Voting for National Board Election is now open, and members may cast their votes until March 31.
At the end of September, we will say farewell to three national board members who have served Handbell Musicians of America for the past six years; president Lee Afdahl and at-large members Stephanie Wiltse and Phil Roberts. National elections will take place in March to determine the three who will join ongoing board members Ed Rollins (who becomes president on October 1), Stephanie Rhoades, Steve Shorney, and Jessica Westgard.
Seeking a three-year term as president-elect, which will cycle into a three-year term as president are Tracy DePue and P.L Grove. Running for the two open at-large positions are Rick Heine, Derek Nance, Claudette Rothwell, and Jennifer Vangolen.
To streamline the process and make it easier for all members to make their selection, voting will be handled through a new online ballot designed specially for us by Z2 Systems, creators and administrators of NEON, the database system that manages our membership, event registration, online store, and much more. Working with the developers at Z2 Systems, we have designed a secure system that verifies membership, ensures only one vote per member, and locks out back-end ballot access by anyone (even staff and system administrators) during the voting period, which prevents any tampering with election results.
Voting will take place until March 31, and we encourage you to learn more about the candidates as well as our new online voting system now. Voting instructions can be found at handbellmusicians.org/howtovote. You can read about all of our candidates and view video interviews with at election.HandbellMusicians.org.