VOTE!

This to me is one of those fundamental rights that Americans choose to ignore. Not only do they ignore this right by not voting they vote uninformed, based on what their neighbor, family member or news add told them. People believe the craziest things in my opinion. I have been a very stubborn, bull headed and determined person my entire life. Some of that comes from the women folk side of my family and the rest of it purely out of not wanting to fit in. Once I discovered that you don’t have to belong to a political party to vote and that you can vote for anyone on the ballot regardless of your party association I became the happiest girl ever!

I believe that it is extremely important to exercise your right to vote regardless of what we are voting on. But it is with much more passion that I think you should educate yourself before you vote. If you are just going in an pushing a button cause someone isn’t black or they speak “better” English or because they are/are not a woman; then you make me sick. Sorry but ya do.

Why do you care what I think? Why should you continue reading? Because PASS that organization very near and dear to a lot of our hearts is having it’s annual  Board of Directors(I commonly call this BoD) election. OH and surprise I have an opinion. My daddy said “opinions are like butt holes everybody’s got one.” Well I think everyone should do their homework prior to voting and don’t give me any crap about not having time. I am guessing you can learn about the organization and it’s current direction in about 15 min. Then all you need to do is find out about your candidates. I am here to help you with all of this.

PASS

• Governance, OMG this page is so full of information your head will explode. Don’t try to read it all today. Just brush up on the momentum of the org.
• This blog post about Vision.
• This is just the tip of an iceberg, the more you know the better the decision you can make.

MISC

• 3 open seats, 1) only for US/Canada 1) EMEA and 1)Open to anyone  <-important because the ballot will say vote for 3 not vote for 1 in each category. Read JRJ’s blog from April.
  • As a side note here, the BoD are each assigned “portfolio”. From my simple understanding these line up with 1)major projects/task/inniatives that the BoD is trying to tackle and 2) basically around the financial breakdowns.
  • Seats != portfolio.
  • The President (which for next year is none other than Tom LaRock) may choose to shuffle that deck so to speak. There are no guarantees on who gets what.
    • (Side bar)<myopinion>this matters because if a candidate only knows about 1 thing like SQLSaturday and they are given something else like global growth? Or membership? All I am saying is much like me telling you to be a well rounded voter I feel that the candidate should also be well rounded</myopinion>
• Understand the ballot, they are RANKED IN ORDER from what the NomCom felt was most qualified at the top. Folks this is the only insight into the committee’s head you have.

Candidates

• Candidates are listed here.
• Find their blog.
• Find them on twitter.
• Community BLOGs
• Ask on the forums.

Sometime around the 18th the Connector will be sent to your inbox announcing campaign events. These are PASS sponsored events, organized by them for the community an opportunity to better get to know our candidates. Ask questions and get involved. This one time you have all the opportunity in the world to personally talk to candidates. These folks don’t have handlers, campaign managers and staff, they are just everyday people applying to do a job that they will 1) not get paid for 2) get very little love from the community 3)give up time with their friends and family to serve us all to make a difference in a community that is important.

I happen to know most of the candidates on the slate. I happen to have opinions about them, but honestly I just want you to vote and make it count for something.