[Linux-aus] Candidacy Support Statement - President or Ordinary Council Member

[Hugh Blemings]

Hi,

I write offering to continue to serve the membership of Linux Australia
and the broader Free and Open Source Software/Hardware communities in
one of two capacities, President or Ordinary Council Member (OCM).
However there is something of a “twist”...

Before coming to the “twist” - a few thoughts on the year nearly past
for context.

2016 proved, frankly, a difficult year for the Council of Linux
Australia.  A number of Council members, myself included were unable to
devote the time we might have liked to Council activities.  For my part
I knew this prior to being elected and identified it as such - I was not
able to commit a much time to LA until early April when some other
personal matters were concluded.

Other Council members found themselves unable to contribute for
legitimate reasons that could not have reasonably been anticipated.
They are, to a person, capable and high-judgement individuals, so this
is not a case of a whimsical “I don’t want to” but of a genuine
incapacity, at times unexpected, to be involved.  Out of respect for
privacy of all concerned I will not expand further on this and would ask
you to likewise respect confidences.

Thus all considered we found ourselves somewhat short staffed for much
of the Council term with the lion's share of day to day operations
falling to three or four members of Council.

Add to this some unexpected but astonishingly time consuming matters 
that required Councils attention and there was not a great deal of time 
and energy left for doing much more than keeping the basics going for 
the year.

I will note that what -was- accomplished was still worthwhile and did in
the main advance the libre commons, but some of the more visible
examples of this (excellent conferences, well considered submissions to
the Federal Government among them) were largely the product of folk
outside the Council who devoted considerable amounts of their own time
and energy into making these things happen.  Again my thanks to those
involved.

To the twist then...

A vote for me as President is saying two things; that you are happy for
me to continue as President and to lead Linux Australia as an
organisation that will largely adopt a course of steady as it goes for
2017 - sustain/maintain rather than grow.  Personally I’m of the view
that this is an entirely satisfactory outcome, not in any way an
admission of defeat or the beginning of the end of LA (or I probably
wouldn’t be putting my hand up eh ? :)

As an organisation, well resourced with a wide volunteer base and
enthusiasm to match we can I think do more than this, but I fear I lack
the vision and energy to lead us to more ambitious plans.  This is not
me being self effacing, just an objective observation that I’m not a big
ideas/visionary sort of person.  I am however very good at keeping
things ticking along or helping someone else attain -their- vision.

Which neatly brings me to our current Vice President and candidate for
President of Linux Australia, Kathy Reid.

Kathy -is- a visionary sort of person, scarily well organised too come
to that.  As she will be putting forward in her Candidacy Support
statement, she has a vision for taking Linux Australia to more ambitious
places - grow rather than sustain/maintain.  I think what she has in
mind can be accomplished but it will take a committed Council -and-
Membership to accomplish it.

I would be more than happy, were I so elected, to be an OCM in this
circumstance and aid Kathy and Linux Australia towards this more
ambitious, but attainable outcome.

So to be clear: Kathy and I are consciously giving the Membership an
opportunity to clearly demonstrate where -you- think we should take
Linux Australia.  We’re not even vaguely at odds, we respect each
other’s views and think this is a reasonable way of getting a clear
mandate from the Membership on both the direction we go as well as who
leads us there.

But wait, there’s more!

It may well be we have other candidates for President who see
alternative directions for Linux Australia.  That’s totally fine,
excellent actually, I respectfully and wholeheartedly invite them to lay
out what direction they see the organisation heading and for the
membership to vote accordingly.  Were they successful in their candidacy
and I elected to OCM I would respect their mandate.

In terms of who I am and what I do, I suspect by now I would be known to
many of you.  If you’d like further background in that regard, the
candidacy statement I wrote last year [1] is still pretty much accurate.

In closing thank you for giving my candidacy, and more importantly the
future direction for Linux Australia your consideration.

I welcome any questions you may have.

Kind Regards,
Hugh

[1] http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2016-January/022433.html