Call for Volunteers

2006 Annual General Meeting (AGM)

The AGM is FIRST's Annual General Meeting, where the FIRST members meet and discuss and decide about FIRST and its road ahead. This includes the elections for the 5 Steering Committee slots that go vacant each year at the AGM.

The 2006 FIRST AGM will take place on Thursday, June 29, 2006 from 15:30 till approximately 17:30 local time in Baltimore, during the 2006 FIRST Conference.

The AGM will be conducted in accordance with the FIRST Operational Framework.

Attendance and participation at the FIRST Annual General Meeting is limited to FIRST team members, FIRST liaison members and their invited guests, subject to approval by the Steering Committee.

Please take proper note of the following documents and procedures:

• Call for Volunteers for the FIRST Steering Committee

Call for Volunteers for the FIRST Steering Committee

Introduction to FIRST Steering Committee

Every year at its Annual General Meeting, the FIRST membership elects five individuals to serve on the FIRST Steering Committee. There are 10 Steering Committee members in all. Each serves a two year term, and the elections are staggered such that 5 terms are completed every year.

A complete list of Steering Committee members, including their affiliations and the length of their terms, is maintained at https://www.first.org/about/organization/sc.html.

The Steering Committee members with terms expiring in 2006 are:

• Ian Cook
• Jim Duncan
• Chris Gibson
• Udo Schweigert
• Liliana Solha

Udo Schweigert and Liliana Velasquez have been nominated to run again and have accepted. Chris Gibson and Jim Duncan plan to run again. Ian Cook will not run again.

Volunteers to serve on the Steering Committee are being sought now. This communication describes the Steering Committee candidate qualifications, who can run and who can vote, how the elections will be held, and how to nominate individuals to run for the Steering Committee.

Candidate Qualifications and Considerations

The FIRST Operational Framework specifies that the Steering Committee shall be comprised of individuals; not necessarily representatives of FIRST incident response teams (referred to as FIRST Full Members or Liaisons). Therefore, it is not a requirement that a Steering Committee Member be employed by a FIRST Full Member or Liaison. Rather, a candidate for the FIRST Steering Committee should be an individual with a legitimate interest in computer security incident handling, who is willing to adhere to and to uphold the FIRST Operational Framework.

The Steering Committee meets each month in a telephone conference call. Additional to this, in the year ahead, there will be two face-to-face meetings of the Steering Committee with full reimbursement of travel cost, and one with partial reimbursement. The first face-to-face meeting will last for 3 days from 11-13 September 2006, and will take place in Sevilla, Spain. The second meeting will probably be held adjacent to a TC in Budapest, Hungary, in January 2007 with reimbursement only of the expenses during the additional 2-3 days of the meeting. The third meeting will be in March/April 2007 - place to be defined. Candidates are expected to ensure that they are able to attend the September 2006 meeting, which is essential for team building and setting the agenda for the year ahead.

The link Requirements for FIRST Steering Commitee Members serves to detail what is expected from a potential SC member.

FIRST Steering Committee Members need to be aware of upcoming FIRST events, need to follow FIRST-related e-mail traffic, and need to be responsive to requests from the membership and from other Steering Committee Members. Potential candidates need to consider whether their employers will permit them to spend the required amount of time, travel and funding. Candidates should make prior arrangements for support from their management enabling them to serve in the SC.

Steering Committee Members will be requested to become members of the Board of Directors of First.Org, Incorporated. This California, USA, based Non-Profit corporation was set up to provide legal recognition to FIRST, and to handle funding and Annual Conference matters. Board Members (and the SC members as such) as well as Officers of First.Org, Inc., are protected against liabilities that result from acts that they perform on behalf of First.Org, Inc. Potential Steering Committee candidates need to consider whether their work circumstances permit them to become officers of the corporation; see the FAQ document that discusses these issues.

Steering Committee Candidate Nomination Procedure

Each FIRST Full Member team has a Representative, whose name is registered with the FIRST Secretariat. Only FIRST Full Member Representatives and their proxy holders can nominate and second Steering Committee candidates, and can vote in the elections during the AGM. FIRST Liaison members have NO nomination or voting rights.

The deadline for all of the below nominations, secondments and acceptations, is June 28, 2006, 12:00 GMT-4 (local Baltimore time). No nominations will be accepted after this deadline, or indeed from the floor, i.e. during the Annual General Meeting.

To nominate a candidate via email, a Full Member Representative should send PGP-signed mail to first-secfirst.org no later than the above deadline. The nomination should contain the name of the candidate, a statement of support, and should contain the name and organization of the supporting FIRST Full Member Representative. A Representative may support no more than six candidate nominations.

For a candidate to become official, that is, to be included on the Steering Committee ballot during the AGM, each candidate's nomination must be supported by six Full Member Representatives no later than the above deadline, again using PGP-signed e-mail to first-secfirst.org.

Nominated candidates who wish to run for election should send PGP-signed mail to first-secfirst.org no later than the above deadline. The message should contain the candidate's name and organization, and should contain a statement that the candidate is willing to appear on the 2006 Steering Committee election ballot, plus a short biography.

Steering Committee nominations will also be accepted in writing at the Annual Conference prior to the Annual General Meeting. Nomination forms will be available at the Annual Conference secretariat; candidates must be nominated and seconded according to the same rules as described above. The nomination forms must be given to the FIRST secretariat no later than the above deadline.

Validation by the FIRST Steering Committee

All nominations received by the above deadlines will be validated in a Steering Committee meeting prior to the Annual General Meeting. The validation will consist of checking if the name and organization of the nominating and seconding Representatives match the FIRST Secretariat's list of FIRST Full Members, and thus if nomination and secondments are in order and enough.

The list of candidates and nominations will be sent to closed member lists and made available on a message board at the conference premises. . The list will be reviewed at the start of the AGM. The supporting Representatives are encouraged to check the lists provided.

Voting Procedure during the AGM

All FIRST Full Member Representatives are required, in accordance with the Operational Framework, to attend the Annual General Meeting, either in person, or via a proxy holder. During the AGM, the Steering Committee ballot will be given to all FIRST Full Member Representatives.

All candidates will be requested to give a short statement, not exceeding two minutes, in support of their candidacy just before the election. Candidates not present may ask for a stand-in to give their written statement on behalf of them. Candidates who are not a member will be allowed to the meeting for the time needed, or the members supporting them can propose to the Steering Committee to allow the candidate as guest to the AGM.

Questions about the election procedure can be asked during the AGM. Questions directed at specific candidates will not be accepted, as the membership has the opportunity to question candidates before the AGM.

Each Full Member Representative shall vote for no more than five candidates. The five candidates with the most votes will be elected to the Steering Committee. Ties shall be broken by random selection. The votes will be tallied by the FIRST Secretariat and FIRST Membership Committee and announced at the meeting.