All the other cool kids are doing it. Of course, I'm running for Melbourne Perl Mongers secretary, and not The Perl Foundation president. The original copy of this announcement can be found in the Melbourne.PM archives <hr/>

G'day everyone,

I'm afraid that I won't be able to attend the Melbourne.PM AGM on the 10th of May, as I have a prior commitment to be in Sydney teaching people how to use Perl. As such, I want to apologise for my absence in advance.

However, Melbourne.PM is an organisation that I care about very much, one that I've been heavily involved in since it resurfaced in December 2001. If you've been to a few meetings or spent some time on the mailing list, then you've probably seen me speak or post. As you are no doubt aware, I'm deeply passionate about Perl, and about the Perl community. That's you.

I'm going to be running for the position of Secretary at the Melbourne.PM AGM, and I want to let everyone know why. In particular, I want people to have the chance to also stand for the position of secretary if they disagree with me, and for the membership to have a choice as to who they elect.

My primary goal as Melbourne.PM secretary is obviously to ensure that Melbourne.PM grows as an organisation, is rewarding to its members, and encourages and supports participation in Perl and the Perl community. I started using Perl more than ten years ago because it was a fun language, and I want to make sure it's fun to be involved in our user group.

However I also have a few goals with regards to the organisation of Melbourne.PM itself. I want to try and make it open and transparent and accessible as possible for all members. I'd like to encourage everyone to become involved and have a hand in its running.

In particular, I'd like for the committee itself to become a lot more open, and a lot better defined in its roles and responsibilities. I want to make sure that people who want to help have the opportunity to do so, and those who want to take a greater hand in running the group can, even if they're not elected members themselves.

In particular, I'd like to work towards implementing the following for the new committee:

• Committee meetings that occur after the regular Melbourne.PM meetings, and which are open for all Melbourne.PM members to attend.
• Ensure that minutes of these meetings are accessible on-line to the Melbourne.PM membership.
• Evoke discussion with the membership as a whole into the roles and responsibilities of the committee.
• The committee list to be opened to subscriptions from any member who wishes to become involved in the running of Melbourne.PM.

I'm running for the position of secretary in particular because I believe that some of these changes will mean quite a bit more work. I feel that being secretary puts me into the best position to take up that work and run with it.

I would like to invite everyone to talk to me, either publicly or privately, both now and in the future, about the direction in which Melbourne.PM should be heading. I want to ensure that the organisation best serves its members, and believe that active feedback and participation is important in this process.

I would also like to encourage you to think about running for the committee now, and to discuss it with the membership. The only way you can be sure of standing for election to get your nomination in by the post by the 3rd May, and as described at http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/melbourne-pm/2006-March/001939.html . If you can't easily get access to two other Melbourne.PM members, then feel free to send your nomination to:

Perl Training Australia
104 Elizabeth St
Coburg VIC 3058

Both Jacinta and myself will sign your nomination and post it on for you.

Many thanks for your support,

Paul