Installation of SP Board 2017/18

According to announcements in the Second Pride Festival Group the installation of the new board of Second Pride will take place on Saturday September 9, 2017, at 12 PM (noon) SLT.

At this event the current board will hand over all power and the "the nuclear codes", passwords etc. to the new board.

Everyone is welcome to observe the transition which will occur at the Second Pride sim.

Second Pride Has A New Board

Seeing as there was only one candidate to four different positions on the board the present board made the wise decision to cancel the elections and proclaim the new board elected.

This picture is, alas, totally unrelated to the subject of this post, but nice to look at 
nonetheless. It shows actor Sam Heughan in the hit television series Outlander

The new board will now - well, after the inauguration - consist of
Chair - DJRez Cyberstar
Secretary - MikeAdam Resident
Events Director - Jamie Rozenberg and
IT Director - Lee McKay

Congratulations to you all and may you dispense of your duties as well as the previous board.

The new board faces some difficulties from the start as five heavy positions on the board are vacant, Marketing Director, Treasurer, Security Director, Community Relations Director and Building Director. To even out their workload and get a truly well-functioning board I believe it would be wise for the new board to scout for people to fill the vacant positions.

Sam Heughan in Outlander again, this time with a bit more clothing

Let the Q&A Commence!

The time for candidates to the board of Second Pride to deliver their statements has passed.

Four residents have submitted statements.
Chair - DJRez Cyberstar
Secretary - MikeAdam Resident
Events - Jamie Rozenberg
IT - Lee McKay

In my preliminary opinion they all seem to be qualified and reliable.

The time for questions and answers to the candidates has started and continue through August 26, 2017. So ask away!

You will find a link to the Second Pride website in the left column of this blog. Just click the image and it will take you to the site.

You should be able to read the statements, questions and answers without logging in, but to be able to pose questions to the candidates you must first register on the website (Top right corner) and log in. 

Second Pride - Call for Board Candidates (Updated)

The minutes of the Second Pride annual meeting on July 30, 2017, have been published on the Second Pride website. You will find the minutes in the right hand column.

Left to right, Tootsie Nootan, Viktor Sandman, Jak Calcutt & LLedge Eames
(Marge Beaumont wasn't able to attend) 

A quick summary of the reports from the board members would be that this years Second Pride festival was a huge success, with lots of visitors, wonderful venues and builds, few security issues and loads of donations.

The board thanked everyone and the board members were in turn all lauded by those in attendance for their good work for the community and the organization.

After setting aside funds for tier for the Second Pride sim for the coming year and some petty cash, there will be roughly US$1,000 for the board to donate to charity. The board is considering donations to either The Rainbow Railroad or The Human Rights Campaign Fund.

The biggest surprise was the news that the whole board is stepping down, every single one of them. All the positions will be open for the election of new candidates.

The election timetable is as follows (all dates are of course SLT).

1. August 1 - September 3, 2017 - The Second Pride Festival group is closed for new members until the end of the election.
2. August 7-20, 2017 Call for candidates.
3. August 20-26, 2017 Question & answers period 
4. August 27 - September 2, 2017 Elections

The election committee will be headed by LLedge Eames as the outgoing chair.

---

Those considering submitting their candidacies will find a Board Candidate Submission Form (here).

Please take the time to consider how you - or perhaps a friend - could serve the LGBT+ community in SecondLife and send in your Candidacy.

---
UPDATE 8/13/2017
Lee MacKay, the current webmaster for the Second Pride website, in a comment on Google+, informs me: "It's also very important to note that anyone wishing to participate in the Q&A portion of the election process MUST create an account on the website to do so. The Q&A will take the form of comments beneath each candidate's statement, and a working, verified login is required to post or reply. This applies to the candidates as well, of course. - SP Webmaster"

Second Pride - General Assembly 2017

As announced on the Second Pride Facebook page there will be a Second Pride General Assembly meeting held on Sunday, July 30th, 2017, at 1PM SLT. 

