[Nmabs] National Association of Blind Students Election Forum Announcement.

[Darian Smith]

The below is a combination of announcements from Mary Fernandez who is
  Coordinating   the election forum to take place coming up.
 My appoligies if  you got these messages earlier on in the day and
see this for the second time.


Hello All:

I hope this Email finds you doing well. As the NABS elections approach,
we thought that hosting a Presidential Candidates' Forum would be both
beneficial and informative for the membership. Thus, we are asking all
who are interested in voting during the NABS meeting and would like to
know more about their candidates to participate in this call.

First, the call will consist of six candidates maximum, who are
interested in running for the offices of President, First Vice
President, or Second Vice President. The candidates will be given a set
time to make opening remarks with random selection to be made by the
moderator in advance.  Then, they will be asked questions which the
membership will have provided and, finally, they will have time to make
concluding statements. If time permits, they will also take questions
from the floor before making concluding remarks.  The time allotted for
each candidate to deliver statements and answer questions will depend
both on the number of candidates who choose to participate in the Forum
and the number of questions submitted.  The call is not expected to last
any longer than one hour.

In order for the membership to submit questions, I will be creating a
Survey Monkey form, which we can use to submit our questions. All
questions must be submitted by noon on Wednesday in order for them to be
considered. Furthermore, this survey will allow you to indicate whether
you are intending to run for an office and be part of this forum.

In order to make the call objective, Ollie Cantos, who is not affiliated
with the student division but who is a Federationist and past president
of NABS, will serve as our moderator. I am attaching his biography with
this Email. Ollie  will be sorting through the questions from the Survey
Monkey results and selecting which will be posed to the candidates.

In order for this Forum to be effective, we have set a few parameters,
so that the call can be objective, informative, and fair to all those
who want to participate.

      1. Because of time constraints, the offices will be limited to
the positions of President, 1st
Vice President, and 2nd Vice President.

      2. These candidates will be given a set time for an
introduction, time to answer questions from the membership, and time to
make concluding remarks.

      3. Those who are running for the previously-mentioned offices,
except for the office of President, must indicate via Survey Monkey
their desire to be a part of the forum as a candidate. If more than two
people are intending to run for the same office and wish to participate
in the Forum, every effort will be made to accommodate each candidate.
If the total number of candidates wishing to participate in the Forum
exceeds 6, only the first 6 names received (2 for President and the
remainder for the other offices) will be able to participate in the
Candidate Forum.

      4. Once we get a set count of the candidates participating, we
will send out a breakdown of the time frames. Note that if you are
participating as a candidate, you will be stopped, even if it is
mid-sentence by our Moderator, once time is up.  He will make every
attempt to give 30-second warnings before time is set to expire.

Finally, having read all the postings regarding elections that have been
written in the last two weeks, I sincerely hope that we all make an
effort to be on this call. This is your chance to let your voice be
heard and to ask questions of your candidates! I will create the Survey
Monkey soon, and post the link. In the meantime, be thinking about what
you want to know about your candidates before July 4th.

Candidates' Forum
Date: Wednesday June 29, 2011
Time: 7:30 PM EST
Phone: 712-775-7100
Passcode: 257963
Below you will find the link to the survey for the NABS Candidates' Forum!
The survey has very broad categories under which you can write your questions.
Please take the time to take a look at this. It should not take more
than 5 minutes or so, depending on how many questions you have!
Thanks!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z6W5J5Q