SGM and Call for Nominations!

The NZOSS interim council is calling a Special General Meeting for the
period of Sun 18 - Sat 24 August 2019. The purpose of that meeting will
be to

  1. update the NZOSS Constitution
  2. elect a Council
  3. elect an Executive

Constitutional Change

We have a bug in our current Constitution related to the Council representation to achieve Quorum (usually stated in term of percentage of the total number of Councillors, but in one place specifying a number
of seven (7) being required - see https://nzoss.org.nz/content/nzoss-constitution - Structure and
government -> Council Meetings. Given that we only have 6 Councillors at present, the creates a legitimacy issue.

Last year we failed to achieve the necessary 75% of all full members required to approve our original Constitutional bug fix... Note, no members who voted voted against it.

Because we're having to re-run the Constitutional vote, the interim Council is proposing to make some additional updates to the Constitution at the same time that we deem important. Those changes will include
removing unnecessary specific (e.g. membership categories) that should not be set in the Constitution, and to update our purpose to recognise other areas of "openness" beyond software that we can champion, like
open hardware, data, standards, and government.

Call for Nominations!

We are hereby calling for nominations. If you are not sure what the Council or Executive roles involve, please see https://nzoss.org.nz/content/nominations-for-nzoss-executive-and-council

The nominations are open to any nominators or nominees who are current full members. Self-nomination is welcome!

Please send nominations - with a position statement from the nominee and ideally a picture of them suitable for voter information - via email to secretary@nzoss.nz including the name and contact details of the nominee
and nominator to allow the current council to followup.

If you would like to become a full member to participate, you can do so at https://members.nzoss.nz/shop (payment by credit card online or bank transfer).

You can also check your membership status here by logging with your account details (you can request a password) - if you do not have any you are not currently a member. If you are unsure, you can contact
secretary@nzoss.nz or here carl (or me, lightweight)

Nominations will close midnight Friday 12 July, and we will publish the list of Nominees by 14 July.

Constitutional Update

We will publish our proposed updated Constitution on or before Sun 4 August for review by the NZOSS community and will consider suggestions until midnight Fri 9 August. We will publish the final version for
review on 10 August. 

The SGM vote

During the period from noon Sun 18 to noon Sat 24 August we will hold an online vote via our survey tool at https://survey.nzoss.nz to

  1. seek a positive vote from 75% of the membership
  2. elect a general council of 4-5 members
  3. elect an executive of vice president and president

Please note - in the event we do not have a surplus of Council nominees or the nominees for Executive are unopposed, they will be elected by default, removing the need for a formal election. The Constitutional
vote, however, will proceed regardless.

We look forward to your participation!