IOUG Oracle RAC SIG Board Officers Nominations are Open!

If you are looking to kick start your community contributions or looking to volunteer more than what you already do, I have an awesome suggestion for you — nominate yourself to serve as IOUG Oracle RAC SIG Board Officers volunteer. You don’t need to be an Oracle RAC expert to be successful in that role but you do need to be disciplined, creative, passionate about Oracle technology and community and have a bit of time to contribute regularly. I’d advise to plan to contribute at least an hour per week.

I’ve been engaged in RAC SIG for a while — first as a member, then as webinar and conference presenter until nominated myself to become Vice-President (and got elected) and turned into President in a year. I’ve been now the President for two years (President Gorbachev just sounds so right) and it’s time to step down and pass the torch to the new volunteers. We do not elect the President but instead, VP becomes the president after a year of service and serves for another two years. VP is elected every 3 years and other board members are re-elected every 2 years. Participation in RAC SIG has been rewarding and I’ve got to know lots of new people in the industry.

I will still be active in RAC SIG as volunteer presenter as well as representative of IOUG where I serve on the board as Director of Communities. Leading RAC SIG was great foundation to become an IOUG Director.

If I convinced you to try, read on! Just remember, it’s not just getting elected but you need to commit to this role for two years and be active.

Below are the open positions and description of the roles. Besides three RAC SIG borad officers, we are also re-electing 3 regional chairs – Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Regional chairs are active in their region leading local RAC SIG activities.

International Chair

Qualifications:
The position doesn’t require RAC technology qualifications but some requires some experience organising community events and ability to lead and organise other volunteers around the world.

• Basic leadership skills
• Basic management/co-ordination skills
• Basic knowledge of Orace RAC technology
• RAC SIG member for at least a year

Responsibilities:
The International Chair is responsible for communicating between the RAC SIG and the user group or groups that are assigned to them. Specific duties include:

• Develop international presence for RAC SIG
• Coordination between the RAC SIG and user group assigned
• Attend board calls and user group meetings
• Create and present information about the RAC SIG to user groups including the value the user groups and how to sign up for membership
• Update presentations about RAC SIG to be given at user groups and/or webcasts

These duties usually take about 1 hour per week and many of the duties occur via email. This position also carries board membership and this board member will participate in monthly board calls to discuss upcoming events and any other general RAC SIG business. These conference calls are scheduled at a time that works well for all board members (usually the second Tuesday of the month).

Librarian Chair

Qualifications:
The candidate should have good knowledge of Oracle RAC technology and have experience organizing online content. For example, on his/her own blog or other community organisations. This is a great position to begin your contributions to Oracle community.

• Self-starter with initiative
• Basic management knowledge
• Basic social media skills and experience
• Very good knowledge of Orace RAC technology
• Preferably to be RAC SIG member for at least a year

Responsibilities:
The librarian chair manages the content of the RAC SIG website, as well as the volunteer RAC SIG librarians who are willing to help out. The librarian chair works closely w/ the website chair who will coordinate the building of enhanced functionality to support these needs. Specific duties include:

• Form a board of document reviewers who can review new submitted content
• Request RAC SIG members to become content contributors
• Enhance the RAC SIG site to be a better place for RAC related content including list of RAC related books, blogs, etc.
• Purge old and stale content from the site.

These duties usually take about 1 hour per week and almost all the duties occur via email, so they can be done at almost any time. This position also carries board membership and will participate in monthly board meetings to discuss upcoming events and general RAC SIG business. These meetings are conference calls that are scheduled at a time that works well for all board members.

Web Seminar Chair

Qualifications:
The person should be well organised and able to timely manage webinars schedule. The position doesn’t require significant RAC technology qualifications but the emphasasis is on being able to regularly manage webinar schedule. This is a great position to start volunteering in the community.

• Responsible and organized
• Attention to details
• Basic knowledge of Orace RAC technology
• Ability to coordinate in North American time-zone
• Preferably to be RAC SIG member for at least a year

Responsibilities:
The web seminar chair handles the RAC SIG webcast series. Specific duties involve:

• Setting the web seminar schedule
• Coordinate with the board on identifying and contacting potential presenters
• Obtaining presenter’s presentations for review
• Posting the presentations on the web site after the session
• Perhaps most importantly, send timely reminder notifications to the whole SIG when webcasts are upcoming

These duties usually take about 0.5-1 hour per week and almost all the duties occur via email, so they can be done at almost any time. This position also carries board membership and will participate in monthly board meetings to discuss upcoming events and general RAC SIG business. These meetings are conference calls that are scheduled at a time that works well for all board members.

Regional Chair

Qualifications:

• Self-starter with initiative — ability to generate and try new ideas in the regions
• Local network of contact to drive local regional SIG activities in the region

Responsibilities:
The Regional SIG Chair is responsible for coordinating RAC SIG events and contacts in their geography, and must be based in the region. Specific duties include:

• Coordination of local or regional RAC SIG events. These may be live events such as seminars, SIG technical sessions or Oracle-sponsored events like Oracle Tech Days. They may also include webcasts targeted at the region by using presentation times that are easy for the region to attend and, if appropriate, local native language presentations.
• Recruitment of local/country regional leads to host informal social/technical gatherings of local members.
• Send broadcast messages to the region’s members for all coordinated activities. This is done via the RAC SIG website.
• Keep the International Chair updated on all activities for reporting to the RAC SIG Board.

These duties usually take about 0.5 to 1 hour per week and many of the duties occur via email. This position does not include board membership. The activities of Regional SIG Chairs will be collected and reported to the board via the International Chair.

If you have any questions on what it means to be volunteer at the RAC SIG board, let me know of contact any of the existing officers.

You need to login before you can access the nomination forms:
List of open positons — http://www.oracleracsig.org/pls/apex/f?p=105:60
Nomination form — http://www.oracleracsig.org/pls/apex/f?p=105:62

The nomination will close at the end of August and then RAC SIG membership will vote in September. Dont’ get discouraged if you didn’t get elected in the first year — it took me twice to be elected. Good luck!