The agenda is as follows:

1. Call to order
2. Second Pride Festival wrap up
3. Second Pride Festival projected donations and disbursement of funds
4. Election timeline
5. Q & A period if needed
6. Adjournment

All Second Pride members are welcome to attend. Hope to see you there!

Second Pride HQ (SLurl)

Second Pride Board of Directors

Thank You, Board & Volunteers of Second Pride 2017

The fountain and the globe

I have just finished reading LLedge Eames closing statement for the 2017 Second Pride Festival. It begins like this (For the complete statement please go to The Second Pride website (url)):

"Thank you for an amazing 2017 Second Pride Festival!

As the sun sets on yet another wildly successful and my last Second Pride Festival season. I’d like to take a moment to say some thank yous. I am so grateful for this years outpouring of participation not to mention I had the pleasure of working with some of the most amazing talents from across the grid.

Our 2016 – 2017 Second Pride Board. Jak Calcutt with his outstanding builds and designs, creating a feast for our eyes, Marge Beaumont for her behind the scenes accounting, Tootsie Nootan and her security team (Levi & Kit) keeping us all safe, and Viktor Sandman for all his patience scheduling and wrangling our performers. To our volunteers. Kahvy & Garrett Smith for undertaking and creating some fantastic social media buzz along with all those bloggers. Lee McKay and his webmaster skills that put us back online."

The shopping mall

After thanking the sponsors, vendors, performers and others that contributed to making this one of the best festivals ever, he goes on to thank the attendants and then finishes

"On more than one occasion I was greeted by complete strangers and then thanked for providing them with such a true and wonderful pride experience. It was comments like that and many more that told me we had hit our mark. I can’t begin to thank this team enough. You ALL really outdid yourself and should be proud of all you accomplished.

As I mentioned earlier this is my last year as Chairman. It has been such an honor to be involved in this organization. As much as I am ready to step down, I will miss it and all the nuances. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to bring my hope and joy to you all through this wonderful outlet."

The Japanese Garden, a permanent exhibition

Well, I would in turn like to thank the board of Second Pride for - yet another - amazing and enjoyable festival. This Second Pride festival is up there among my top three all-time favorites since I first started going to Pride in SecondLife in 2008.

I can hardly imagine all the hard work and dedication our board and the volunteers put in to this venture - and all the work they did the rest of the year - for the LGBT+ community in Second Life. 

It is even harder for me to understand why the boards dedicated work throughout the year has sometimes been met by criticism by fringes of the community, especially those who do not lift a finger or support the efforts in any way whatsoever. 

The memorial chapel

Second Pride must exist first and foremost for the LGBT+ residents in SecondLife, to be an inworld presence, to offer support to other smaller LGBT+ organizations, and to represent our community to the surrounding community and to Linden Lab. All else must, in my not so humble opinion, be secondary to that.

I am saddened that the present board say they doesn't wish to continue, although I do understand their position. Hopefully some of them can be persuaded to continue, or at to return after some rest and relaxation from these responsibilities. 

My deepest gratitude, again, goes to the board of 2016-2017 for a job well done!

The main stage

All the pictures in this post show the wonderful work that Build Director Jak Calcutt did for this years festival-venue. I have them in a folder named "The sim that Jak built".

Dates Decided for Second Pride 2017

The Board of Directors of Second Pride had a General Assembly Meeting in the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall on Sunday, April 30, 2017, at 01:30PM SLT.

At the meeting the dates for this years festival were decided. Below are the festival dates as well as release dates for sponsor, vendor, and DJ information.

Festival dates Friday June 23 - Sunday July 2, 2017!

Sponsor Packages available from Monday May 8*
Vendor Packages available from Monday May 15*
Performer Applications from Friday May 26 - June 18th

*) Please note, there is likely to be a shortage of available space at this years festival as it is going to be held on only one sim. You had better be on your toes and leaning forward to grab a place!

Please contact LLedge Eames or Viktor Sandman if you need any further information or have any questions.

Whats Happening in Second Pride?

I do not fully understand what is going on within the Second Pride organization at the moment, but hopefully things will be cleared up in the near future.

