Board Candidate Petition Deadline March 3

Last week, the American Booksellers Association announced the names of booksellers approved by the Board of Directors as candidates for the 2006 director elections. They 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.

Under ABA's bylaws, in addition to 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 petitioned candidate's name to the director ballot.

Should any bookstore member wish to submit a 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].)

To read more about the upcoming elections and the recent ABA Board meeting, click here.