NY Tech Meetup

You can vote here through December 20 (see qualification information below). There is one seat available on the board.

The candidates are:

As announced last year, the NY Tech Meetup will be opening 4 of the 13 positions on our Board of Directors (the “Board”) to community members elected by our members. Two of those spots were filled last year when Anil Dash and Evan Korth were elected by members of the NY Tech Meetup community to join the Board.

As you may know, NY Tech Meetup was incorporated in the State of New York in July 2010 and is now a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization. The Bylaws are always available for community review here.

We focus on having a high level of member participation on our Board. Not only will four Board members be directly elected by the broader membership (referred to as “Class B Members” in the Bylaws), but we’ve also decided that the Programming Committee, which governs our monthly Meetup and other programming, will always be Chaired by one of the member-elected Board members.

NY Tech Meetup is and always has been an organization for the members and by the members. So, how does one become a member-elected Board member? This December, we’ll conduct our second election, cycling in a third member-elected Board member (a 4th new member-elected Board member will be elected next year as well). Below, find all of the information you need between now and the annual meeting at which we will hold the election.

Nominations
Nominations may occur through this online form anytime between today, October 21, 2011 (our Notice Date) and 11:59 pm NYC time on November 30, 2011. Nominations may be made only by “Class B Members,” which are people who have RSVPed for a NY Tech Meetup event via the Meetup.com platform by 11:59 pm NYC time on November 1 (the “Record Date”). Class B Members may nominate anyone as a director (though that person will have to accept the nomination) and may also nominate themselves. Nominations through this form by people who are not Class B Members as of the Record Date will be disregarded.

Campaigning and a “Meet the Candidates” Event
In regards to campaigning, we hope our community has a vigorous and public conversation about the future of the NY Tech Meetup on blogs, via Twitter, in private and at events. We hope and expect that conversation starts as soon as now, and continues through the voting process and beyond. With that in mind, we’ve decided to host an event on December 5, 2011 for the community to meet the candidates (more information and timing to come). In addition, candidates will be encouraged to submit short videos or written statements for inclusion on the NY Tech Meetup election page of our website, which is available at nytm.org/election.

The Election and Our Annual Meeting
At midnight following the presentations of candidates at the December 5 mixer, we will open the polls (using the same platform used in the 2010 election), allowing all members to vote for the candidates online. The polls will be held open to receive “proxy” votes between such time and the start of the NY Tech Meetup’s Annual Meeting, which will be held at 3pm on December 20, 2011 at Meetup HQ. The sole purpose of the Annual Meeting will be to tabulate and validate the vote count and determine the election results.

Qualifications to Vote and Vote Count*
As we just alluded to, not every proxy vote recorded by the voting platform may end up being a qualified vote in our final tally. As our Bylaws state, only the proxy votes by Class B members — people who have RSVPed for a NY Tech Meetup event via the Meetup.com platform by 11:59 pm NYC time on the Record Date (November 1) — will be counted in our final tally (despite the fact that the voting platform will allow proxy votes to be submitted by all registered users of their system). At the annual meeting, we will work with the Meetup.com team to produce the final vote-count of Class B members, which we will then make public to our membership via our blog and an email blast.

*Procedural clarification: students who have RSVP’d to attend a NYTM through the NYTM Student Group are also qualified to vote.

Questions
If you have any questions or need anything clarified, please use the public comment system below this post so that your question may be answered and then useful for everyone to benefit from.

Election Schedule
●      October 21 – Notice of Meeting Date & Announcement of Election via electronic method
●      October 21– Nominations open
●      November 1 – Record Date for determining class B members for nominations and voting
●      November 30 – Nominations close at 11:59 pm NYC time
●      December 5 – Meet the Candidates Event (voting begins at 12:00 am on December 6)
●      December 20 – 3pm  – Meeting to elect Class B member (polls close right before meeting)