Community Contributor Representative Election!

All,

Nominations are now open for candidates for the Community Contributor =20=

Representative (CCR) to the Community Council.  Nominations will =20
commence immediately, today, 10 June 2005 and last for one week, =20
ending 17 June 2005.

* What is the CCR? He or she is the at-large community representative =20=

to the Council, which is OOo's governing body. The Council (also =20
called CC) sets policy, resolves disputes, and so on.  The CCR would =20
ideally present issues to the CC that the community at large finds =20
important, as well as otherwise help the community get its voice =20
heard by the Council.  The term is for 6 months (more or less) and =20
there is not that much work required, no more than a few hours a =20
month, mostly for IRC meetings and e-mail discussions.

* Who is eligible? Any registered member of OpenOffice.org who has =20
demonstrated a commitment to the project and is known by the =20
community but is not an Accepted Projects lead or co-lead.  (Accepted =20=

Projects are those listed at <http://projects.openoffice.org/=20
accepted.html>).  A good candidate would be someone who can advocate =20
on behalf of endusers but who is also (at least minimally) informed =20
of the technical and logistical issues involved in producing =20
OpenOffice.org.

The position can be interesting and even fun.  Meetings are seldom =20
boring and you do get an insight into how OOo is governed.  There are =20=

a lot of policy issues coming up and this is your chance to affect =20
their outcome.

* How do we proceed?  The charter creating the Council is fairly =20
clear. (See http://council.openoffice.org/CouncilProposal.html)  The =20
various project leads select 2-3 candidates from the names submitted =20
by the community.  The candidates are then voted on by the community. =20=

"Community" means registered OpenOffice.org members.

Here are the groundrules for the process:

* It's a two-week, three-step process.

     =95 Seven days to obtain nominations from the community, three (or =20=

so) days for the leads to select candidates, four days for voting on =20
the candidates. Voting will be done via the Web.

* All nominees must be registered OOo members.

* You may nominate yourself.

* No campaigning.  If you are not already known by the community, =20
then you probably ought not to consider standing for election.

* Send a brief (75 word) abstract stating who you are and what you do =20=

for OOo to [email protected].  After discussion by the =20
project leads, we will post the ones selected to the Council homepage =20=

(<http://council.openoffice.org/>) and post notices to =20
[email protected], [email protected], =20
[email protected], [email protected], dev@native-=20
lang.openoffice.org, and [email protected], and ask that =20
all Project Leads inform their communities of the election.

* If elected, congratulations! :-)  The next Council meeting will be =20
held in July. After that we will try to adhere to a fortnightly (once =20=

every two weeks) schedule.

Cheers,
Louis

PS Note that this is but one of several other elections being run =20
concurrently.

--
Louis Suarez-Potts
Community Manager
OpenOffice.org