ABA Board Candidate Petition Deadline Next Week

Under the American Booksellers Association's bylaws, in addition to Board of Director candidates put forth by the Nominating Committee and approved by the Board, any bookstore member may submit a petition for a director candidate. Upon receipt of a valid petition, the Nominating Committee will add the candidate's name to the director ballot. The deadline for receipt of petitions this year is Friday, March 3.

Candidates for the 2006 director elections who were approved by the Board in January are Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona; Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville and Downers Grove, Illinois; and Beth Puffer of Bank Street Bookstore in New York City. Shanks is currently a member of the ABA Board and is eligible for one additional three-year term.

Also at the January meeting, the Board selected Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, as ABA President and Changing Hands' Shanks, as ABA Vice President/Secretary for one-year terms beginning in June 2006. Their names and those of director candidates will appear on the Board ballot, which will be mailed in mid-March, for approval by ABA membership.

Should any bookstore member wish to submit a director candidate petition, the following apply:

• The candidate must be an employee/owner of an ABA member bookstore. The member bookstore must be in good standing, and the individual candidate must have at least three years experience in a member store.
  
  
• Each petition can present only one candidate.
  
  
• All petitions must be submitted by March 3, 2006, to Chair, ABA Nominating Committee, c/o ABA, 200 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, NY 10591.
  
  
• The names on the petition in support of the candidate must reflect at least two percent of the Bookstore Members as of January 1, 2006, which, for this year, would be a minimum of 35 signatures. The petition must contain original signatures, the name of the ABA member bookstore, addresses, and telephone numbers.
  
  
• The names on the petition in support of the candidate must come from at least five states, with representatives of no one state constituting more than 50 percent of the total number of petition signatures.
  
  
• Upon receipt of a valid petition, the Nominating Committee will add the petitioned candidate's name to the ballot for Board of Directors elections sent to the membership. (To help BTW's coverage of the election process, if any bookstore member is working to circulate a petition, please let us know by sending an e-mail to [email protected].)