February 13th 2017
Notice of Elections: Seeking a representative from Clare PPN to participate in the Rural Development Forum.
Clare PPN is holding an online election for a representative to attend Clare County Council’s Rural Development Forum on our behalf. The forum is an initiative of Clare County Council’s CE Pat Dowling and aims to set out a new Rural Development Strategy for the County. This initiative is timed to coincide with the National Government’s Action Plan for Rural Ireland and to maximise its potential for County Clare. The forum will mostly be focused on identifying projects that can be developed within the time frames of the Action Plan and avail of whatever funding is made available.
http://www.ahrrga.gov.ie/app/uploads/2017/01/162404-rural-ireland-action-plan-web-2-1.pdf
This new Rural Development Forum will meet 5 times before summer, and may or may not continue thereafter or in fact it may continue in a different format. This means that for the moment we are seeking someone who is available between now and summer to attend meetings and who will be willing to take on the work of reporting back from each meeting to the members of Clare PPN. We would hope that the person elected will be someone who already has experience in the area of rural development but they may be from any of the three PPN colleges.
NB: The forum’s first meeting is on Wednesday 15th of February and Clare PPN’s Christy Sinclair of Burren Ecotourism Network will attend this meeting in an acting capacity and will report back until we have a representative in place.
We are open for nominations from today Mon 13th Feb until Thursday 23rd of February and every group who is a member of Clare PPN today can nominate one person for the position.
After the 23rd Feb we will circulate a list of candidates and every group who is today (Monday 13th Feb 2017 ) a member of Clare PPN will be entitled to vote for those candidates. The election will be held on March 6th 2017
According to last year’s updated guidelines for PPNs nationally, no person who already holds a representative position for the PPN can be nominated for this role although secretariat members may be nominated by their groups so long as they do not hold any other position within the PPN.
How to Nominate a Candidate:
To nominate a candidate please email sarah@clareppn.ie with the following information on or before Monday 13th February.
- Your name and contact details
- Your group’s name
- Your chosen candidate’s name and contact details
- A short statement (even one sentence) on your nominees suitability for the role.
Please note that even if you have nominated a candidate you will still need to cast a vote for them after the nomination period has closed. More details and reminders of how to do this will be circulated when the list of candidates is finalised.