Anyway, the latest notice in the Second Pride Festival Group and it's attached note card increases my confusion instead of alleviating it.

The note card is from Karl Kalchek, who in the absence of a Community Relations director on the board was asked by the board to head the Election Committee for the 2016 election. It reads as follows:

"Greetings members. 
Following our general meeting in August, a call for candidates to run for the open seats on Second Pride's Board for 2016-2017 was announced. At that board meeting I volunteered to serve to run the election as a past elections chair. The call was posted for 10 days in August after which the election would take place.

One candidate volunteered for Events Director. That candidate is Devon Zepp and we thank him for stepping forward to fill this very important position. We did not get contesting candidates for that position nor any candidates for the other open positions leaving the posts of Treasurer, IT Director, Marketing Director and Community Relations Director vacant. Because it is critical we have a Treasurer, the current treasurer Marge Beaumont has kindly volunteered to continue in this role until another Treasurer with accounting experience can be found to take her place and complete this term.

In view of this, I recommended to the Chair that Devon Zepp Be recognized as Events Director, that Marge Beaumont be recognized as continuing Treasurer, and that they join the rest of the board who are serving the remainder of their two year terms. additionally, I recommended that a general meeting be called at which the new board be recognized and installed, and that as soon as practical, that a second meeting be announced in which the board call for candidates for the remaining open board positions.

Sincerely,
Karl Kalchek, past board member"

Second Pride Website Online Again

I am glad to report that the Second Pride website is online again. You must re-register to log in.

However, apart from that happy news, I am also sad to report that it seems that a spammer has already gotten in - and perhaps more of them. There are at this time 126 registered members, including myself, whether or not the other 125 are legitimate or not I really cannot say.

An avatar named WilzavrFeed (the one that shows online on the picture above) has already spammed the election section with 51 posts totally without relevance to the board election.

I tried to find any legitimate posts concerning the election but am sorry to say I gave up. Hopefully the board will find a way of dealing with these issues in a speedy and efficient way.

It Works Now, But... (Updated)

The Second Pride website crashed spectacularly a while back.

Work has since been going on to revive it again. There seems to be some progress as this is what I got when I just tried.

However, even if it will be in order soon - according to the original timeframe decided upon - the candidate statements should have been posted there on August 31, 2016, and there was to be a questions and comments period going on right now until the evening today. 

The actual voting should start tomorrow and go on until wednesday, if the board doesn't decide anything else considering the unforeseeable server-crash. 

I strongly encourage the board to first see to it that the website is up and in working order, then decide on a new timeframe for the elections. After all the eligible voters have not been able to know who the candidates are or to pose questions to them.

Update (after a fast response from the board of directors)

I have been informed that work is feverishly going on on the new website (they have to work from scratch).
LLedge Eames, the chair of SP, and Karl Kalchek, the chair of the election committee, after a discussion yesterday, agreed that the goal is to post candidate statements during this weekend. The timeline for the election will be adjusted, once they have access to the  website.
The candidates that have stepped forward have been informed of the above.
Viktor Sandamn, the secretary of Second Pride, will post a notice concerning this to the Second Pride Festival Group today.

SP Election 2016 Schedule and More

This is from a notecard sent by Viktor Sandman in the Second Pride Festival group and concerns the upcoming election of members to the board of Second Pride. (I have edited it only slightly for various reasons, hence there are no quotation marks except on the first part.) The process has been somewhat delayed by the server crash of the Second Pride-website.

"It is time for our annual elections to fill vacant positions in the Second pride board of directors. We are also seeking volunteers to serve on the election committee.

Please read the attached notecard and follow the information given if you are interested in volunteering, or if you would like to run for one of the open seats on the board.

Thank you for your interest,

Seco"


Please click on "Read more" for additional information.

Second Pride Annual Meeting 2016

Through a notice in the Second Pride Festival group the membership has been notified that the Annual Meeting of Second Pride will be held on Saturday August 13, 2016, at 12PM (noon) SLT at the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall (SLurl).

