I've had a lot of experience on the AEC, from the first one, and have often found we are just gelling and getting things happening when the elections come around again.

The only possible drawback is, as mentioned above, replacing members who can't complete their term for any reason. It will be critical to maintain a quorum and there is usually attrition, with more expected over the longer time frame. The immediate solution that springs to mind is that next ranked in the voting could be named as stand-by members. They would probably need to be kept abreast of the AEC's progress to be able to step in. One solution in the past has been for Trustees to step in when AEC membership slipped, however they are all extremely busy in their own ways and that should be a last resort.

Jess,

I agree 100% with your comment and hope any future AEC has the dedication and motivation to complete a six month term without needing to impose on the trustees, who, as you rightly said, are busy people.

As soon as I became AEC chair, I got the team together to make a list of important items we wanted to achieve in our term. I am pleased to say other than one item which I will get to, we did indeed achieve the goals in three months, but it was tough going.

The outstanding item was to review the AEC guidelines, but we needed three months to run the committee and work with the guidelines before being in a position to review and make any changes needed. We are now ready to make some changes, but as you can see, we have run out of time!! This will potentially happen each time to each new AEC, but with 6 months, the AEC will have time to run with the existing guidelines and also be in a position after three months to make necessary changes.

I will be running again and if I should be lucky enough to get in again, I can use the previous three months experience to support early changes to the AEC Guidelines.

I have actually drafted a complete re-write of the guidelines and of course if I don't get in the AEC this time around I will still offer my suggestions to the new AEC.

Oh well, time to start an election campaign.

Glad you support the AEC's suggestion to increase the term to 6 months.

kind regards,

HS

i have already expressed my views on this to Dan in his Blog and made a few suggestions about exploring possibilities of putting in place a rotation policy wherein a few members of AEC retire by rotation and others continue for one more term...

Raj,

yes I am aware of your previous comments and views on this matter. We (the AEC) spoke about the rotation proposition and although in principle it seemed like a good idea, we were left in an awkward situation with how and when the AEC chair would be voted upon as traditionally the member with the most votes became chair.

This isn't to say this won't be looked at again, but for now let's see if we can get a longer AEC term and then we can see how committee members cope with the extention and if a rotation system will be needed.

I thank you kindly for being most active in your responses and comments to the recent AEC blogs and announcements.

Kind regards,

Dan

OK...my vote is for a longer duration for AEC than the present 3 months which is too short for the newly elected AEC to get settled...attend to any pending issues and yet find time to introduce new things..

Perhaps the possible problem with attrition thinning out ranks during a longer term could be solved by increasing number of members to 6. Of course this is too late to bring to vote now, but perhaps it could be considered by next AEC...........stan

I too, made my comment (where, I forget!) to increase the term from 3 to 6 months. By the time the AEC is functionally working as a unit, and everyone is settled into their specific niche... it's tough sometimes. But then again, members vying for the position have grown during the past few years of which I have witnessed.

There's no naysayers here (?), and little cause for AEC intervention between members, I suspect. That's always a good thing.

~A

I think that first of all we would be lucky to find 6 people who wanted to run for the AEC, we haven't got that many people who wish to volunteer.

But let's say for arguments sake we did have 6 committee members, I think it would be too many people, and that it would be harder to co- ordinate.

Lou

but we will need clearer AEC members guidelines/action manual.

It's happened in the past and we can't assume it won't happen again, if an AEC member is not pulling their weight, abusing their position, if there is irreconciliable conflict between members or other internal problems it has to be dealt with.

I've always thought the three months too
short. When "newcomers" get in, it takes a
few weeks to settle in, familiarize themselves
with guidelines and procedures, and then by
the time the last month comes in, people who
are not planning on doing it again are "short
timers", with no real agenda, and not really
wanting to get into anything new, and the term
has virtually lost a good six weeks out of a twelve
week run.

The reason for five members is simple, it is hard
to get five people to agree to anything, and sometimes
a majority vote has to be implemented, if the number were
an even one, like six, it could cause more problems than it
would clear up. Maybe seven would be better, a greater chance
of representing the entire community, giving us all a voice.

There should always be at least two people ready to step in
just in case one or two members have to resign, there will
always be situations where some cannot finish the commitment,
we are all human, and privy to life and its snowballing ways.

An Example assuming there are more than 6 members running for AEC

Following could be the votes received by the top six elected members

A 6
B 5
C 4
D 3
E 2
F 1

ABCDEF elect the chairman and the number of votes received by them as mentioned above is the number of votes each can cast for electing a chairman. this would ensure a fair representation of the electorate in choosing a Chairman...

thereafter for the next AEC elections some rotation policy can be worked out...

Speaking simply from the point of a member of this site, I support anything that means that the job gets done properly, I think you need 6 months at the very least, to do that.

Lou