At a time when once again black lives appear to still be noticeably mattering less, it seems slightly lame to talk about the internal democracy of ADSO. But at the end of the day I guess the fact is that improving and maintaining good, transparent and accountable democracy is more vital than ever. We can only try to use our influence and skills in our small way as our contribution to improving the wellbeing of others throughout society. Which means that this week I am going to talk mainly about ADSO’s own accountability.
Nine months ago at the AGM the world was a different place. We had enjoyed a positive and informative conference and set about the internal business of this association on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. We had no idea what challenges 2020 would be posing to DSOs and governance officers. The idea of almost universal virtual meetings was a thing of pipe dreams (assuming people still have pipes to dream on!).
AGM and Nomination of ADSO Directors
So the time is coming to think about this year’s AGM, which in itself will be a virtual one, run on the Zoom platform on Thursday 26 November 2020. An invitation to that meeting will be sent to all paid up members in due course. The Articles of Association explain the process in full and are available at the following link:
https://www.adso.co.uk/app/uploads/2020/02/ARTICLES-OF-ASSOCIATION-POST-2019-AGM.pdf
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You will see from this that there are six directors to be appointed each year – i.e. the Chair, Vice-Chair, Director of Finance, Director of Training, Director of Communications and the Company Secretary. There are role profiles for each of these positions on the website under this link:
https://www.adso.co.uk/adso-governance/
If you are interested in applying to become one of the directors you need to complete the
Nomination form
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IIMC Region XI Director Elections
All ADSO members will shortly be receiving a communication from the IIMC in relation to Region XI Director elections during September. There is currently a vacancy and the two candidates are from the Netherlands – Eelco Groenenboom and Hans Rijs. You can view the statements from both on the following links:
Eeclo statement
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Hans Rijs statement
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I congratulate them on their excellent command of English! Region XI is the branch of IIMC that covers Europe, and ADSO is working to develop better relationships with partner organisations in the Netherlands and elsewhere. The successful Symposiums in recent years is testimony to that. So please use your vote in the election so we can continue the good work.
ADSO Forum
Turning to practical matters, I am drawn to the website forum and am interested to see helpful and practical advice being given on a range of subjects, some of which are listed in the section below. It’s good the see members of ADSO using this valuable resource and I urge colleagues to continue to do so.
Peter Savage, ADSO Company Secretary
I hope that many members will vote and make even more use of our international network in the future. If you want to know more about my ambitions, check out my LinkedIn page.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6706583241119399936/?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A(ugcPost%3A6706583240314101760%2C6706652653595697152)