the GA that is the highest democratic body
in the assoc, wouldn't it make sense to instate the members first and then
have the board election. You could even have nice little gift certificates, "I
was among the first members of PG-EU". Hmm, or t-shirts "I voted for the first board
of PG-EU and all i got was this lousy t-shirt" :)

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFHi6rSktDgRrkFPpYRAqvrAJ4uB7xctLgUsYTNwj0t2eYlW1vzOACfbSkR
7MvkfX9vYkbxrUO2RANkSXM=
=I4i4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Sun, 2008-01-13 at 21:52 +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:

> - We elect 3 members for the board

Shall we see if we have 3 candidates before we work out a complex voting
scheme? If we have <= 3 we can save ourselves some effort.

--
Simon Riggs
2ndQuadrant http://www.2ndQuadrant.com

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 09:02:04PM +0000, Simon Riggs wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-01-13 at 21:52 +0100, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>
> > - We elect 3 members for the board
>
> Shall we see if we have 3 candidates before we work out a complex voting
> scheme? If we have <= 3 we can save ourselves some effort.

If we have less than 3 candidates (for now we have 0), the election is
canceled.

Kind regards

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum ha scritto:
> If we have less than 3 candidates (for now we have 0), the election is
> canceled.
>
Well ... I am up for it, but am more than welcome to leave my place to
other people if we find an adequate number.

Gabriele

--
Gabriele Bartolini: Open source programmer and data architect
Current Location: Prato, Tuscany, Italy
gabriele(dot)bartolini(at)gmail(dot)com | www.gabrielebartolini.it
"If I had been born ugly, you would never have heard of Pelé", George Best
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gbartolini

On Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at 10:14:34PM +0100, Gabriele Bartolini wrote:
> Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum ha scritto:
> >If we have less than 3 candidates (for now we have 0), the election is
> >canceled.
> >
> Well ... I am up for it, but am more than welcome to leave my place to
> other people if we find an adequate number.

Check the announcement and send an email to the address given in the
text. Magnus and i will get a copy and sort things out.

Bye

--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
German PostgreSQL User Group