Nomination and Election of Officers

The ITAA Nominations Committee will work in collaboration with the BOD to identify candidates who have the skills and abilities who are willing to serve in the positions described above and appointed by the Board of Directors.

Election Policy

Ballot Tabulation
The  ITAA Operational Administrator or someone designated by the Executive Committee may determine the method by which election ballots are arranged: presented, collected and reported on.

Setting policy
Election policy is set by the Board of Directors to meet the requirements of the Bylaws and the guidelines are on the ITAA Website (LINK). They are based on the recommendations of the Nominations Committee.

Preferential voting
In the election of the President Elect, should the Initial ballot not produce a majority, the preferential system of voting will be used. After all the first-choice votes for each candidate are counted, the candidate with the lowest number of first-choice votes will be eliminated, and his or her ballots will be redistributed among the remaining candidates based on the voters’ second choices. The reallocation process will be repeated until a clear majority for one candidate is obtained.

Election Timeline
The election timeline follows the guidelines as prescribed in the By-Laws, in consultation with the Board.  The deadlines in this process are determined on the following page. (LINK)

Amendments

The Board of Directors may amend the Procedures Manual, except that any amendment that diminishes or adversely affects the rights of any category of voting membership shall require the approval of the voting membership.

GENERAL PROCEDURES PERTAINING TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND THE ITAA COMMITTEES NB: Discussions are in play for a fully integrated system to manage all communications between Executive and BOD members)

Email responses:

In order to reduce the number of emails that are exchanged in the BOD, the group is encouraged to be aware of the norms as follows, of responding to emails.

  • Only those who are on the ‘To’ addressee list are to respond to emails.  Those who are on cc, are copied only for FYI.
  • The subject line is to be changed with the relevance to the content each time an email is sent to the Executive members or BOD members.  Tracing these emails becomes easier at any later point of time, should they need to be recalled and referred to.

Booking of ITAA or ITAA-EATA Webinars (Need to add in the Protocols developed by the VP Development)

  • Webinars are announced by Committees such as the Social Engagement Committee and the Webinar Committee, the Professional Standards Committee, the Ethics Committee, etc.
  • This procedure facilitates streamlining of Webinar dates, so that there’s no clash with others being planned.
  • Any Committee which has decided on the dates for a Webinar will send the information via an email to the ITAA Secretary as well as the ITAA Operational Administrator, to confirm that these dates do not coincide with other Webinars being planned.This benefits the membership by:
    • Allowing sufficient planning time for the members to enable maximum attendance

Election Campaign Guidelines

Preamble. These guidelines are intended to assist in maintaining a spirit of collegiality and essential fairness in all ITAA elections and to keep the amount of campaigning and electioneering for trustee positions within established procedures as permitted under the ITAA bylaws.

Endorsement of Candidates

  • Individual members may endorse candidates for elected positions within the ITAA, provided that such endorsement makes clear that it represents the personal view of the endorser.
  • If such personal endorsements are made by individuals holding an elected, appointed, or honoured position within the ITAA, such individuals may not mention their position within the organisation as part of the endorsement.
  • ITAA resources may not be used for the purpose of supporting any one candidate over another.
  • The electioneering use of newspaper or journal advertisements is prohibited.
  • The Association’s newsletter (The Script) may be used to report the candidacy of members and election results provided that the report is included as a news article and all candidates for a nominated position are represented.
  • Those people who hold contracted Administrative positions of the ITAA are to refrain from electioneering in any form, including making personal statements regarding the qualifications of any candidate.

Campaign Statements

Candidates may furnish written statements to appear in the ITAA newsletter (The Script). Such statements will be confined to a discussion of issues facing Transactional Analysis and the ITAA as well as a personal biographical sketch. Statements made by nominees for President Elect may not exceed 500 words; for other officers statements may not exceed 250 words; and for members of the Board of Directors, statements may not exceed 250 words.

Campaign Spending and Membership Appeal

  • Mass mailings or group emails to the membership on the part of a candidate for elected position or on behalf of that candidate by other individuals or organisations are prohibited. While it is appropriate for nominees to elected positions within the ITAA to communicate their platforms and qualifications to the membership, mass emails / mailings are deemed inappropriate because they create the possibility of unfair economic advantage for some nominees.
  • Individual personal letters or phone calls to friends and colleagues are appropriate.
  • Form letters or “Dear Colleague” type emails or letters sent by an individual, a group of individuals, to a group of persons on a mailing list are not acceptable practice.

Dissemination of Information on Electioneering

The campaign procedures are to be published around the October/November issue of The Script newsletter at the same time and along with the announcement of the   for election.

The Nominating Committee Chair will send my email, a copy of the election campaign guidelines (LINK)  to each candidate at the time their nomination is official.