Monday 20 April 2015

Yes It's Election Time; UKOUG Need You To Vote



Currently it seems everywhere you turn someone is giving you advice as to how to vote, well I am no exception. This is a personal plea for the UKOUG elections that opened today.

I am asking you to vote for Fiona Martin as Member Advocate Chair and Linda Barker as President.

Last year I asked you to return Fiona Martin and myself as member advocates. As these were new roles, and we wanted to ensure future maturity on the board, my role was for two years, and Fiona stood for a single year. Thank you for voting for us.

It is great that we have a choice of candidates, and all can serve UKOUG in volunteer roles but I would like to give my recommendations:

Fiona is now standing for re-election and I urge that you vote for her. UKOUG has gone through a lot of changes, and more to come. Fiona has been instrumental in working with communities and project managers to ensure we have been able to deliver, the strategy she worked with volunteers to produce. She is also key in our relationship with Oracle.

Currently our board has 6 members, 3 appointed who have operational responsibilities and 3 voted for to represent the members.

David Rowntree is the longest serving member on the current board who is responsible for Finance, he was joined by Bryan Foss in November and Pauline Drummond who recently took up the role of Interim CEO when James Haslam left UKOUG after 19 years.

This means we have two appointed board members with less than 6 months experience, and will have a new new president. I want the board to be able to support them from a position of experience; returning Fiona to the board means she can continue the work she has done and together she and I can support a new President, the appointed board members and in time our new CEO.

I also urge you to vote for Linda as President, she is want UKOUG aspire towards; an end user President. The outgoing President David Warburton-Broadhurst was appointed President (we didn't elect this role at that time) because he was an end user and it was welcomed by UKOUG and Oracle.

Linda has the excellent pedigree of having been an active member of UKOUG and experience in a wide portfolio of products, and I am confident will bring fresh ideas to the table. She also has director experience and will be able to be effective immediately.

Voting for Fiona and Linda gives a mix of experience and new ideas - the right mix being important to the board

Please vote, and if you are not the voting person in your membership, please lobby for us to them.


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