Organizing Committee Election

With the forthcoming XXIVth IAU General Assembly in Manchester, also the mandate of the current Organizing Committee (OC) of the Working Group (WG) Active B Stars comes to an end.

The OC has decided to partly move away from the OC election procedure followed more recently (when the new OC members were elected by the previous OC) and more closely into the direction of the procedure applied before:

1. The OC consists of 8 elected, voting members. In addition, one voting member each can be nominated by the sponsoring IAU Commissions Nos. 29 and 45. The respective outgoing Chairperson (if any) and the editor of the Be Star Newsletter are non-voting members.
2. OC members are elected for 2 consecutive 3-years terms. Immediate re-election is not possible.
3. Elections are held around the time of each IAU General Assembly. At each election, 4 of the eight previously elected OC members leave the OC because their mandate has expired; they are replaced by 4 newly elected members.
4. OC members are elected by the members of the WG who may vote for up to 4 different persons.
5. Since there is no formal register of members of the WG, the announcement of the election is sent to all subscribers of the Be Star Newsletter.
6. The 4 persons with the largest numbers of valid votes are elected. The 4 new and the 4 continuing OC members determine among themselves the new Chairperson.

Because this year 5 members rotate off the OC, exceptionally 5 new members need to elected. The 4 with the highest number of votes will be elected to two 3-year terms while the fifth will be elected for one 3-year term (and eligible for election next time). This procedure will restore us to the 4 on / 4 off pattern in the next election 3 years from now.

Prof Douglas Gies (outgoing member of the present OC) has kindly accepted to act as Election Officer and to receive and count the votes. Therefore, if you wish to participate in the election, please send an e-mail to gies@chara.gsu.edu. The following rules apply:

1. The message must in the subject line include the string: "OC elections IAU WG Active B Stars (2000)" or similar.
2. The maximum number of names is 5 (five).
3. Each name will be counted only once.
4. Each person can vote only once (i.e., if you have sent one vote with fewer than 5 names, you cannot send a second one with additional votes; changes of previously cast votes are not possible).
5. The message must bear the senders name. The Election Officer will eliminate votes received from people evidently not related to the scope of the WG Active B Stars.
6. Messages containing any further remarks are considered invalid votes.
7. Votes arriving after August 8 (UT) are not counted.

Any judgments made by the Election Officer in application of the above rules are final.

The current members of the OC are:

D. Baade (chair)    NOT re-electable
J. Bjorkman         elected for one more 3-years period
J. Cassinelli       NOT re-electable
D. Gies             NOT re-electable
H. Henrichs         NOT re-electable
M. Marlborough      NOT re-electable
V. Niemela          (nominated by Comm. 45)
A. Okazaki          elected for one more 3-years period
G. Peters           (non-voting, editor of Be Star Newsletter)
M. Smith            (non-voting, previous chairman)
S. Stefl            elected for one more 3-years period

Finally, a personal remark: It is one of the fundamental principles of the IAU to strive for the broadest possible regional coverage in all matters. Independent of whether there is such a formal rule, it is simply good practice to aim for a proper regional balance. It would be nice if the composition of the new OC would be an illustration of a successful collective application of this philosophy.

Dietrich Baade
Chairman, IAU Working Group Active B Stars