Elections and Conferences, Teacher's Strike

[tcpip]

Tuesday night was the annual general meeting of Linux Users of Victoria; I gave a combined President/Secretary report and was elected for a third term to the prestigious position of Président de la République de LUV. I think I made it fairly clear that this would be (hopefully!) my last term in this role; I'm a big believer in circulation of office-bearer positions, and encouraging new people to have a go. It is healthy for an organisation and it's healthy for the office-bearer themselves. Nevertheless, despite receiving nominations and notification for the Unitarian Church Annual General Meeting, I am giving consideration on passing up nomination this year (despite receiving five emails on the day that nominations opened from members encouraging my nomination). Much of what I want to achieve (membership growth, outreach, rational religiosity) is being achieved outside of such formal structures. It is also fair to say that some of the existing powers-that-be are, let's call it, "psychologically attached" to their current position. Last Sunday, it must be mentioned, Nigel Sinnott gave a superb presentation on Animal Rights and Welfare at the Unitarian Philosophy Forum last Sunday.

This is, conveniently, in addition to the fact that I won't be able to attend the AGM anyway, as work is sending me to the Australian government's annual national eResearch conference in Sydney; fortunately I do not have to give a paper this year, unlike the previous two times that I've attended. On other conference related material, Software Freedom Day is charging along, with Belgian social theorist Michel Bauwens confirmed just this morning. Also, and this is a little in advance, will be attending Multicore World 2013 in Wellington, New Zealand taking up my now usual role as M.C., at this gathering.

Very impressed with the Australian Education Union's (and the IEU, et. al) efforts, leading the largest teacher's strike in Victoria's history. Michael Stuchberry (who knows a little about the subject) gives justifications for the strike in an excellent summary. Essentially, as much as Premier Baillieu lied through his teeth about a golden age of the "best paid teachers in the country", it's mostly about the lack of job security and the damage this causes to both teacher and student. State opposition leader Daniel Andrews made his point as well.

Comments

[trayce.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've always supported the action because of the ridiculous situation of so many teachers being on contract - its bad for the kids, let alone instable career wise for such dedicated teachers! My current beau is a policy researcher under Mary Bluett at the AEU so we talked about this a bit last night, he had a busy day :) And she's resigning! Quite a shame. I assume I can mention that now as it got leaked to the media last night anyway. oy.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

And she's resigning! Quite a shame

Ahh, yes. I confess that I knew of this quite some time ago. Going back to a previous item of discussion in my post, the AEU takes the idea of changes into their leadership roles quite seriously. They understand that in order for an organisation to survive and grow that it needs this.

As a complete aside, one can see how the Chinese have now adopted this. Very little in way of democracy of course, but they do recognise the need for positional change every few years.

[fluffyblanket.livejournal.com]

As an ex-teacher myself , I hope they defend their rights with militancy.