Proposed Director Election

Tags: #<Tag:0x00007fa498ec4f70>
#1

As agreed in the member meetings, we will be using the same process as the previous election https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/t/proposal-directors-terms-and-election-process/16232

This will be the full legal position of Company Director, which has the powers and responsibilities defined in our Articles of Association.
In addition to the legal definition, the following jobs are currently done by the Director role:

  • Deciding long-term strategy
  • Answering general email enquiries
  • Keeping financial records
  • Authorising expenditures greater than the £50 @role budgets
  • Authorising shutter access
  • Coordinating the @roles
  • Handling and ruling on Grievance issues

You should be able to commit 5-10 hours per week to cover these jobs, and be able to make regular visits to the space (around 4 times per month). The governance process may change this scope in the future.

Proposed dates: Nominations open from May 30th-June 5th. Elections from the June 6th-12th

  1. Voting system:

    1. The system used will be Instant Run-off Voting with a Re-Open Nominations (RON)/None of the Above option.
      Please note: the remainder of this proposal assumes you understand the basic concepts of these voting systems (see links above).
      The key benefits of this type of voting are:
      • Fewer “wasted votes”, as if your first choice candidate is eliminated, then your vote is moved to your next choice.
      • Simplicity - each stage of the voting and elimination process can be clearly visualised.
      • RON option allows voters to specify that they think some (or all) of the candidates are unsuitable for the role - if the “RON” option were to “win” the election, then the membership would have essentially requested that the election process be restarted from the beginning.

  2. Voting Mechanism:

    1. The election process will be managed by the current Directors and the election team.
    2. Voting will be carried out online using the website OpaVote.
      • Why OpaVote?:
        • Powerful, secure system that allows us to configure the election process exactly as we want
        • Very reasonably priced
        • Ensures anonymity for voters
        • Makes full results dataset available (without any identifying details!), as well as clear visualisations of the result
        • Successfully used by other similar organisations, eg. London Hackspace
      • OpaVote settings to be used:
        • Method: “Instant Runoff Voting”
        • Candidate elimination: “Zero” - the first time that candidates are eliminated, all candidates with zero votes are eliminated simultaneously. Afterwards, candidates are eliminated one by one.
        • Tie breaking (for elimination and in the case of a draw): “Forward” - the vote count at round 1 is used to break the tie. If the candidates are tied at round 1, then round 2 is used and so forth. If the candidates are tied at all rounds, then the tie is broken randomly.
    3. All voting is anonymous - no-one will ever know who submitted any given ballot (OpaVote does not make that information available, even to the election organiser).
    4. Those eligible to vote will receive communications regarding the election (and how to vote) to the email address assosciated with their subscription payment account. Members not using email are still entitled to vote anonymously online - this will need to be arranged with a Director.
    5. The email address "noreply@opavote.com" should be added to members’s email whitelist to ensure they receive email.

  3. Rules:

    1. Candidates:

      1. Anyone who is a member at the point when the election is called by the Directors may nominate themselves (provided they do not breach the “Consecutive Terms” rule in “Directors Terms” ).
      2. All candidates must provide their fullname, any nicknames they may be known by, a photograph of their likeness, and short paragraph via an email to directors@southlondonmakerspace.org explaining their reason for standing - this will appear on the ballot
      3. No “canvassing” should take place, beyond discussions with fellow members - eg. no posters/public messages on Discourse, Discord, Telegram, etc.
      4. Candidates must be given at least 7 full days from calling of election to close of nominations

    2. Voting entitlement:

      1. All members shall have a vote - provided they are a member when the election is called by the Directors, and remain a member at the end of voting process.
      2. Voting is not mandatory, but is encouraged!

    3. Voting process:

      1. The vote will be open for at least 7 days - the deadline will be contained in all election correspondence (once it is known)
      2. Each person entitled to vote will receive an email from OpaVote containing a unique link/code to use for voting
      3. The ballot will consist of all the self-nominated members, listed randomly, displaying:
        • full name
        • any nickname they may be known by
        • a photograph
        • paragraph of explanation about why they wish to be a Director
      4. The ballot will also contain a candidate called “Re-Open Nominations”
      5. When voting, rank the candidates in your preferred order
      6. You do not have to use all your votes - if there are candidates whom you do not wish to vote for, or simply have no feelings about, then you can leave them out
      7. After choosing your preferred candidates, you can optionally vote for “Re-Open Nominations” - by doing this, you are saying that you consider all the remaining candidates to be unsuitable for the role of Director
      8. If you give your first vote to “Re-Open Nominations”, then you are declaring that all the candidates in the election are unsuitable for the role of Director
      9. Once you have voted for “Re-Open Nominations”, you should not give any further votes. Anyone you wish to see elected should be give your vote before “Re-Open Nominations”
      10. OpaVote allows you to save a partially complete ballot and return later, and to change your vote up until the close of voting

