The nomination deadline of September 30th has passed, so now we have our slate of candidates for our November election. Please note that you should receive an email from ElectionBuddy on November 1st containing the link to your ballot. If you don't receive it on that day, check your Spam folder. If it's not there, contact me directly (see my email address, below). You'll have until midnight on November 25th (Pacific Time) to vote.

The Nominating Committee sought to identify individuals who, we believe, will do a great job next year for HSA. Here's our slate:

Mike has been tireless in his service of HSA, supervising the Kanterman awards, managing the production and publication of members' anthologies, representing me at meetings that I haven't been able to attend, and coming up with creative solutions to problems (later in this message I'll tell you about our new HSA online store, made possible thanks to Mike.)

Patricia comes highly recommended by our presidential nominee, Fay. Ready and willing to bring the HSA contests into the 21st century with completely online submissions (continuing the wonderful work of outgoing 2nd VP Charlotte Digregorio), Patricia is a great choice--the Nominating Committee believes.

After Paul Miller stepped down, HSA was extremely lucky to find a poet with credentials in accounting (talk about right brain/left brain!). We're lucky again this year, because Bill has agreed to continue.

Sondra comes to us as a member who's been recommended for her organizational skills. I would like to add that she responds to my emails promptly, projecting warmth and exhibiting excellent communication skills. As the first contact that most new members and non-members will have with our Association, Sondra should make an excellent first impression.

Ignatius has agreed to transform the monthly e-bulletins that he's been editing and sending out like clockwork into a new, monthly, completely electronic version of the HSA newsletter: "HSA NEWS"--as requested by the Executive Committee. He has already shown EC members an impressive template that the rest of you will need to wait until January 2016 to admire.

Anyone who visits the HSA website knows that Randy has been doing a fine job. This past year he added the new "Meet a Member" series so that the world can start to get to know the human side of HSA: who we are, why we write, and how we came to the world of haiku. Expect continuing innovations and improvements as we go forward, thanks to Randy.

Our current editor, Francine Banwarth, joins with the Nominating Committee to endorse our choice for this crucial position. A widely published poet and educator who attended Millikin University, where she learned haiku from Randy Brooks, Aubrie has served as the haiga editor for One Hundred Gourds and is part of the editorial committee for Juxtapositions. Energetic and creative, Aubrie has big plans for Frogpond--continuing the excellent work done by Francine while seeking ways to broaden the journal's readership. Her bio statement, which will be attached to the ballot, gives more details.

Bruce Ross

As far as Regional Coordinators go, we are lucky that most of the incumbents have agreed to serve once again.  Robyn Hood Black has agreed to run for the Southeast Region's post, soon to be vacated by Terri L. French. Sadly, the Nominating Committee was unable to find a candidate willing to serve as RC for the Mountains region.

Also on the ballot, you'll find several proposed amendments to our by-laws. Three of these involve the proposal (made by members at our Orlando meeting and endorsed by the EC) to reduce the number of required, official HAS meetings from four to three. Since the EC "meets" on a monthly basis via conference calls, we like this change. It doesn't prevent us from having four (or more) meetings; it simply allows us a bit of flexibility in our planning. A fourth amendment offers changes in the Treasurer's report in terms of its timing and method of dissemination. I've sent these amendments out, verbatim, in a previous bulletin, so I won't paste all that in here. However, if you'd like to see the exact language of these amendments, ask me, and I'll send them to you.

This month, the EC is considering a fifth amendment: to remove our present annual obligation to send the membership list, with contact information, to all members. With growing concerns over Spamming and identity theft, the HSA may want to avoid subjecting our members to possible abuse of the membership list. If a member wishes to get a legitimate message to all other members, this can be posted in a variety of ways: via the e-bulletin, the newsletter, HSA Twitter, and/or HSA Facebook. If a member wants to contact another particular member or members for a legitimate reason, this can be easily done through the Secretary or any EC officer who has the membership list. You can probably tell that I'm in favor of this proposal. If the EC votes to add this to the ballot, we'll find out if most members agree with us. Amendments require a two-thirds vote (of the number of votes cast) to pass.

As I mentioned above, Mike Montreuil has been helping to set up an online store that will allow the HSA to sell merchandise to raise funds. To start off, we plan to offer coffee mugs, T-shirts, and caps with the HSA logo--in plenty of time for Christmas shopping. Expect details in the November 5th e-bulletin.

So far, the following members have volunteered to join me on the committee to plan HSA events and publication(s) to celebrate our fiftieth year anniversary in 2018: Terri L. French, Michael Dylan Welch, Angela Terry, Rita Gray, Julie Warner, and Amy Losak. We will serve as an advisory committee to the EC--who will ultimately decide on what actions to sanction. We haven't started our work yet (we hope to do so later this month), so if you'd like to help out, let me know soon. Thanks!