I remember when I first was made aware that I could run for the Outpost Board in Winter 2012. It was advertised on one of the winter mailings and since the deadline to apply was in June, a whole five or six months away, I filed it away and promptly forgot about it. Every couple of weeks, I would be griped with the anxiety that I had missed the deadline, only to see that the deadline was still a couple of months away. 

This pattern went on until May and the deadline was actually, finally, bearing down. I got my act together and fulfilled the requirements just in time for the deadline.

After learning that I was approved as a candidate, there was nothing for three months. I mean, I campaigned; I spread the word that I was running for the board and that owners should vote for me. After a few weeks though, I ran out of people to talk to and there were still two months left. To put this in perspective, our campaign period was longer than the last Presidential campaign.

The board has long recognized that our nomination, campaign and election cycle is too long and it has been in discussions over the last year to address this. 

It’s our hypothesis that a shorter election cycle will better capture and hold your attention and by incorporating candidate events in the process, we will be able to create more connection between you and our prospective board members. Taken together, we think that this will drive owner interest in the election, candidate interest, engagement between owners and candidates, and hopefully, voter turnout.   

We’ll need your help to prove our hypothesis. In order to make this happen, you will have to approve a one-time resolution to extend the time frame in which we have to hold elections by six months from October to April. This way, we’ll be able to leverage all of the year-end events to raise awareness like the Annual Meeting and Annual Report. And since all current board directors were elected in elections that took place in October, the resolution will also provide a one-time six-month extension of the terms of the current board members so that all board member terms remain compliant.

We hope that you will join with us to approve this resolution to refresh our long and inefficient nomination and election cycle. 

You find more information about refreshing our election cycle here.

– David Lee
Vice president