[Peace] WEFT Election Deadline

[Jan & Durl Kruse]

IF YOU ARE A WEFT MEMBER - PLEASE READ CLOSELY - THANKS!

WEFT election deadline TOMORROW, July 12th
---------------

Every year near the beginning of summer, WEFT conducts an election  
for two
Member-elected seats on the Board of Directors. The term "Member- 
elected" refers
to the fact that all WEFT Members may vote in the election. A WEFT  
Member is
anyone who has contributed at least $40 to WEFT in the past year.  
Hundreds of
ballots are sent out by postal mail (one for each Member), voters  
fill out their
ballot and send it back to WEFT.

If you received a ballot, it must be postmarked by TOMORROW, July  
12th, to be
tallied in the election. If you believe you are a WEFT Member (that  
is, you
contributed at least $40 in the last year to the station during  
pledge drive or
at any other time) and you did NOT receive a ballot via postal mail,  
you may
request one by *immediately* sending e-mail to the WEFT Board of  
Directors at
weftb at weft.org (by tomorrow at the latest).


-----

Randall Cotton is once again running for the WEFT Board of Directors  
(he is on
the ballot in the current WEFT election) and is being endorsed by a  
new advocacy
group called the Committee for the Reform of WEFT (CROW), composed of  
about two
dozen WEFT Board members, volunteers, airshifters and members. CROW  
was formed
to oppose the current trends that are adversely affecting the overall  
health and
long-term viability of the organization and also to advocate for long- 
term
progressive change in WEFT's governance.

For more details on what's happening with the effort to reform WEFT,  
go to
CROW's website at:

www.reformweft.org

-----

Even if you are a frequent listener of WEFT 90.1 FM community radio,  
you may not
be aware of developments over the past year that are hurting the  
organization.
Read on to learn what's happening and how your participation in the  
current
election can help.

This year's WEFT election is particularly important in light of the  
problems
WEFT is facing (including reduced financial support in the community)  
due to
recent trends toward secretive, exclusionary autocracy by a  
relatively small
number of long-time volunteers. One exceptionally troubling example  
of this
trend was the banishment without cause of active volunteer and Board  
member
Randall Cotton in August 2005.

Randall Cotton is an oustpoken advocate for progressive change at WEFT -
including more transparency, less favoritism, more democracy, increased
participation in that democracy and increased efforts to attract new  
volunteers
to the organization. But his efforts were unwelcome by some key  
personalities at
the station and as a result, on August 23, 2005, the WEFT station  
manager
authored a letter banishing Randall Cotton from the premises and  
barring him
from WEFT's airwaves. For more information, see:

http://reformweft.org/banishment.html