    4. Election Results:

      1. OpaVote will generate the results, and decide a winner - it is anticipated that this will be the final result
      2. The full results data will be available for download direct from OpaVote by all members who wish to see it
      3. The OpaVote result will be checked by the Directors
      4. It is possible (but unlikely) that the results will need to be re-calculated by SLMS - eg. if a candidate withdrew from the election after voting had begun. If this is necessary, the re-calculation will be carried out by the Directors - and the details will be made available to members for scrutiny
      5. The Directors will announce the result of the vote on the SLMS website, Discourse and to all members who were eligible to vote (via email).
      6. If the “Re-Open Nominations” candidate has won, then the entire election process shall be re-run, beginning with re-opening nominations to new candidates. Previous candidates are welcome to run again.
      7. The current Directors may require the election to be re-run if they are made aware of any unfair practices, or if the winner is ultimately not able to take up the post for any reason.
7 Likes
#2

Is this a proposal or the real thing? Hard to tell

#3

A proposal. A lot of it is the official, agreed upon previous text, but the title and dates hopefully highlight it.

1 Like
#4

@directors - please review and pin… thanks!

1 Like
#5

Pretty straight forward process. Do you guys think 5 days is enough time for people to add their name as a candidate. From inductions, sometime a week is cutting it fine and given this is quite a big decision, should we not allow a bit more time? Same goes for the voting on candidates?

I wasn’t at the past members meeting, and haven’t read the notes, but is this election for the additional 1 director to bring the tally up to 3 again?

5 Likes
#6

Hi Ryan,

A week was the given time period for each stage in the past. We had agreed to use the same process to allow us to replace Tom as smoothly as possible.

In the meeting, we had landed on voting for just one director now in order to ease the leadership transition.

2 Likes
#7

Directors will be meeting to discuss election soon.
We still have 3 directors currently - Dermot, Paul & Howard.
The proposal to have an election at 1 weeks notice is far too short to get nominations, publicity and for people to decide. Things are only just getting back to something like normal and there are a lot of new members who are not yet familiar with how things operate and who candidates are, or might be.

3 Likes
#8

Hey @Howard … just wanted to point out that an election in the short term to cover Tom is what we decided during the last member’s meeting. You bring up a good point about new people not knowing potential candidates, but I just want to say that “directors deciding whether there should be a director election” is a bit… not-transparent.

What do you propose?

#9

Can you clarify what do you mean by transparency in relation to Howards response? It is clear from Howards reply that he isn’t declining an election, only pointing out that Kyle and Andy’s idea of a weeks advance is not necessarily fair and by pointing out reason he laid out transparently the motive? I think you should read again before making a conclusion that is implying something fairly bad… Sorry.

#10

I think it’s worth speaking about the timing a bit more precisely. In the February members meeting, it was expressed we needed an election for a replacement director. The last time this happened, Makerspace director election: call for candidates - closes Sunday the Discourse call went out on the 6th of October for nominations to close on the 9th. The election ran until the 15th of October. The proposal I put forward 3 months after we agreed to have it was to have nominations close in 2 weeks and the election to occur in 3 weeks. If this timing is unacceptable, it would be great for the directors to give an updated timeline.

1 Like
#11

I think speaking about the time aspect makes more sense than twisting someone’s words and making them defend what they didn’t say.

#12

The proposal states that there’s only 6 days for people to vote. Unless you know who’s stepping up, you don’t have three weeks to decide as you’re suggesting. But whatever, everyone agreed there will be an election, not getting it this week doesn’t change it’s happening. Only maybe in more friendly timing. (Due to the third of membership being brand new)

#13

I’m not implying anything @petra. This post is a proposal that went by “unapproved” by directors until after the proposed dates have started. There is no proposed alternative in the intervention either… there is only a notion to review things in a directors meeting, with no planed date. That is not transparent.

All I’m asking for is this: @directors can you please propose a date for nominations, and then a dates for starting and ending the election process? I think that’s the only part that isn’t completely nailed down.

Is that fair?

2 Likes
#14

…impatience then!

PS: the word “whether” and “when” have always meant different things to me…

#15

I’m not opinionated about when the election should happen… but if a concrete date is rejected, it should be replaced w/ another date, even if that’s in 3 months. As you know… tomorrow never comes :wink:

#16

I doubt that interpretation of not replying only means rejection only… I’m assuming you know there is EMF and this proposal came right in the middle of it.
Personally I’d expect the date and everything being agreed on Members meeting, not in the middle of the night in a triplet of midnight owls… That’s just me tho.

#17

“in the middle of” and “after” have always meant different things to me…

ANYWAY, how should we move forward? Could someone provide some guidance?

#18

Amit, people are away for emf now.

Forward moving is having a members meeting and penciling a date.

edit: Emf 2022

1 Like
#19

ooooh… my bad, I thought u meant the Maker Fair. Cool, looking forward to the next member’s meeting.