SSHAP AGM and Election

Dear SSHAP members,

We celebrated yesterday, on 14 May, the first anniversary of our incorporation as a non-profit. In order to maintain our legal status we are required to hold a first Annual General Meeting within 18 months of incorporation and, as a matter of fact, hold our first election. The AGM will take place on 17 June 2016, during our annual conference. All members are invited to attend.

At the Meeting, the Assembly will hopefully ratify the constitution (attached). The SSHAP’s structure has not been very rigid, but for the purpose of the law, we need to have a Secretary and a President. Richard Zach and I have been filling these positions in the interim, i.e. since 2008 (yes, that long already!) and we will be hoping to be elected by the Assembly – so as to put an end to the dictatorship and establish the Supreme Sovereignty of the Will of the People. (The Will of the People is an obsolete notion, but we are historians after all.)

The Association was co-founded by three other members: Amie Thomasson, Mathieu Marion and Mark Textor whom we’d like to thank very warmly for their input over the years. Unlike me and Richard, however, they have either moved on to better things – or they disagree with our attempt to become a democratic institution and are in the process of forming an alternative “Axis” of some kind – and they will not be seeking election.

We’ve sought to recruit members interested in joining SSHAP’s leadership to populate our Board. There are currently four persons we would like to nominate on the Steering Committee:

  • Aude Bandini, University of Montreal
  • Matt Carlson, Wabash College
  • Theresa Kouri, Ohio State
  • Sean Morris, Metropolitan State Univsersity Denver

All members are however invited and warmly encouraged to make further suggestions. There are still 3 positions available, one for Treasurer and a maximum of two on Steering Committee.

The mandate of the Steering Committee is:

  • to assist the executive in finding a location for upcoming annual meetings (previous venues include: McMaster in Hamilton, Indiana at Bloomington, University of Montreal and Trinity College Dublin; prospective venues include San Diego, Helsinki and Berlin);
  • to make or solicit proposals for symposia at the Central and Pacific APA, where SSHAP meets annually (for previous meetings: http://sshap.org/category/meetings/apa-group-meetings/)

Nominations can be entered until the vote, at the AGM.

Because we’d like to insure continuity on the Board, and because this can only be done if mandates are staggered, initial mandates will exceptionally be for the following length, starting July 1 2016.

  • President: 2 years
  • Secretary: 3 years
  • Treasurer: 2 years
  • Steering Committee member 1: 3 years
  • Steering Committee member 2: 2 years
  • Steering Committee member 3: 3 years
  • Steering Committee member 4: 2 years
  • Steering Committee member 5: 3 years
  • Steering Committee member 6: 2 years

Subsequent mandates will be for 2 years, as stipulated in the Constitution.

We will be looking forward to seeing you in Denver. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us:

sshap@mcmaster.ca

Very best,

Sandra