The meeting has the following agenda.
1. Call to Order
2. Department Reports
3. Elections
4. Adjournment

The most interesting parts of this meeting should be the announcement of the results of the latest Pride Festival and the timeline for the upcoming election of new directors.

Second Pride Elections 2015

This is an excerpt from Karl Kalchek's statement according to the minutes of the Second Pride Board meeting Saturday, August 1, 2015 at Noon SLT

"Following this year's bylaw changes which were voted upon and adopted on in open membership meetings - board positions are no longer one year terms but staggered 2 years terms. The purpose of this change was to ensure greater continuity of leadership between one year and the next.

In odd years such as 2015, the following two year positions are to be elected:

Secretary

Events

Marketing

Treasurer

Security

In even years, such as next year's 2016 Election, the following two year positions are to be elected:

Chair

Community Relations

Build

IT

Being that this is a transitional year, this year's election's will be for the one year remaining in these terms, (chair, community Relations, Build and IT) and next year's elections will be a full two year term for each of these positions. Next year's elections may also include the remaining term of any unfilled or vacated two year term (Secretary, Events, Marketing, Treasurer, Security). 2015 will be the last year that every position is elected in a single year.

Term Limits:
Pursuant to our bylaws, No Board member who has served for two consecutive years may run for a board position in the following election. Therefore Jak Calcutt, Karl Kalchek, and Marge Beaumont are ineligible to run in this year's election. Any other member of Second Pride - including past board members, may run for election. One issue that our bylaw changes did not address was a scenario where a current board member who has served one year might run for a two year term. Without further amendments, our bylaws would require that person to step down at the end of the year, and the remainder of that two your term would come up for election in next year's election. I would recommend that - this being a transitional year - we make an exception for anyone who has served a year and runs for a two year term but that is a bylaw change and will be up to the next board to decide. In the meantime, nothing prevents an eligible current board member to run for a two year term other than the possibility that the seat will have to be declared vacant after one year without a bylaw amendment.

Election Timetable and procedures:
• Candidate declarations will be accepted (...) through midnight SLT August 14th, per the by laws. 

• Only Members of the Second Pride Group and who are willing to adhere to the Second Pride by-laws if elected can be considered for candidacy. 

Candidate declaration must be accompanied by a "Candidate Statement” Declarations and statements must be submitted on the Second Pride website at second-pride.com. No one will be able to declare candidacy for the 2016 Pride board after midnight on the August 14th.

• Members will be able to question the candidates for a period beginning August 16th and ending at midnight SLT August 28th.

• On August 28th candidates may answer any remaining member questions and make their final statements

• Voting will commence at 00:01AM SLT Sunday August 30th and remain open through Midnight SLT Wednesday September 2nd.

• You must have joined the Second Pride Festival Group by midnight July 31st to be able to vote for your candidates. (Membership is now closed until the Election has concluded and the results are announced).

• Between Midnight Wednesday September 2nd and No later than Midnight September 6th, election committee will certify the results of the election and announce to the results to membership.

• On September 12th at 11AM slt The new Board will be installed and have their 1st meeting as a Board of Second Pride. The existing Board will step down at that time and any transfers (property, passwords and group ownership) will take place at that time.

Discussion Forums:• These forums are designed to allow members to question candidates in a civil and respectful manner. Comments will be moderated by the election committee and any comments or lines of questioning which, in the sole discretion of the election committee, are found to be inappropriate will be removed.

Voting Procedures:We will use the same procedure that we used last year.
• The Second Pride sim will be closed to member access only during the voting period
• Members of the Second Pride Group will need to visit an election kiosk on the Second Pride sim.
• The election kiosk will provide access to an online voting ballot where members can vote for candidates of their choice.

Eligibility to vote and voter verification:• You MUST be a member of the Second Pride Festival in-world group before midnight July 31st to be eligible to vote. Joining of the Second Pride Group will be closed for the entire election period, between July 31st through September 6th.

• The election committee will be cross referencing the online votes received against the in-world membership list. Please be sure to click on your name at the bottom of the second pride website to view and/or update your online profile. Make sure your Second Life Avatar name is part of your profile so that your vote can be verified against the in-world membership.

