Board Nomination Process:
This Year’s Annual Meeting will take place beginning online with a forum post here on June 30th and will include an in-person component on July 10th. The online component of the Annual Meeting will conclude by July 11th and end with a tally of votes for the final selection Board members.
Here in this post, we are taking nominations for Board Members. If you would like to nominate yourself or another member please post a comment with their name below. Our Nomination Committee will move to nominate and second those members also in this forum post below.
Candidate Bio Info:
Once seconded we’d like to have each nominee fill out a bio online in a Google Form. We’ll aggregate the info into some handy hand-outs and an online document for distribution within the Annual Meeting thread and the in-person component.
Board Responsibilities:
We’ve recently put together an outline of the skills and helpful ways Board members can get involved in growing our organization.
This top-level post will be continually edited and updated for the list of nominated members as they come in or any other pertinent info needed
Positions open for nomination:
President
Secretary
Treasurer
Additional Directors**
**If there is enough interest we may propose to add some additional Director positions at the start of the Annual Meeting. Please note that the current Directors still have 1 year on their first terms.
Candidates currently put forth by the Nominating Committee include:
Thanks for the hat tip, Pete.
I’d like to nominate @Pete_Gilcrease as well, he’s been such a great resource this whole year.
We seriously couldn’t do this without the support and input of all of you here.
If anyone else wants to talk about what it takes or how they can be involved, definitely reach out, here in a private message or by some other form of media if you need. I’d be happy to have an exchange and can usually squeeze in a coffee here or there in Central Austin if you’d like an in-person meeting.
As I mentioned during the last nominations process, I believe it is important for FAN’s board to be as diverse as possible (age, geographic location, sex, household characteristics, etc). Of our current board members, 5/7 live in City Council District 9. In addition, I believe only one is a renter. We should keep these things in mind as we determine who to nominate/support for the upcoming election.
This being said, I’d like to nominate @bbmorrison for Director. She’s a D10 resident (5-10% of our members live in D10, but 0 board members do) and lifelong Austinite. I’ve worked with her doing fundraising for Dell Children’s Hospital so I can vouch for the enthusiasm and creativity she’ll bring to the table. She has also been vocally supportive of FAN’s mission and her positions align with recent resolutions passed by large majorities of FAN members.
I’m in District 7, am a straight white male, and have spent 20 years living in NYC. I also am a former Crestview NA president and can take it to these NIMBY fools like nobody else.
Bring it on @marmstrong18 ! I’d love to see a diversity of representation in all stats for our members and Board and even a diversity in District is important at this point.
The online Goolge Form in the original post above will allow candidates to give us more demographic information such as area of town, renter/owner and a short bio section even before we start voting.
If anyone feels they have a voice not being heard, please let us know here.
If you’d like to speak privately in-person or over email, we’ve got ample time to talk and I’m more than amenable to making that happen with myself or another current Board member.
If you have an event or other outreach event you think we could visit to gain that representation, I’d also be willing to organize and make the effort to include them.
I realize that inclusion is about more than just waiting for underrepresented folks to come to you, but this is also totally a volunteer effort, so help is appreciated at all levels.
The form shouldn’t tell you anything about anyone else, unless you’re in the spreadsheet or have already filled out the form yourself and looking at the summary of answers. You’re possibly looking at your own answers otherwise.
Also, people can choose multiple positions to run for at this point within the form. So there may be some overlap there.
I see that Chip Harris has filled out the online form but I don’t see any member of Friends of Austin Neighborhoods in our databases. You’ll have to sign up to become a candidate, Chip.
Anyone can join our ranks who is willing to champion our vision, and then apply as a candidate for the board.
I would like to make another nomination for Director: @jessicareneecast (Jessica Castilleja). She joined FAN after reaching out to us about working with Worker’s Defense Project’s Better Builder Program. @Kristen_A_Fox, @brwittstruck, and I met with her in person to learn about her involvement in that program. Jessica also lives in City Council District 5 which is not represented within our current board.
We only have a few candidates who’ve filled out their bios so far.
It’s not necessary, but we’ll be sending these out as part of the Annual Meeting Agenda, which is required to go out 72 hours prior, that makes a deadline of Sunday the 26th.
And for anyone wanting to see how we operate or talk to any of us in person, feel free to come by our Board Meeting on Tuesday: