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           U L T I M A T E   H A P P E N I N G S           
               Issue 274 - September 4, 2003                

******************* 2402 players served ********************

      OCUA - The largest ultimate league in the world!
            (328 teams and 3800 members in 2002)

                    http://www.ocua.ca/

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   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   ~~~ OCUA ELECTION UPDATE AND INFORMATION PACKAGE ~~~    
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Members of the OCUA community,

It is with great relief  (and slight embarrassment for being 
so late) that I announce that the OCUA Elections Process is 
now clearly defined, and that our official list of 
candidates is now complete.

I will get to the finer details below, but at a high- level, 
we have three candidates vying for TWO directorship 
positions via General Open Elections. These candidates are:

Cory Bowditch
Lee Donovan
Ken Lange


Also, as described on the OCUA web site and in Ultimate 
Happenings, there is a new Election process in which a 
Nominations Committee was tasked with finding two Directors 
who will benefit the Board with a combination of business 
skills, leadership qualities, expertise and community 
presence.

The Nominations Committee’s recommendation for the two 
Directors are :

Gavin Lumsden (OCUA member, Executive Producer at Rogers TV)
Jennifer (Jen) Wilkie (OCUA member, Lawyer/Partner at 
Gowlings)



How is this New Process Different ?
===================================

In previous elections, ALL candidates were vying for one of 
4 available Directorships.

With the new process, the "open" candidates (in this case 
Cory Bowditch, Lee Donovan and Ken Lange) are vying for TWO 
positions, while the other two Directorships are made 
available for candidates put forward by the Nominations 
Committee.  However, even for these two positions, the OCUA 
Electorate has a voice, by ratifying the Committee’s 
selections via a YES/NO vote.  The proposed candidates must 
secure 50% + 1 of the votes in order to win a position on 
the Board.  If a candidate is rejected by the voters (ie. 
gets less than 50%), they are removed from the list, and a 
new candidate must then be put forward by the Nominations 
Committee.


How will the New Process work, exactly ? 
========================================

As in all previous Elections, each team will get one ballot, 
where they get to make a decision about each candidate.

For the "open" elections, teams will select [up to] two 
names from amongst the open candidates list (Cory Bowditch, 
Lee Donovan or  Ken Lange ).

For the ratification process, teams will vote on each 
Committee-nominated candidate (Jen Wilkie, Gavin Lumsden) by 
selecting either a YES or a NO option.

In fact, the ballot will look exactly like this :

OPEN ELECTION:
SELECT TWO CANDIDATES FROM THE 
FOLLOWING LIST

Bowditch, Cory
Donovan, Lee
Lange, Ken

NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE  PROPOSED 
CANDIDATES RATIFICATION :

DO YOU AGREE TO HAVE THE FOLLOWING 
CANDIDATES ASCEND TO THE OCUA BOD ?

Lumsden, Gavin                Y  /  N
Wilkie, Jennifer                Y  /  N


Why have this new Elections Process at all ?
============================================

As the league has grown, it has become quite obvious that 
Board’s responsibilities have exceeded far beyond the day-to-
day activities of running the League:  managing million 
dollar budgets, lobbying city councilors for attention to 
our cause, addressing numerous legal issues, etc.   The 
Board felt that to address the growing needs of the 
organization, it had to find people that had the experience, 
knowledge and community contacts to bring OCUA "into the 
next level".

As many of our league players are willing to help and 
possibly even submit their candidacy, the Board felt that it 
had a certain duty to find people that would best answer the 
needs of the Organization, even if that meant looking 
outside the Ultimate community (... which, wasn’t the case 
this year.)

In order to fulfil this requirement, the Board had to find a 
mechanism whereby the selected candidates would be able to 
ascend to a Directorship position while still having to be 
accepted by OCUA Electorate.

The ratification process attempts to do just that.


Isn’t this New Process an infringement on existing OCUA By-
Laws ?
===========================================================

This issue could likely be debated forever, but not at the 
expense of holding the Elections hostage. The Board is 
steadfast in its belief that it is not in contravention of 
the By-laws. While there is some agreement that the original 
intent may have changed, the wording is not specific enough 
to conclusively point to any infringements of the By-laws.

The Board collectively spent hundreds of hours debating 
this, and with the input and feedback of the Elections 
Officer, it was agreed that the process was sound.

No-one will likely dispute the fact the Board is genuinely 
concerned with the well-being of the League, (... which is 
why it was important to implement this new process as soon 
as possible) and that it would not have proceeded as it did 
if it thought any wrong- doing was taking place.


A Final word
============

Again, the Board would like to apologize to its members and 
to the candidates for the delay and confusion arising from 
this change in process.

We hope all of you will still value the importance of the 
voting task that lies ahead of you.

Each team captain will receive an E-ballot via e-mail from 
the Elections Officer (Stephan Suys) on Sunday, September 
14th.  You will then have until September 29th to consult 
with your teammates and return your vote.

A full bio package of all the Candidates is available on-
line on the OCUA web-site, will be printed in UH, and will 
be sent to each team captain along with the E-Ballot on 
September 14th.



If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail the 
Elections Officer at s_suys@hotmail.com

(NB. I will NOT be following Open Forum discussions )


Thank you,
Stephan Suys
Elections Officer 



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