• Protections have been put in place to block voter fraud through the use of Alt accounts. Votes from the same IP or Mac addresses, or votes that cannot be verified against any in world membership may be removed at the discretion of the election committee. If you are in a situation where multiple users in your household will be voting from the same device or internet connection, you must inform the election committee prior to voting.

Election Committee:• The election committee reviews and certifies votes. It arbitrates any disputes that may arise during voting. The Committee consists of two permanent members (The community Relations Director and the IT Director) and volunteers:

In 2014, Bylaw changes were adopted that specify which volunteers may serve on the committed to increase people's confidence that elections would be fair.

1. The volunteer must have been a member of Second Pride for at least one year.
2. The volunteer may not be a candidate for any position in the election nor may they have an alt who is a candidate
3. The volunteer or the volunteer's alts may not have a partner or business partner who is a candidate in the election
4. The volunteer must support the Mission, Objectives and Goals of Second Pride as articulated in the bylaws,
5. The volunteer must make a statement attesting to the criterion above, which will be posted to membership.

Any volunteer meeting the criteria above will be seated. A volunteer may be removed at the discretion of the permanent members of the committee, if a volunteer is found to not meet the criteria above. If a volunteer committee member is removed under this provision, the reasons will posted to the membership and the volunteer will be given an opportunity to respond.

Second Pride, Annual Meeting - Saturday August 1 @ 12 PM SLT

From a group notice in the Second Pride Festival group.

Please be informed the Board of Directors of Second Pride will hold their "Annual General Meeting (AGM)" in the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall (SLurl) on Saturday August 1, 2015, 12:00 PM SLT.

The proposed agenda for the meeting is as follows

1. Call To Order
2. Department Reports
    - Chair
    - Build
    - Events
    - Community Relations
    - Security
    - Treasurer Report
    - IT
3. Elections Procedures
4. Adjourn

Reminder: SP Board Meeting, Today 6:30 PM

The Board of Directors of Second Pride has a meeting today at the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall (SLurl) at 6.30 PM SLT

The proposed agenda of the meeting is as follows:

1. Call To Order: 
2. Set the date for the Annual General Meeting
3. Motion to Adjourn

Weylin Vale: "Unsubstantiated Gossip"

Today the GA WeBlog posted this statement by Weylin Vale, which is the first public reaction by the new GA Lead team on the events that have unfolded over the last few days.

"Good Day GA

Board Appointments and Estate Resignations.

On taking over the role of Lead I was informed by a previous lead and elder of the GA community that I should now put together my administration, there are no By-Laws to govern how this is done so as with my real world committees, appointments have been made purely on merit and suitability for the roles. Careful consideration was given to each role based upon experience, longevity in SL and trust.

Second Life in many ways is a small community and, as with all communities, personal disputes can arise and still cause difficulties years later. In this case, a past dispute, caused a member to decide to remove his estate from the GA. Another couple of members with close links to that estate decided to also leave the organization.

It is important to understand that these members were not asked or compelled to leave. They simply made a decision to leave the GA because they did not support the much needed changes. Changes that were urgently required to invigorate the GA, return it to its core mission and to prevent the loss of 12 member estates in the short term and, possibly, many more in the year ahead.

I am not going to name names or dwell on what has happened, neither will I fuel blog posts that are basically just unsubstantiated gossip based on the personal biases of one or two others. I am here to perform a job, as are those I have made a part of the administration team, part of that job is to work on producing Summerfest 2015, something that is fast approaching and also to future proofing the GA as we move forward.

Part of this has been to work on a new web presence and secure the domain name for the Gay Archipelago, this will include an interactive calendar to help member estates promote events. Also the GA’s promise to member estates is to be a community that promotes estates and raises traffic, something we need to do better, with a dedicated membership Director and admissions team I believe we can achieve better results.

More Festival Events.

