Sara Collins, Lily Horseman, Robert Locke, and Helen Martin have been duly elected as directors of the FSA in accordance with our articles of association and the election rules. The full election results are as follows:
Members eligible to vote: 575
Members who voted: 54
Election turn out: 9%
| CANDIDATE | TOTAL VOTES | % of the vote |
| Sara Collins | 25 | 46 |
| Lily Horseman | 48 | 89 |
| Robert Locke | 35 | 65 |
| Helen Martin | 18 | 33 |
Please note that not all voters used all three of their possible votes.
I would be interested to know members thoughts about why the election turnout was so low. Feel free to comment in the section below.
Thank you for that candid and honest reply Gareth.
When it is thin on the ground in terms of bodies it is really challenging to cross t`s and dot i`s, which in certain areas, just becomes less important. Thank you very much for following this up and putting the minutes on the web site. With regards to regular opportunities to engage with the membership, may I suggest a chat room or even Google Hangout, or something of that nature, to give an immediate “live” access to the the directors from time to time. I also like the ‘ask the directors” forum option also. Best wishes. Paul
I really am dismayed at the low voting turnout. The selection of new Directors/Trustees for the FSA is such an important issue. My opinion is that there should have been a longer build up with regular communications going to voting members. We heard on the 28th October and needed to vote by 7th November with half term being in the middle! Personally I feel this was not enough time to allow for the questions and answers (very useful by the way in helping in making selection), I think a month would have been better with twice weekly emails to voting members – one email is not enough. Many people don`t use social media so will miss that one email sent around in the busyness of their daily lives. Just my thoughts, however it`s important the FSA gets more momentum behind the voting for next year when effectively all original directors will need to stand down (having served for three years) and stand for re-election along with anyone else who wants to stand. It is vital the membership are fully behind the voting process next year. Just another thought – I know some of my trainees wanted to vote but couldn`t because of the conditions of their free one year membership. Trainees are currently half the membership – on reflection maybe this was the wrong decision at the time the scheme was initiated; could the process be changed to include trainees votes? Lots to think about for those who are interested!
Hello Clair,
I too was disappointed by the turnout. I can tell you that only 53% of voting members opened the email telling them about the voting process. And only 14% of members clicked through to see the candidate details … from that email anyway. This is consistent with the usual response by members to FSA emails although emails ‘of special interest’ to members can have open rates as high as 75%. In addition, most of the voting occurred within 2 days of the email being sent out. This information may support your view that further emails would have generated interest. I am not sure that a 1 month lead in time would have had a big impact although do agree that 2 weeks would have been much better as half term may well have been a factor. People either act immediately or they simply don’t act. Therefore, I agree that more than one email should be sent in future. Having said that, I imagine that the majority of our members are on Facebook and there were regular reminders posted there.
I did wonder whether the ‘interim’ election did not capture voters’ imagination. Maybe the full board election next year will cause more interest.
It would have been hard to have made the election process any easier. Voters simply had to click ‘reply’ to the email that they were sent and copy and paste their preferred candidates.
Perhaps including the application forms of candidates in the email would have helped? I suspect that the majority of our members never visit the website and so will not immediately know their login details. Perhaps as more resources get added to the website this culture of visiting and engaging will develop?
Gareth
My membership ran out over the half term and I couldn’t sort out the membership payment until yesterday. I had asked for my school to be invoiced but that didn’t happen so ended up paying by PayPal. Unfortunately this meant that I wasn’t a member for the time that voting was open
I feel quite disconnected from the FSA as a member as I am not really sure what is going on and where there are opportunities to vote/voice thoughts on things that matter. With minutes from meetings not being shared anymore, it is hard to actually know what is going on, to share an opinion and to contribute as a member.
You can read the minutes on this website Paul? You just have to go and look for them. ..
Try looking in the Library section? Not hard to find, really.
Thanks Sarah, I know where the minutes are published 🙂 The last ones up are from March ’14 (Board) and Sep `13 (Exec). 🙂
Hello Paul,
I think that your observations capture this moment in the FSAs life quite well and I do tend to agree that a feeling of being disconnected exists in part and that this could lead to voter apathy, which I suppose is your implication. I think that the reduced number of board members has had a bit of a knock on effect in certain areas. For example, losing our company secretary is probably the reason why we only spotted last week that the broad meeting minutes had not been going up on the website, which clearly they should have been doing all along. I sent them all through to the office to be uploaded on Friday. They should be going up today or tomorrow all being well. The FSA is resource and time poor (especially when operating with a reduced board) and so we do rely on the engagement of our members. It is interesting that it has taken 8 months for someone to notice that the minutes were not going up as they should be (I was contacted by a member last week about it).
The plan is to allocate activities and responsibilities to the new board when they meet on 4th December. You will have seen Sara Collin’s (new director) earlier comment about surveying the membership to gain their views.
I have been giving some thought as to how the membership can ask direct questions of the directors and me. Some sort of ‘ask the directors’ forum … or posting ‘issues’ with live comments sections (similar to this page) where members and directors can discuss issues. What do you think?
Of course, we do have the usual newsletters and email notifications that go out (scheduled to be revamped) but for some reason many people don’t open them – up to 50% sometimes. Your ability to ask the question here is one way to connect of course.
Hope this helps,
Gareth
Hello Gareth,
I would like to quantify regarding your comment above. Whilst I was Company Secretary, the minutes were ALWAYS on the website – right up to my last day with the FSA board! It was in fact myself who notified you that minutes were not being put on the website since my departure! Having just looked, the last Board meeting minutes posted are from the meeting on 26th September and I`m sure the Board has met since?!. It really shouldn`t be difficult for the office to put them up once they have been ratified. If that is always an action point, then it should always happen!
I do agree that more communication needs to be had with members – Q & A to the Board in a similar manner to the style you put together for the last directors recruitment would be good. Seeing things from outside of the board now I see things very differently. Previously, I was totally immersed in the FSA; now, as a member rather than director, I see for myself that there needs to be far more interaction between the FSA Board and it`s members. It was so easy to overlook that important factor when one is thinking, eating, sleeping, breathing the FSA as a Board Director – you come away from that and realise members who are not on the Board have very little input as to the running of the FSA! There needs to be some kind of open forum to enable that to happen.
You know me, I speak as I find and please accept my comments as constructive ones as I want to see a healthy, happy and vibrant FSA!
Maybe we should ask the membership? Perhaps an online survey would provide a quick response? I would be happy to organise one? Perhaps we could start to use Survey Monkey. We have a membership prepared to challenge us, lets challenge them so we can improve the process and maintain our standards.
Sounds like a good idea Sara
I think a reminder email a day before the vote closed would have been a good idea. Also this website is STILL slow to load, on several different platforms I own. May have had a bearing on it?