[EuroPython] Invitation to the EuroPython Society General Assembly 2016

[M.-A. Lemburg]

We would like to officially invite all EuroPython Society (EPS)
members to attend this year’s EPS General Assembly (GA), which we will
run as in-person meeting at the upcoming EuroPython Conference 2016 in
Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain.

This email is also available blog post:
http://www.europython-society.org/post/146998034935/invitation-to-the-europython-society-general


Place of the General Assembly meeting
-------------------------------------

We will meet on Thursday, July 21 2016, at 14:30 CEST in room A2 of
the EuroPython 2016 conference venue Euskalduna Conference Center
(ECC) in Bilbao, Spain.

There will be a talk to invite volunteers to participate in organizing
EuroPython 2017 in preparation for next year’s event at 14:00 CEST in
the same room, right before the General Assembly. You may want to
attend that talk as well. In this talk, we will present the EuroPython
Workgroup Concept, we have been using successfully for two years now.


General Assembly Agenda
-----------------------

The agenda contents for the assembly is defined by the EPS bylaws. We
are planning to use the following structure:

 * Opening of the meeting
 * Selection of meeting chair, secretary and 2 checkers of the minutes
 * Motion establishing the timeliness of the call to the meeting
 * Presentation of the annual report and annual accounts by the board
 * Presentation of the report of the auditor
 * Discharge from liability for the board
 * Presentation of a budget by the outgoing board.
 * Acceptance of budget and decision on membership fees for the
   upcoming year
 * Propositions from the board (relating to the board election)
 * Determination of the size of the board for the period until the
   next annual meeting of the General Assembly
 * Election of members of the board
 * Election of chair of the board
 * Election of one auditor and one replacement. The auditor does not
   have to be certified in any way and is normally selected among the
   members of the society.
 * The optional election of a nomination committee for the next annual
   meeting of the General Assembly
 * Propositions from the board (all others)
 * Motions from the members, if any
 * Closing of the meeting

Election of the members of the board
------------------------------------

The EPS bylaws limit the number of board members to one chair and 2 -
6 directors, at most 7 directors in total (also see the proposition
below to increase this number to 9). Experience has shown that the
board members are the most active organizers of the EuroPython
conference, so we try to get as many board members as possible to
spread the work load.

All members of the EPS are free to nominate or self nominate board
members. Please write to board at europython-society.org no later than
Friday, July 15 2016, if you want to run for board. We will then
include you in the list we’ll have in the final nomination
announcement before the GA, which is scheduled for July 16.

The following people have shown interest in running for board in the
next term (in alphabetical order):

 * Borja Ayerdi
 * Christian Barra
 * Joaquin Berenguer
 * Darya Chyzhyk
 * Oier Etxaniz
 * Alexander Hendorf
 * Marc-André Lemburg
 * Alexandre Savio
 * Anthon van der Neut

We will post more detailed information about the above candidates and
any new nominations in a separate blog post.


Propositions from the board
---------------------------

The board is currently preparing a number of changes to EPS bylaws to
broaden the scope of the EPS and prepare it for taking on more
responsibility in the coming years:

 * Broaden membership to all Python users in Europe and broaden the
   focus to not only run conferences, but also further the use of
   Python in Europe.

 * Initiate the rebasing of the EPS from Gothenburg, Sweden, to
   Brussels, Belgium. This will be a two step process and we’d like to
   prepare the first step at this year’s GA by creating a new EPS
   non-profit in Brussels, possibly as subsidiary of the existing
   society in Sweden.

 * Increase the possible number of directors to 2-8 in addition to one
   chair (9 directors in total), in order to attract more highly
   active board members and better distribute the work load.

The bylaws allow for additional propositions to be announced up until
5 days before the GA, so the above list is not necessarily the final
list.


Motions from the members
------------------------

EPS members are entitled to suggest motions to be voted on at the
GA. The bylaws require any such motions to be announced at least 5
days before the GA. If you would like to propose a motion, please send
it to board at europython-society.org no later than Friday, July 15 2016.


Enjoy,
--
EuroPython Society
http://www.europython-society.org/