With a permanent festival team and Director we are looking to move to seasonal quarterly festivals with the addition of the Autumn Hunt (showcasing all estates and merchants) culminating in a Halloween Party that will cross all the time zones. A spring equinox festival is also on the planning board.

So please rest assured, our mission statement has not changed, we are just putting weight behind our promises, the GA board along with the Treasury will be run transparently and I along with all the members of the team are here to answer any of our member estate owners questions (and dispel any myths). All major changes will continue to be presented at the estate owners meetings for approval and comment.

Together we are the GA community

Weylin-Vale

GA Lead"

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I am of course mortified (Not so much, no!) to be referred to as publishing "blog posts that are basically just unsubstantiated gossip based on the personal biases of one or two others", but would like to state that what some people call "unsubstantiated gossip based on the personal biases of one or two others", others call information from multiple usually well informed and independent sources.

It is true, I did report factually incorrect information concerning the GA Leads call to the meeting. This misinformation has been corrected.

It is worth noticing that the GA Lead in his statement stresses that "All major changes will continue to be presented at the estate owners meetings for approval and comment.". In hindsight, it would perhaps have been better if this had also applied to the composition of the new GA Lead team.

Later today, or perhaps tomorrow, I plan on publishing what information I have obtained concerning sim-owners/regions/estates that have already left or are leaving the Gay Archipelago.

SP Board Meeting, Monday July 20, 2015

The Second Pride bylaws require the organization to have the public Annual General Meeting (AGM) on the Saturday following the “Second Pride Festival”. Due to the fact that the said Saturday was the 4th of July the board was unable to hold the meeting because of the Independence Day Holiday.

The board promised to have a public meeting in the week following to set the date for the AGM.

The Board of Directors of Second Pride will now have a public board meeting at the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall (SLurl) on Monday July 20, 2015, at 6.30 PM SLT

The proposed agenda of the meeting is as follows:

1. Call To Order: 
2. Set the date for the Annual General Meeting
3. Motion to Adjourn

SP General Meeting - Sunday May 17, 2015

This is from a group notice in The Second Pride Festival group

The Board of Directors of Second Pride have called a General Meeting to be held in the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall (SLurl) on Sunday May 17, 2015, at 1.30 PM SLT.

The agenda for the meeting:
1. Call to order

2. Department reports
    - Chair
    - Build
    - Events
    - Community Relations
    - Security
    - Treasurer
    - IT

3. Board vacancies - Repeat call for elections for
    - Secretary/Co-Chair
    - IT (Joomla experience)
    - Marketing

4. Information on Bylaws Amendments and Board Policy

5. Adjournment

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Anytime I see the words "bylaw amendments" on an agenda I know there will be an interesting meeting, and in combination with "board policy" this should be downright thrilling! 

I hope to see you there!

Second Pride Wants YOU!

I would throw my hat in the ring if I believed that I could do a good job for the organization and the membership and if I had the spare time to do it. As things stand at the moment I have come to the conclusion that I would not be able to serve the community as it deserves.

I hope that some of you who read this are in a better place in your lives and have the time to do the job and the stamina to stay at it despite daHaters.

From a group notice in the Second Pride Festival Group:

"The board of Directors of Second Pride is making a call to fill vacant seats on the board.
 If you are interested in any of the positions below please send a notecard indicating the position you want to fill and qualifications to any Second Pride Board member. Please remember to indicate your permission to share the notecard so that we can distribute it.

Positions we need to fill:
a) Secretary / Co-Chair
b) Marketing Director
c) IT Director - Experience with Joomla

Ezziedq Mirabella - Chair of Second Pride"

SP Board Meeting Saturday at 10 AM

The board of Second Pride will have a general meeting in the Second Pride HQ Conference Hall (SLurl) on Saturday March 28, 2015, at 10:00 AM SLT

The agenda of the meeting

1. Call To Order
2. Department Reports
    a) Chair/IT
    b) Build
    c) Events
    d) Community Relations
    e) Security
    f) Treasurer
3. Board Vacancies
    a) Security
    b) Call for interest for
         I    Marketing
         II   Secretary/Co-Chair
         III  IT
4. Adjourn