One of the three parent representative nominations was received as a hard copy and unfortunately this was received after the midday closure for nominations. I now must declare that nomination as “Invalid” due to being received outside the set timeframes for nominations (additional details are included in the next steps update below).
As such, we have only received 2 valid nominations for the five parent elected positions and both of these candidates are now confirmed as successfully being elected to form the new school board.
The successful candidates are
Shyam Tumuluri (New)
Staff results are unchanged.
Regards
Gail Greenslade
Amesbury Board Elections – Returning Officer
This is to update you on the revised next steps after correcting the election results as detailed above.
Firstly to explain the mistake made: This year the election process changed to include both electronic nominations and electronic voting. In previous years, there had been a grace period shortly after the deadline to allow for postal and hard copy nominations to arrive. That process changed this year with the move to electronic nominations, and the deadline now applies to ALL forms of nominations.
When we received the late nomination I incorrectly advised the returning officer that based on the old process this was okay to accept. However this should not have been accepted and the nomination has now correctly been declared invalid.
So firstly my apologies to you, our school community for my mistake, and secondly to the nominee, for initially accepting the nomination as valid.
We now have two successful candidates and the next steps to move forward have been updated accordingly.
To be able to still form a board while we move into a by-election we need to co-opt a member of the outgoing board to continue on until the vacancies are filled over next few months. We do have a volunteer to remain for a short period and this must be confirmed at the final meeting of the ‘Outgoing Board”. Once confirmed, we can announce the appointment.
We now have three ‘Casual Vacancies’ to fill. The process, based on advice from NZSTA (NZ School Governance Support body), is that we hold a by-election for all three vacancies.As such we will work with our Returning Officer to arrange a new by-election calendar, publish it and open the process to seek nominations for the three vacancies.
The outgoing board will still have its final meeting on the 31st August with the new board (2 elected and one co-opted member) taking over from the following meeting on the 28th of September.
If you have any questions regarding this mail or what being a board member entails please contact me either via email or phone and we can have a chat to cover any questions you may have.
John Bunting
Amesbury Board, Presiding Member
Email – jbunting@xtra.co.nz
Mobile – 027 3841500
