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 an 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, and passionate about Oracle technology and the community. You must also 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 I nominated myself to become Vice-President (and got elected) and turned into President in a year. I’ve now been 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. Instead, the VP becomes the president after a year of service and serves for another two years. The 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 a volunteer presenter and a representative of IOUG where I serve on the board as Director of Communities. Leading RAC SIG was a great foundation to become an IOUG Director.
If I convinced you to try, read on! Just remember: It’s not just about getting elected. You need to commit to this role for two years and be active.
Below are the open positions and descriptions 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 does require some experience in organizing community events and the ability to lead and organize 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:
- Development of international presence for RAC SIG
- Coordination between the RAC SIG and user group assigned
- Attendance at board calls and user group meetings
- Creation and presentation of information about the RAC SIG to user groups, including the value of the user groups and how to sign up for memberships
- Updated presentations about RAC SIG to be given at user groups and/or webcasts
These duties usually take about 1 hour per week, and many occur via email. This position also carries a 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 experience organizing online content, for example, on his/her own blog or other community organisations. This is a great position to kick-start your contribution to the Oracle community.
- Self-starter with initiative
- Basic management knowledge
- Basic social media skills and experience
- Very good knowledge of Orace RAC technology
- Preferably an 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. He/she works closely with 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 a 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 occur via email, so they can be done at almost any time. This position also carries a board membership and involves 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-organized and able to manage a webinars schedule in a timely manner. The position doesn’t require significant RAC technology qualifications, but the emphasis is on being able to regularly manage the 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 with North American time-zones
- Preferably an 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
- Collaborating with the board to identify and contact potential presenters
- Obtaining presenters’ presentations for review
- Posting the presentations on the website after the session
- Perhaps most importantly, sending timely reminder notifications to the whole SIG when webcasts are upcoming
These duties usually take about 0.5-1 hour per week, and almost occur via email, so they can be done at almost any time. This position also carries a board membership and involves 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 region
- 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.
- Broadcast messages sent to the region’s members for all coordinated activities. This is done via the RAC SIG website.
- The International Chair is to be kept updated on all activities to report to the RAC SIG Board.
These duties usually take about 0.5 to 1 hour per week, and many occur via email. This position does not include a 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 or contact any of the existing officers.
You need to login before you can access the nomination forms:
List of open positons — https://www.oracleracsig.org/pls/apex/f?p=105:60
Nomination form — https://www.oracleracsig.org/pls/apex/f?p=105:62
The nominations will close at the end of August, and the RAC SIG members will vote in September. Don’t get discouraged if you didn’t get elected in the first year — it took me twice to be elected. Good luck!
No comments