2019 Members' Meeting and voting process
Thank you to everyone who attended our 2019 membership meeting!
We passed the proposal to vote for our board of directors via an online voting system.
We have sent all members in good standing an email with a link to use to cast your vote.
If you did not receive an email, please email: support@mayfirst.org to request your token.
The online voting period will run from Tuesday October 8 through Monday October 14 (at midnight America/New_York time).
You can see a list of all nominees and also a video presentation from all nominees.
This page is the official page documenting the meeting and will be kept up to date with the latest information.
Infographic
Our membership meeting processed is summarized in the following info graphic. Scroll down for additional details!
The Main Meeting
Once attendance is taken and we have determined that we have quorum, we will be able to make proposals for member approval. When voting, individual members get one vote and organizational members get two votes. Even if your organization sends 10 people to the meeting, you still only get two votes.
The agenda is:
Proposal on Board elections. This proposal will ask the members to approve electing the board through a one week online ballot system to ensure as many members as possible can participate (rather than only allowing the members present on the call to vote). See below for more details.
Reports. There will be three reports, all based on the conversations at the member consultation meetings that precede the Members’ meeting.
- Movement Work Report: this report details the many areas of work with our movements that we are involved in as well as some proposals for future involves…all attached to cost estimates
- Technology Report: a report on the state of our technology and our priorities in developing it and the budget it will require.
- Financial Report: as the name implies with input from the third pre-meeting convergence on Sept. 25
Please register for the main meeting and all pre-meetings now!
Calendar of Dates and Pre-meeting Events
Tuesday, September 4
Public nominations for our board of directors is open via our voting site and announced to the full membership.
Pre Meetings: Week of September 11 - Week of September 25
There are three pre-meetings to prepare for the main membership meeting.
All meetings take place online via mumble. Before each meeting, a report is posted via our online discussion forum allowing members unable to attend to participate in the discussion. After each meeting, the results are posted to the discussion board to the conversation can continue leading up to the main meeting.
- Wednesday, September 11, 2:00 - 3:30 pm America/Mexico_City, 3:00 - 4:30 pm America/New_York: Generate movement priorities for the coming year. Please read the movement report and if you can’t make the in person meeting, you can comment on our forum.
- Friday, September 20, 2:00 - 3:30 pm America/Mexico_city, 3:00 - 4:30 pm America/New_York: Discuss technology infrastructure plan and dues for services changes. Please read the technology report and also the proposed policy on changes in dues for extra resources and if you can’t make the meeting, you can comment on our forum
- Wednesday, September 25, 2:00 - 3:30 pm America/Mexico_city, 3:00 - 4:30 pm America/New_York: What it means to be a coop, a report on finances, responsibilities of board membership and general coop functioning. Please feel free to join the discussion
Please register for the main meeting and all pre-meetings now!
Tuesday, October 1
Deadline for Board Nominations. No nominations allowed after this date.
Week of October 1
A recorded video presentation of all board candidates is made available for members to watch to get to know the candidates.
Tuesday, October 8
3:00 - 4:00 pm America/New_York
Members’ meeting takes place via mumble.
The Board Election
May First has always emphasized the importance of internal democracy and we don’t feel a single on-line meeting is the most inclusive way to elect Board members since not all members will be able to attend.
So the current Leadership Committee will propose to the membership meeting that we conduct the elections via an on-line ballot (the exact same way we have conducted our elections for the last 5 years) for a week following the meeting: October 8 to October 15.
In that Board elections ballot, members will also be asked to rank the priorities that were generated during the September 11 meeting. Traditionally, the Members’ Meeting ends up setting a dozen priorities and that makes the leadership’s work much more difficult because it then must prioritize among those priorities. This year, we are asking the members to do that so the Board can more easily direct our work.
Legal Details
Our new by-laws require a yearly meeting of members at which 10 percent of our active membership makes up a quorom. This means we need attendance by at least 65 members. To evaluate this requirement, we will be counting memberships, not people on the call. We invite members to bring as many people from your organization as you want, however, we can only count each membership once when taking attendance.
This quorum is a requirement of New York State law under which our cooperative is incorporated.
