[HOT] Congratulations to our new voting members!

[Schuyler Erle]

Greetings, HOTties! and a happy new year to you all.

First, let me thank those of you who participated in the new member election in December. This year was the first time we were obliged to hold an actual vote for the new member induction, and enough of you finally submitted ballots to make it possible for me to welcome the following contributors to voting membership in our formal organization:

  * Robert Banick
  * Jaakko Helleranta
  * Heather Leson
  * Tim Waters

All four inductees have devoted significant time to the Team in the past, and have rendered significant service for their efforts. We are proud to announce their induction, and hope that they will continue to provide the excellent contributions for which they have been justly recognized, and which make our organization capable of doing the work that we do.

I would like to offer recognition to the nominees who were not elected in this round. In particular, there were two individuals who have also devoted significant time and effort to HOT's work, who missed induction by only a single vote. I hope that we will be able to induct them, as well as the other worthy nominees from last month's ballot, in a future new member election.

On that note, the Board of Directors has been discussing the possibility of holding new member elections more frequently, in order to give participants in the organization more opportunities to get involved and have an active voice in the direction of the org. We are hoping to undertake, with your full involvement, an exploration and discussion of what it means to be a member of HOT, and what you all would like the direction of our Team to be over the next year. We are looking to conduct this discussion over the next few months, with the hope of holding another new member election later in the spring.

The nomination period for the Board of Directors election has been extended to January 9, end of day PST, as mentioned previously on the mailing list. The Board election will commence thereafter and continue until end of day January 16. We will send you voting instructions and other reminders about this over the next week.

If you have any comments or questions about this process, or thoughts you'd like to share on the Team and on the responsibilities of voting membership within the Team, I wholeheartedly invite you to reply to this message and kick off the discussion forthwith.

On behalf of your Board, I wish you all a happy and productive 2013!

SDE