Elections are coming up again! This time, four board positions will be open for election. If you've always wanted to be in Joomla's leadership, this is your chance to help shape the future of Joomla. Read more and discover how you can become a candidate for Joomla's Board of Directors, and which positions are up for election!

The Board of Directors of Open Source Matters, Inc. (the organisation behind Joomla) provides organisational, legal and financial support to the Joomla Project. In other words: these are the people who facilitate Joomla.  

As a board member, you have specific duties towards Joomla and its community. In other words: you have to do things 🙂. Twice a month, you have a board meeting with your fellow board members. And twice a year there's the Semi-Annual Member Meeting, where the board reports to the community about everything they've done, are doing or are going to do. And last but certainly not least, every first of every month, you can join Ask OSM Anything, a meeting where you can… OK the name says it all: ask questions to the OSM board.

The board positions open for this election are President, Secretary, Production Department Coordinator and Operations Department Coordinator.

I hope I speak on behalf of all of us, the whole Joomla Community, when I take the opportunity to thank Crystal Dionysopoulos, Harald Leithner, Sigrid Gramlinger and Luca Marzo for stepping up, dedicating their time and putting effort into making Joomla the best it can be (and if you're running for another term: good luck)!

In one of our previous elections articles we had Denzel Washington to inspire us. This time, our inspiration comes from Barack Obama. He's pretty sure we all can make a difference: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

President

The president is the one representing us, the Joomla community. Our ideal president leads, inspires, co-ordinates and drives Joomla towards its current and future goals. Apart from that, the president has a number of fiscal and legal responsibilities. So is the president the boss of everything Joomla? Not necessarily. Sometimes, maybe, but it's the department coordinators who set the goals and the strategies, and the board as a whole that discusses and approves them and thus sets the direction and the future of Joomla. 

What should you bring?

Passion for Joomla, commitment to open and healthy collaboration with the rest of the board, a sense of curiosity when facing ideas that challenge your own, and a willingness to listen to our community and advocate on their behalf.

Secretary

If you like to be involved and know everything that's going on within Joomla, this is your role. The secretary writes minutes and reports, organises the elections, knows all about the legal stuff, has permission to sign non-financial documents, helps the board with everything necessary for taking the right decisions, knows what's going on in the community and… you name it, and the secretary is probably responsible for it.

What should you bring?

Passion for Joomla, a well-structured mind, organisational skills, a fair bit of legal knowledge, a super helpful mindset, knowledge of procedures and regulations. And the ability to help your fellow board members with their tasks. 

Production Department Coordinator

The Production Department Coordinator is  in charge of the Production Department (basically: all the people responsible for the code and everything around it, such as the Security Strike Team, Bug Squad, Documentation, Accessibility and Maintenance, to name just a few of the many teams). The DC brings all these people together, organises meetings, sets goals and budgets, and makes sure every team can function at its best.

What should you bring?

Passion for Joomla, the ability to listen and make important strategic decisions. Being a techie is not particularly necessary, but it might help. 

Operations Department Coordinator

The Operations Department keeps the public face of Joomla working. As Department Coordinator, you'd be responsible for the day to day operation of all the Joomla.org websites, such as the Joomla Extensions Directory, the Resource Directory and the Volunteers Portal. Of course that's not a personal responsibility: the department has teams for this, and you're in charge of organising sprints and meetings, providing an accurate budget for the teams in your department, and supporting those teams as best you can. 

What should you bring?

Passion for Joomla, great communication skills, the ability to listen and make decisions, a helpful attitude and the ability to act quickly when necessary. Tech skills may come in really handy. 

What should all potential Board Members bring?

Have I mentioned passion for Joomla yet? It  would be great if you also have a sense of reality and are able to put things in perspective. Because things will happen. There will be disagreements and situations that are not ideal. Our current board is working on cultural improvement, so there may be tools and ways to deal with this. Nevertheless thick skin may come in handy, as does a sense of humor. And keep these wonderful words from Barack Obama in mind: "We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it."

How does this election thing work?

At the moment of writing, the call for manifestos is open. It closes on January 31st. The idea is you write a manifesto that contains your ideas and your plans, and submit it. 

After that, there's an option for people to write a recommendation for you. And then it's up to the Joomla Community to pick the best candidate for each role!

Read about the whole process and the timeline here: https://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/call-for-manifestos-group2-2024.html 

We have elections twice a year for organisational reasons. Board members stay on for a year. We've split the board in two groups, election-wise, so the board doesn't change all at once and has to start over again from scratch with every election: there's always a group of board members that have been in their role for at least the last six months.

Who can vote?

For the president/secretary, every member of every official Joomla Team can vote.

For the DC roles, you can vote if you're a member of an official team in the Department.

Why should you even think about doing it?

Let's quote our dear friend Barack Obama once more on that one:

"Our destiny is not written for us, but by us."