As you probably don't know (because I haven't said anything about it here on my blog), I'm running again in this years CIRA Board of Directors election.

I ran last year and lost by a smidgen.

I hated that.

I know I could have won, but I didn't take the election seriously enough.

As some fictional character on the "West Wing" pointed out to another fictional character about their choice to run in a mostly fictional election "...if you are going to run, make sure you run to win."

I lost by a smidgen because I didn't run to win.

As a consolation, I was asked to replace an outgoing board member who had resigned mid-term.

Excellent.

Not only did I lose because I didn't run to win, I was chosen as the "best loser in the bunch" to replace an outgoing board member.

The Biggest Loser.

Its not as bad as I make it out to be. The people that beat me out last year are great board members and I don't begrudge them their win at all. I mean, one of the candidates that beat me was John Demco. John basically invented dotCA and ran it as a volunteer for many, many years – in a time before most of us had even heard about the internet.

And I certainly don't mean to say that I didn't appreciate the offer to replace the board member that resigned. Anything but actually - the term that I served was an excellent experience. I've learned a lot and hopefully I've made a meaningful contribution to CIRA.

But, I didn't win the election.

So this year, win I must.

The first step in the CIRA election process is finding someone to get your name on the nomination roster. That was easy enough. Any CIRA member can nominate someone to the nomination roster. Once I accepted the nomination, my name stood amongst the rest of the nomination candidates.

This is just the beginning of the nomination process though. Once a candidate has accepted a member's nomination to stand for election, 50 additional CIRA members must endorse that nomination. Candidates that don't receive the obligatory support will not be included on the final ballot.

Sometime around 3:30pm today, I received my 50th show of support (and the first candidate to do so I might add!) Thanks to everyone who took the time to go through the process and help me out!

When the nomination process closes, the successful nominees then go through a few weeks of "campaigning" - answering questions in public forums and spreading the word through whatever channels they have available. Then the real election starts.

The election includes two different types of candidates - member nominated candidates, and nominating committee nominated candidates. This year that means that there will be at least 12 candidates on the ballot. There are four open positions to be filled. That means that I need to beat 8 other people and finish as good or better than I did last year.

And this year, I have a plan.

Run to win.

Wish me luck!!