by In January I assumed the Secretary duties from Jesse Trucks, which has pushed me over the promised 5 hours per week involvement. Most of that was learning how to do Wiki text and also transcribe our meeting minutes from recordings. (Learning MediaWiki was a plus since at $WORK I had started using that for my own system information)
I am also the Board Liaison for the Mentorship Team. That project is one that I feel the strongest about. I feel it is a place that LOPSA can make a big impact in our profession.
This year the board will be losing two hard working people. Jesse Trucks and Philip Kizer. I knew both of them before getting on the board via the email list and at PICC but working with them this year has been great. Philip has been a calm but direct leader, better than I could have ever done.
As the elections draw nearer I start to think back about the earlier elections where people were just names on a ballot and each year the names became more familiar from postings I have seen on the list. But until getting involved with PICC they were only that, names on a list. Now more and more I have a face to a name. A byproduct of this is also I have become more of a Google+ and LinkedIn user.
As the end of my first year in office draws near I can easily say I did not drown in the deep end of the LOPSA pool that I was thrown into. I hope that after the elections we continue to have the same working chemistry on the board as we do now.
All I can say to the members is research the Candidates, ask questions about them and to them on the LOPSA-LIVE sessions and vote accordingly. If you were thinking about throwing your network tester into the ring by all means do so if you are ready and willing to put in the time. Heck it is only 5 hours a week. Right?