PASS-NOMCOM

I interrupt my scheduled blog post to bring you this important post. Yeah that’s right I had some stuff to talk about, you know the wrap up of #MsTechEd and well now I forget. But I have things!

So if you were not paying attention PASS Headquarters announced that June 12 submissions to be on the Nomination Committee  would open and would end on June 19th (blog article).  On June 18th a dear friend of mine poked me and asked if I had considered it. Well my answer was …..errrr most people complain about this process. So I started doing the research and asking other dear friends who had inside information what their feelings were. So for some odd reason while working from home on the 19th I filled out the application, awaited responses from my friends and thought about what this could mean.

For starters I had said after my first Summit that in 5 years I want to run for the board. Well what a better way to get an understanding of what happens, who does it an what it all means than being on the board that flushes out the board applicants.

If you don’t know much about me it might surprise you to know my favorite question as a child was “WHY?” I really wanted to understand how/why things are the way they are. I am sure this is is why I am a good analyst. I need the root of everything. Maybe because I want to know or maybe because I need to know what that grey area of tolerance is.

Campaign. Right now I have a love hate relationship with that word. I am working on a project that uses a highly normalized database that has Campaign in it’s name and probably an additional dozen tables. So to read that I will need to campaign and get elected for a position on the NomCom made me nearly pee my pants. I thought what in the world, this is just a supporting committee for qualifying candidates for the board. Well I was told (by some of those dear friends) it was “no big deal” and I just blindly believed it. I mean I was most apprehensive about this part.

Time commitment. I understand that I have a tick more free time than most people but if you asked me I would tell you there is never any time for Tammy to do what she wants. Maybe it is that old school thinking of taking care of home and family first. Maybe it’s just a defensive action to be to busy cleaning and cooking to blog, learn new things, and write new sessions. I mean keeping a clean house keeps me from really putting myself out there and we all know that cleanliness is next to godliness.

So then there is the stigma. Or general bitching on social media about how much the process sucks, and how everyone involve sucks and how it’s their fault the sun comes up in the East. Ok not really but you get the point. Do I really need/want to be apart of a process that so many people complain about. Well then the answer is always HELL YEAH! Let me figure this out for myself, let me process all of this and by the way because we are so cool now I can blog about it and I can tell everyone more about it.

That leads us to yesterday, Monday. You see accepted candidates (yes you read that correctly) were to be notified on Friday. Since I didn’t get a call I thought “oh, well it’s okay there were probably a ton of qualified folks”. I really hadn’t thought about it since mid day on Friday until today when someone from Vancouver BC was calling me. My first reaction was “hmm that is odd I though we had better telecom laws than that”. So I answered… “Hello”…… pause…. (doubt in my mind this is one of those robocalls)…”Hello”….. pause [I just hang up!] I might be fooled again (if you are not singing go back and read that again). So the phones rings again, it’s Vancouver again. I answer because I am ready to bitch someone out if this is a real “fake” call. WAIT it’s Janice from PASS HQ. Oh…. ??

Guess who’s on the NomCom? That’s right .. this girl! There won’t be a campaign this year as there were just enough applicants to fill the seats. Whew! Says this girl. So far I have received the schedule and it doesn’t look too bad, a few weeks in a row with a 2 hour meeting mid day. I guess the amount of work will be dictated by the number of applicants for the board of directors.

Am I scared? Sure, not knowing what all is going to happen, how much and what will be expected is a bit unnerving. Knowing that in years past folks bitch about the service you volunteered to perform makes me wonder why I would want to do this. Possibly having to rate friends that I adore against each other for a position on the board might keep me up at night. Excited to learn all about this process and possibly have an opportunity to share it with all of you? Hell yeah! This is all what I like to call “scary fun”. Being able to pay it forward and contribute to an organization/family that I adore is priceless and will be a great learning experience. Hang in here with me while we enjoy this ride. I will keep posting about this process and what is involved.