Nine seats on the AAN Board of Directors will be up for election this year at the association’s annual meeting in Tucson. Prior to the election, bylaw amendments will be introduced that could impact the nature of two of at least two of the seats.
According to the bylaws, the following board seats will open in Tucson:
Aside from the convention chair, all of the seats are two-year terms.
Although there has yet to be a formal vote on the matter, there is widespread sentiment on the board that the Classified Advertising Chair should be eliminated in favor of a Web Publishing Chair. Under such a scenario, the Display Advertising Chair would be renamed the Advertising Chair and his committee would assume the duties formerly assigned to the Classified Advertising Committee.
Many board members also believe that the duties of the chair of the Organization and Bylaws Committee should be transferred to the Vice President, and that a fourth at-large seat should be added as a replacement.
Both current occupants of the seats — Classified Advertising Chair Robby Robbins of Santa Barbara Independent, and Organization and Bylaws Chair Bill Bleakley of Oklahoma Gazette — have indicated they are in favor of the changes. Neither Robbins nor Bleakley plan to run for the board again in 2009.
This potential board restructuring would be accomplished by means of two separate bylaw amendments, both of which will be introduced at the annual meeting prior to the election.
The annual meeting will be held in Tucson on Saturday, June 27, during the final day of the association’s upcoming convention.
All regular members of the organization are eligible to run for election to the board. If you are interested in running for the board, or would like to know more about the responsibilities of a board member, please contact executive director Richard Karpel at rkarpel at aan.org or 202/289-8484.
Members who decide they want to run for the board will be asked to respond to the following questions: Why do you want to be on the AAN board? What are the most important issues that AAN faces?
Their answers will be presented in a feature profiling the candidates that will be published on the AAN website later this month.
If you aren’t planning to attend this year’s convention — or if you are attending but can’t be there for the annual meeting — you can assign your vote to another AAN member by proxy.
You can download a PDF copy of the annual meeting notice and proxy assignment form by clicking here.
Publishers who want an employee to be able to vote at the meeting don’t need to assign a proxy. Our bylaws don’t specify the job position of those who are allowed to vote, so any employee of a member paper who claims to be that paper’s representative will be provided with a ballot.
