The Family History Information Standards Organisation is seeking nominations for the Board of Directors.
The election will be held online with voting being conducted from July 21, 2019 to August 3, 2019, followed by an Annual General Meeting held online on August 10, 2019.
As this is FHISO’s first board election, all positions are open for election. These are:
Chair – the head of FHISO, with overall responsibility for the smooth running of the organisation.
Technical Coordinator – the chair of the Technical Standing Committee, with overall responsibility for FHISO’s standardisation and specification work.
Four Directors at Large to fill other roles on the board.
Terms of office run from the AGM on August 10, 2019 for two years.
It is expected that some board members will hold several roles, for instance, the roles of secretary and treasurer are currently held by the same individual. The details will depend on the skills and interests of those elected.
Candidates standing for Chair or Technical Coordinator may also stand as a Director at Large, and we encourage this. The elections of Chair and Technical Coordinator are held first, and if the person elected is also standing as a Director at Large, they will be removed from that election. Candidates may not stand as both Chair and Technical Coordinator.
If there are more than four candidates to serve as Directors at Large, a single election will be held for these four positions. The ballot will allow members to rank candidates in preference using the single transferable vote system, and the top four will be elected to the board.
Members who wish to put themselves forward as a candidate or who wish to suggest a possible candidate for an office are invited to contact us by email at fhiso@fhiso.org.
The FHISO Board is a small working board. Each member is expected to have their own remit which might be technical or administrative, and might involve outreach or promoting FHISO’s activities. We are looking for candidates who can commit the time needed to pursue their remit effectively, however we understand that a board made up of volunteers will have other commitments and try to make allowances for that. If you’d like to understand more about the work involved, contact us at fhiso@fhiso.org.
Our current board has members in many different time zones and we schedule our meetings at times to best suit board member. The working language of the board is English, but we will endeavour to support any board members for whom English is not their first language.
FHISO was founded to develop genealogical standards in a more structured environment than the BetterGEDCOM wiki allowed. We continue to believe there is a pressing need for new, open standards on the exchange and representation of genealogical data, and that there is no organisation better placed than FHISO to develop them. Although it regrettable that it has taken seven years to reach this stage and some of our initial impetus has been lost in the process, but FHISO is finally starting to make a tangible contribution to genealogy technology with drafts of six technical standards now released, and several more in progress.
We are now looking to bring new members on to the board, with fresh ideas and new enthusiasm to help drive FHISO forwards in its mission. We hope you continue to believe in that mission, as we do, and ask that you consider whether you can help us achieve it by joining the board.
Even if you don’t feel able to stand for election to the board, we ask that you renew your membership and vote in the election. FHISO’s main expenses are the costs associated with being incorporated in Arizona. For a sustainable future, we need enough members to cover these costs. A larger membership also helps us ensure our work is progressing in the direction the genealogical community want it take.