[nabs-l] President for the student division

Kaiti Shelton crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com
Fri Oct 3 02:31:34 UTC 2014


Hi Shikha and all,

I have a couple of things to add in addition to the great points
others have already made.  Before elections, I would recommend you
spend some time figuring out exactly why you want to run for
president.  If it is because you truly think you could do a better job
than the current president, and that you feel you have qualities which
could be real strengths in leading the division to a productive and
meaningful year ahead, then by all means run.  If this is the case, I
would recommend that you also identify things you'd like to positively
change for the division, and get a plan together so people will know
that you're dedicated enough to have thought through what you would
want to accomplish if you were indeed elected president.  If you are
doing it to beat out your friend, or for a reason like you want the
role of president for reasons other than what I mentioned earlier,
then I don't know if those are the best reasons for wanting to become
president.  The president of any organization is kind of like the
go-to person; you can have different officers and committee chairs,
but if something goes wrong and those people don't know what decision
to make, they're going to come to you wanting to know what their
course of action should be.  The president is also in charge of the
paperwork for the division; I know in my state division in the past
year I have had to organize meetings to update our constitution, send
out necessary emails to various people as well as our list serve, and
just recently completed a lengthy packet which our state awards
committee will review for any honors the division might receive.  I
also needed to compile a roster of current members, make sure a copy
of the constitution got to the president of our affiliate, the
president of NABS, and the president of the NFB in Baltimore.
Furthermore, our division set up a bank account so we could fundraise
a few months ago, and I had to co-sign all the paperwork for that
account along with the treasurer for the division.  You have to do all
the grunt work like making sure your division is in compliance with
the bilaws, troubleshoot problems, and sometimes be willing to travel
to affiliate events like board meetings (I and several of the Ohio
division's board members just did that a few weeks ago as well).  It's
not all representing the NFB on the front lines all the time, and if
you're president you have to be willing to do that work in addition to
working with members of your division, your affiliate, and NABS.

As far as election etiquette is concerned, I think that in addition to
speaking about your plans to run for president with your affiliate and
current division presidents, that you should also inform your opponent
out of courtesy.  You don't necessarily have to, but plenty of people
do it just out of consideration for the other person.
If, after thinking these things and the points others have made
through, you decide that running for president isn't the best option
right now, try running for another officer position or for a spot on
the board.  You can learn a lot about how to run an organization by
being a member in another capacity, and some of the duties of other
officers can be really fun.  I was secretary my first year in OABS,
and loved it so much that sometimes even now I miss taking minutes.
If you decide to run for president, good luck in your campaign.

I hope this helps.

On 10/2/14, Karl Martin Adam via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi Shikha,
>
> Why do you want to run for president of the student division?
> It's very unusual for someone who isn't on the board of an
> organization to start out working with that organization by
> running for president.  Perhaps you could consider running for
> one of the board member positions and serve for a couple years
> before running for president.  If you did that you'd be able to
> see what the duties of the president are by observing the
> president you're working with.  Also, just a point of advice, I
> would never vote for someone who based their candidacy on the
> fact that they're opponent didn't know a pledge.  That's
> completely irrelevant to whether someone can do a good job as
> president.  A good candidate is involved with the organization
> they want to serve on the board of enough to know what the duties
> of the position they're running for are and has something they
> want to accomplish on the board beyond just being on the board.
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: Shikha via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> To: National Association of Blind Students <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Date sent: Thu, 2 Oct 2014 10:29:07 -0400
> Subject: [nabs-l] President for the student division
>
> Hello,
> I know that i have asked this question in the past, but only one
> person replied back to my question.
> Our state convention for georgia is next Friday on October 10th,
> 11th, and 12th and i would like to run as president for the
> student division.
> The problem is that i do not know what a president does for the
> student division.
> Also, i am not sure what i should say in my speech so people will
> vote for me.
> All i know is that the other person that is running for president
> does not know the NFB pledge, so i will be mentioning in my
> speech that i know the pledge and i will call on a random member
> on the board to say it.  If they do not know it then they will
> have to pay a quarter.
> The reason that i know that he is running is because he told me
> when we went on a mentoring trip few weeks ago.
> He does not know that i am also running.
>
>
>
> Shikha.
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-- 
Kaiti




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