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Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 01 May 11 9:04 pm
by caughtatwork
These are the terms of reference for the 2011 senate year.
The senate will be formed by 1 member from each state in Australia and New Zealand and the GCA developers. This will result in a maximum of 10 senators representing two countries plus any developers who are on board. A state need not be represented, but should a state be not represented, they will continue unrepresented until the next election. In the event of a senator standing down, that state will continue unrepresented until the next election.

Senators will serve a term of around 12 months. Senators are eligible for re-election every 12 months. Nominations will be called for approximately 1 month prior to elections and vote will be taken for any state where there is more than one nomination. The senator will be elected on a "first past the post" result. Nominations must come from the nominee.

Governance of the website and the way that Geocaching Australia continues in the Australian geocaching space will be a collaborative effort between the senate and the developers. Voting in the Senate will be on a "first past the post" result. In the event of a tie further discussion and voting will take place.

When 50% +1 or more of the senators and developers choose an option, it will be considered a decision. Senators may "opt out" of voting, however their "opt out" vote will not be taken into consideration. Senators may not proxy their vote to another senator.

e.g. If only 9 senators vote and there are 5 FOR and 4 AGAINST, then the YES vote will be considered to the the decision even though there are senators who did not express a preference either way.

Major decisions in terms of the direction of the website should be proposed to the senate who will help to formulate the acceptance or rejection of the position to be adopted and guide the website towards achieving that goal. This is done though the Geocaching Australia Senate forum.

Enhancements to the functionality of the website where a function pre-exists do not need approval of the senate. e.g. Additional statistical data or data feeds to other sites.

Enhancements to the functionality of the website where a function does not currently exist may be provided to the senate for review and discussion. e.g. Recent introductions such as routes, individual watchlist and cache owner email updates, warnings for geocaching in banned zones, etc, etc.

Concepts for rewards programs shall be provided to the senate in confidence for review and discussion.

Our current philosophy is loosely stated as "free and open" which is the desire of the founders for a geocaching website where there will never be mandatory payment for access to geocache data and the data of the website can be openly shared to other websites. Data will be licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 deed. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ This is already agreed to when a cacher lists their cache at Geocaching Australia.

Funding of the website will be via voluntary donations or from the profit on the sale of token goods.

The role of Senator is not onerous and decisions are only likely to be taken a few times a year.
If you are interested in nominating yourself for a Senate role, indicate your nomination in this thread. If you wuld like to promote yourself, do so at the time your nominate.

SELF nominations ONLY please.

For emphasis:
Senators will serve a term of around 12 months. Senators are eligible for re-election every 12 months. Nominations will be called for approximately 1 month prior to elections and vote will be taken for any state where there is more than one nomination. The senator will be elected on a "first past the post" result. Nominations must come from the nominee.
Senators will be announced or elections will commence around start June 2011.

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 01 May 11 9:20 pm
by Laighside Legends
Quick question...
Who are the current senators? :D

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 01 May 11 10:11 pm
by caughtatwork
Bewilderbeest
Big Matt and Shell
Cheesy pigs
firesafe
Papa Bear_Left
rhinogeo
ruzzelz

There was no nominee for NT
Add to this mix the 3 primary developers of riblit, CraigRat and caughtatwork.

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 02 May 11 3:09 pm
by Papa Bear_Left
I'll throw my (polar bear adorned) hat back into the ring for WA.

The duties are not onerous, and I'm already sort of in touch with the local cachers when I'm publishing their listings as theUMP!

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 02 May 11 7:24 pm
by Big Matt and Shell
I'm happy to continue as the NSW senator unless someone feels that I'm not able to represent the state as well as they can.

As PBL has said it isn't too onerous except for keeping c@w under control! :mrgreen:

Matt

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 02 May 11 8:25 pm
by Bewilderbeest
I'd also like to nominate to continue representing the ACT, I think I made a worthwhile contribution on most topics.

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 24 May 11 7:58 pm
by Cheesy pigs
Tasmania has self managed through my tenure I havent had to do a thing. I'm happy to continue unless theres another tassie devil who wants a stab at it :)

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 27 May 11 10:42 pm
by ruzzelz
Happy to continue in the role as the Queensland representative and contribute to the GCA ideals.

ruzzelz

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 28 May 11 12:06 am
by firesafe
Always keen to help 8)

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 31 May 11 11:42 am
by caughtatwork
Nominations close tonight AEST.

Current nominations are:
firesafe (South Australia)
ruzzelz (Queensland)
Cheesy pigs (Tasmania)
Bewilderbeest (ACT)
Big Matt and Shell (New South Wales)
Papa Bear_Left (Western Australia)

There are currently no nominations for:
Victoria
Northern Territory
New Zealand (North Island or South Island)

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 31 May 11 2:41 pm
by honeysucker
would nominate for Victoria but moving in a week or so to Adelaide

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 01 June 11 9:45 am
by caughtatwork
Nominations are now closed.

Nominations are:
firesafe (South Australia)
ruzzelz (Queensland)
Cheesy pigs (Tasmania)
Bewilderbeest (ACT)
Big Matt and Shell (New South Wales)
Papa Bear_Left (Western Australia)

There are no nominations for:
Victoria
Northern Territory
New Zealand (North Island or South Island)

In the absence on any dual nominations for any state, the nominees are declared to be the winners.

I for one, welcome our new Senatorial overlords.

Thanks go to our retiring Senator from Victoria, Rhinogeo.

Re: Senate - Call for nominations 2011

Posted: 02 June 11 12:11 am
by Richary
Congratulations to all the Senators, and hopefully someone will step forward and volunteer for the unrepresented states and be accepted by the current group. I know Big Matt will continue to represent NSW well so I was happy not to put my hand up again.