Elections processEach year, we hold elections for the board of directors for Altonimbus Entertainment (the organization that produces and runs the Kumoricon convention). Altonimbus, and thereby Kumoricon, is governed by a board of directors consisting of nine members who each serve annual terms. Terms begin and end at the annual meeting of the body which elects each board member.
Seven of the nine board members are elected by the membership (staff of Kumoricon) at the Annual Meeting of the Membership:
- Chair / President
- Director of Infrastructure
- Director of Membership
- Director of Operations
- Director of Programming
- Director of Publicity
- Director of Relations
The next Annual Meeting of the Membership will be held on December 14, 2019, at 12:00 noon, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland. Official notice was sent to the members on November 13, 2019, and full meeting information is available on the
Meetings page.
Starting this year, we are updating our process for online nominations and online Q&A, detailed below. Most of our online elections activity is moving to our staff-only Discord server, but we are continuing to host a forum thread to allow non-staff to nominate and ask questions.
The process for conducting the in-person elections meeting is not changing. The election meeting continues to be open to the public. For each election, there are candidate opening speeches, a period for questions and comments for the candidates, and voting by secret, written ballots.
Members must be present in person to vote, except for proxy voting. If a member cannot attend the meeting, they may designate another member as their proxy, in either of two ways: (1) The member not attending the meeting may authorize another member using the
online proxy authorization system, or (2) The proxy attending the meeting may bring a
printed authorization form to the meeting signed by the absent member.
Elections and eligibility are governed by the
bylaws of Altonimbus Entertainment and the meeting process by our
Elections Process (staff login required).
NominationsNominations are currently open for candidates for the seven positions listed above.
Nominations must be seconded to be valid. A person cannot nominate or second themselves. To be listed on the candidate list below and on the ballot, a candidate must be nominated and seconded, and then accept the nomination, by the deadline. Once a candidate is nominated and seconded, they may change their acceptance status at will until the nominations deadline of Tuesday, December 10, 2019, 11:59pm.
After November 29, only candidates who have affirmatively accepted (rather than "defer", or no response) will be listed. Candidates may still accept after this date until the nominations deadline.
Nominations and seconds can be made, and candidates may respond to nominations, in three ways:
The nominations list will be kept in sync between the nominations channel on Discord and this forum post. Candidates are listed alphabetically by last name, using the preferred name as set in their official staff registration, which candidates may update at any time.
Chair/PresidentDirector of InfrastructureDirector of Membership- Charmaine Martinez - accept
Director of Operations- Jason Pollard - accept
- Ben Riker - accept
Director of ProgrammingDirector of Publicity- Samantha Rushford - accept
Director of RelationsQuestions and commentsThe primary venue for online questions and comments will be our staff-only Discord server (
instructions for joining). There is a Q&A channel for each position.
Questions may also be asked in this forum thread. One of the election moderators or tellers will copy that question to the appropriate channel on our staff Discord. We ask that candidates respond there in order to keep discussion in one place and not fragmented.
We will bring a printout of each question and answer to the in-person elections meeting for review by anyone at the meeting. We will also continue to hold question-and-comment sessions at the elections meeting.
Anonymous questions and commentsAt the meeting, the elections portion will be led by a moderator as well as three tellers (plus an alternate):
Moderator: Fox Young - Vice Chair (Staff and Attendee Services)
Teller: John Leinonen - Marketing Manager
Teller: Catherine Kateley-Williams - Hospitality Manager
Teller: Missa Fleck - Assistant Director of Publicity
Teller, alternate: Robert Trotter - Quartermaster
After the open question-and-comment period for each candidate, we will host an additional anonymous question-and-comment period. Questions and comments may be submitted in person at the election, or emailed in advance to
election-comments@kumoricon.org. You can also bring up a written note at the elections meeting without using email, but this might be less anonymous than using email. This process is subject to the following rules:
1. The members of the moderator panel (comprised of the elections moderator and tellers) choose anonymous questions and comments to sponsor and read at the meeting, from those submitted.
2. Anonymous questions/comments are anonymous when read at the meeting, but the moderator panel must know the identity of the person commenting. Your email message or written note must be signed with the name that you are known by in the Kumoricon community.
3. As part of the moderation process, the panel may request more information from you or request a change to your question/comment, or possibly even reject your question/comment.
4. The moderator panel will reply to you stating whether your comment has been accepted.
5. Questions/comments may be shortened or summarized, and similar questions/comments from multiple people may be combined.
A more detailed explanation of the rules and process around anonymous questions and comments is available in our
Elections Process (staff login required).
