statement written by the consensus of the Society for Elections

26/05/2022

What is The Gen Sec Role?

The General Secretary Role is predominantly organisational: they have no more influence within the party than any other member, and exist to act upon the needs of the party when consensus among members is reached. Responsibilities include: keeping track of party business, hosting meetings, encouraging communication between assemblies, and stepping up to fill the role of secretary for societies that have not yet elected a secretary of their own.

The General Secretary role is also tasked with chairing the Secretarial Committee, whose main responsibility is to aid in the execution of decisions made by the party’s members. It is worth noting that despite opening up the role to two different people, the General Secretary role only receives one vote in the Secretarial Committee when it comes to voting on certain party matters.

To be clear, the General Secretary works predominantly behind the scenes in organising the party, and is not to be confused with the Party Envoy, often known as the ‘face’ of the party.

Why have two?

We have opted to open up the role to be held by two individuals primarily in order to lighten the load on any one person, whilst also adding additional redundancy.

Election:

The election meeting will be held on the Harmony Party UK Discord (account required to attend), and will aim to achieve consensus from those present as a first course of action. Should consensus not be reached, the decision will go to a STAR vote (with minor adjustments to account for multiple winners to fit both roles), in which only members who signed up on or before midnight of the 10th of June (the same deadline as Gen Sec submissions) will be permitted to vote for candidates.

Expectations of Candidates:

During the election meeting, each candidate will be given up to 5 minutes to introduce themselves and talk uninterrupted about their views on why they would be well suited to the role. This will be followed by a few set questions decided in advance by the members of the electoral society and asked by the host, a designated spokesperson for the electoral society.

We will then open the meeting up to questions from people in the audience, which can either be directed to a particular candidate or to all standing candidates, and which they will be expected to answer to the best of their abilities.

Candidates are not required to use video during the meeting, but will be contacted in advance of the meeting to confirm their discord account in order to prevent impersonations.

Election meeting to be held on our Discord on Saturday 18th June 19:30. You can join the Discord by clicking here.

Nominations can be submitted here.

Deadline for submission is the 10th June 23:59pm.