LOPSA News

In an effort to improve transparency, we wanted to provide our members and the community with some updates from our working sessions. These blurbs, while not all encompassing, exist to provide you all with more information about our weekly sessions and any results.

In our meeting, we hid Mentorship pages because our mentorship program is currently inactive pending refactor and relaunch. We Cleaned up Our Sponsors page by removing old corporate sponsors. Tidied language about becoming a corporate sponsor and included a link to our sponsorship page. Moved individual sponsors up the page. Put in a support ticket for Past Donors gadget which now only shows 1 not all 6 people.

Some future work might include:

• Following up on support ticket for misbehaving gadget
• Cleaning up Sponsor ads carousel
• Checking our Donate page and deciding should we clarify “this is for tax deductible donations not becoming a member"

If you're interested in any of those topics, or you have ideas about what we could work on or improve, please join our Working Sessions and help us build a better LOPSA.

We look forward to seeing you and providing more updates in the future!

We are pleased to announce the results of our 2023 election! Congratulations to Drew Adams and Matthew Butch on reelection and another exciting term as President and Treasurer, respectively.

In addition to our election results we'd like to wish our outgoing Vice President, Aaron Haun, a tremendous thank you for his years at the helm. Aaron, thank you for your many insights into the inner workings of LOPSA, parliamentary procedures, and non profits in general. Your input and friendship have been a tremendous asset over your many years of service, you'll be missed sir! In his stead, Jackson Smith is stepping up as both Secretary and Vice President.

Below are the results from Opavote:

Category	Value
Election for	2023 LOPSA Board Election
Date
Number to be elected	2
Valid votes	39
Invalid votes	0
Quota	13.000001
OpaVote
Election rules	Meek STV
	First
Candidates	Preferences
Matthew Butch	12
Drew Adams	27
Non-transferable
Totals	39

Happy nearly New Year from LOPSA, we're extending a special year end 20% member discount through the end of the year. This code is valid for renewing, upgrading, and new members. We hope you're having a wonderful holiday season and wish you a great new year!

Discount Code: E352DCTG

All the best,

Your LOPSA Board

Early voting for the LOPSA 2023 Board Election is now officially open!

We had originally communicated that we would open early voting on December 1st. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, including personal illness and an oversight on my part regarding a backup plan, it was unintentionally delayed.

I take full responsibility for this setback, and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. We have resolved the issues, and voting officially opened early voting on December 5th 2023.

Eligible members should have received an email from OpaVote, our third-party partner managing the polling process. Early voting provides flexibility ahead of the formal election day on December 31st.

Your voice matters! So, please cast your vote before December 31st and help shape the future of LOPSA. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at board@lopsa.org.

The 2023 LOPSA Board Election is coming up in December. This year's voting will open on December 1st and close on December 29th. The list of candidates for this election is as follows:

• Drew Adams (incumbent President)
• Matthew Butch (incumbent Treasurer)

The 2023 LOPSA Board Election is coming up in December. This year voting will open on December 1st and close on December 29th.

We are currently seeking candidates for this election. Any member can nominate a candidate, including themselves, provided the nominee meets the eligibility criteria.

To clarify, an "eligible member" is a non-student-level member who has kept their membership active and in good standing since the last Board election in December of last year.

If you or someone you know meets these criteria and is interested in running for a seat on the Board, we’d love to hear from you. Please send an email to board@lopsa.org by 6PM Pacific Time on November 28, 2023, to declare your intent to run.

This is the JSON provided to us by OpaVote after the close of our 2022 Board Election.

{ "n_seats": 1, "n_votes": 30, "title": "2022 Board Election", "precision": 6, "withdrawn": [], "method": "Meek STV", "version": "1.0", "candidates": [ "Jackson Smith" ], "winners": [ 0 ], "tie_breaks": [], "options": [ [ "prec", 6 ], [ "thresholdFormula", "Droop" ], [ "dynamicThreshold", "Dynamic" ], [ "fractionalThreshold", "Fractional" ], [ "weakTieBreakMethod", "Backward" ], [ "removeOvervotes", "Skip" ], [ "removeUndervotes", "Skip" ] ], "rounds": [ { "count": [ 30000000 ], "surplus": 14999999, "exhausted": 0, "continuing": [], "n": 1, "msg": "Count of first choices. Candidate Jackson Smith has reached the threshold and is elected. ", "winners": [ 0 ], "losers": [], "action": { "type": "first", "desc": "Count of first choices. " }, "thresh": 15000001 } ], "n_valid_votes": 30 }

Dear LOPSA community,

We are happy to announce the results of the 2022 LOPSA board election. Jackson Smith will continue to serve on the board for another term. He has been a valuable collaborator and helped to work through our backlog of board minutes as Secretary. We are excited to have him continue to contribute his positive energy to the board as we work towards our goals in 2023 and beyond.

We also want to express our gratitude to Anthony King for his service as a director. Although he did not run for re-election, we hope he will continue to be involved with LOPSA. He made a great impact during his time on the board, especially as chairperson of the Education Committee. He played a significant role in building momentum for the committee in 2022 and we hope to maintain that momentum in the future.

In the board meeting following the election, we elected board officers and appointed Committee Chairs. Here are the results:

Committee Chairs:

• Bylaws Committee - Matt Butch
• Marketing Committee - Drew Adams
• Technical Services Committee - Jackson Smith
• Local Chapters Committee - Aaron Haun
• Education Committee - Drew Adams + Jackson Smith (co-chair)

Board Officers:

• Secretary - Jackson Smith
• Treasurer - Matt Butch
• Vice President - Aaron Haun
• President - Drew Adams

We believe these appointments will provide strong leadership and direction for the organization and we look forward to working together to achieve our goals.

We would like to thank all members who participated in the election. Thank you for your continued support.

- Your LOPSA Board

The 2022 Board Election is now open for voting as of yesterday. Members should have already received an email from OpaVote, our voting platform. Please take a moment and cast your vote if you haven't done so already. The keen-eyed might notice that there is only one candidate this year. That is not an error. Nevertheless your participation and vote is still important us. Thank you.

Hey! I’m Jackson Smith, current board member and secretary of LOPSA, and I’m coming at you live from always sunny Philadelphia to announce my reelection bid. For those who don’t know me, I’ve been a systems administrator since 2015 and a LOPSA member since 2021 as part of the Leadership Committee. After some work trying to recruit board candidates, I ended up on the board myself.

As secretary of LOPSA, I’ve spent the past year helping revamp our bylaws and education programs behind the scenes. I also serve as our Technical Services chair and am working on rehoming LOPSA.org! I take the notes at our board meetings and have been migrating minutes from our wiki to Notion. I’ve managed to reduce the backlog on minutes since taking the helm as secretary.

LOPSA may have seen more active days in the past, but I’m working hard laying groundwork for a league of tomorrow. Systems administration has changed considerably since our foundation. While we’ve always worn many hats, the field is broader than ever. Demand for a professional organization for sysadmins remains high. I’m committed to expanding LOPSA and advancing the practice of systems administration into the future. My commitment to both education and outreach will soon be apparent, if it isn’t already, as our education program continues to gain momentum.

While I can’t promise immediate results or turnaround, I will continue the steady and unglamorous work needed to revitalize our organization if reelected.