Overview
Trustees have control over, and legal responsibility for, a charity's management and administration. They are, in many ways, similar to Directors of a company or Governors of a school.
The main legal duties of a trustee are:
- To ensure that the charity is fulfilling its stated aims for the public benefit
- To ensure that the charity complies with its constitution and the law
- To act in the charity's best interests
- To manage the charity's resources responsibly
- To act with reasonable skill and care
- To ensure that the charity is accountable to its members
The elected trustees of the UKPA were decided at the first AGM of the UK Python Association, held at PyCon UK 2017. They were:
- Owen Campbell
- Kristian Glass
- Peter Inglesby
- Kirk Northrop
- Chloe Parkes
- Nicholas Tollervey
One further trustee, the Conference Director, is appointed by the elected trustees and, at their first trustees meeting on 29th October 2017, they appointed Daniele Procida who thus became the seventh Trustee.
In May 2018, Nicholas Tollervey resigned as a UKPA Trustee.
2018 Elections
The UKPA constitution requires that one third of the elected trustees (or nearest number) must resign each year. Those are selected by length of service and, in the case of a tie, by agreement or drawing of lots.
The three longest serving trustees are the three founders, Owen Campbell, Kristian Glass and Peter Inglesby who decided amongst themselves that Peter and Kristian would resign at the the 2018 AGM.
Along with the earlier resignation of Nick, we thus have three vacancies to fill by election.
The board of trustees received nominations for three candidates by the expiration of the deadline for nominations on August 17th, 2018. Since there are three vacancies to fill, there is no need to hold a ballot and we will conduct a simple show of hands for each candidate.
The Candidates
Tania Allard
I have been to many many conferences and meets all over the world and the Python community is by far one of my favourites as I always feel welcome, supported, and energised. Thus as a trustee of UKPA I would like to ensure that this community strives and its values are preserved. I want to work alongside the other trustees to make sure this is a welcoming, supportive, and safe community for all of our members as it has been for me all this time. A great deal of this work would be not only supporting the operational side of the UKPA and ensuring everything runs as a well-oiled machinery, but also actively and untiringly work to make sure all the voices of our diverse community are heard and represented. I love our Python community and I owe it so much, and as such I know there is still much work to be done and needs to be done in an inlcusive and transparent manner, and I would love to see this community flourish.
Kristian Glass
I've been PyCon UK's treasurer, founding director of the PyCon UK Society Ltd., and a founding trustee of the UK Python Association. Our constitution obliged me to resign as one of those longest in office, but I'm standing again because there's plenty still to be done for the UKPA, and I'd like to continue working on it.
Cecilia Liao
I first got involved with Python because I wanted to do more with data and found the Python community a welcoming place to learn from. I have been involved with PyData London since its inception in 2014 and since then supported the running of monthly meetups. More recently, I had the privilege of co-chairing the conference in 2018.
I would like to become a trustee of UKPA and contribute my experience towards the mission of advancing the awareness and education of the Python language. I want to promote the accessibility of Python and encourage its adoption across different sectors, and ensure the community will flourish so everyone, no matter their background and experience, will continue to benefit as I have.