Election of members of the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors shall include the President, two Vice-Presidents (of whom one will be elected by the stroke support organizations), Immediate Past-President, Secretary General, Treasurer, President-Elect, two Members-at-Large, and Directors (of whom there will be at least twelve).

In order to unable a geographical balance of WSO Board members, it was decided to have a Board of Directors of 41 members, divided as described below:

•	One half of the Directors will be elected by Individual Members and Honorary Members (21 seats, including the Past-President-not elected). They will serve a four-year term and can be reelected once i.e. they can serve maximally two consecutive four-year terms*
•	One quarter of the Directors will be elected by Scientific Societies (10 seats). They serve a four-year term and can be re-elected.
•	One quarter of the Directors will be elected by Stroke Support Organizations (10 seats). They serve a four-year term and can be re-elected.

For the period 2008-2012, all positions are open.

The 3 elections are totally independent and separated:

•	Individual members can nominate and vote only for the 20 seats reserved for representatives of individual members.
•	Scientific society members can nominate and vote only for the 10 seats reserved for representatives of Scientific societies
•	Stroke support society members can nominate and vote only for the 10 seats reserved for representatives of Stroke support societies

* For the first elections in 2008, 50% of the individual board members will be elected for 6 years instead of 4. This will allow subsequently elected individual board members to serve a full four year term but the turnover of this part of the board will be at a rate of 50% every two years. The list of individual board members who will serve either for 4 or 6 years will be determined by the new board.

Elections of individual members (20)

In order to have individual Board members geographically balanced, it was decided to divide the world into 10 regions, each region having a maximum of 3 people elected to seat on the board.
The 10 regions are:

- Zone 1: Asia 1 (China, Hong Kong)

- Zone 2: Asia 2 (Japan, Korea, Taiwan)

- Zone 3: South East Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam…)

- Zone 4: Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Melanesia (including Fiji), Polynesia…

- Zone 5: North America

- Zone 6: Central/South-America

- Zone 7: North Europe (Scandinavia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, UK, Ireland…)

- Zone 8: Central Europe (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine…)

- Zone 9: South Europe (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Malta, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Israel…)

- Zone 10: Africa/Middle East/Arabic countries (Afghanistan, Armenia, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan…)

Election of Society members (10 scientific societies, 10 stroke support organizations)

There should be only one candidate per society member (scientific and stroke support). Societies were allowed to nominate 3 societies but it should have been for different societies.

Voting members are:

•	Individual Members
•	Honorary Members
•	Organizational Members: scientific societies and stroke support organizations

who paid WSO membership fees either in 2007 or 2008.

Elections will proceed in the following steps:

1. Call for Nominations

Voting members have the right to nominate a maximum of 3 candidates (one or two or three candidates).
Voting members cannot nominate themselves.
Please note that once you complete the online nomination process, you are not able to nominate online again. In order to amend your nomination file, please contact membership@world-stroke.org.

Can be nominated:

•	Individual members: Individual and Honorary members who paid their membership fees either in 2007 or 2008
•	Organizational members: any representative nominated by societies who have paid membership fees in 2007 or 2008.

Individual candidates must be nominated by at least 2 current members. This is not necessary for nominations of organizations.

Timing: March 20 to April 20, 2008

Nominations are now closed!

2. Selection of the slate of candidates

The Nomination Committee will make 3 lists of validated candidates representing:

•	Individual Members
•	Scientific Societies
•	Stroke Support Organizations

To be validated by the Nomination Committee, individual candidate must:

•	be nominated by at least 2 current members
•	confirm to the committee that he/she is a candidate and to send a half page CV (each candidate will be contacted)

The Nomination Committee, constituted by Marie-Germaine Bousser (Chair), Takehiko Yanagihara, Vivian Fritz, Wolf-Dieter Heiss, Niphon Poungvarin, Marc Fisher and Vladimir Hachinski (Past Chair and Advisor), has the right to nominate additional candidates and will be sensitive to the need to ensure a balanced geographical representation. If nominations are geographically unbalanced, the Committee has the right to extend the number of board members up to 25.

Timing: April 21 to May 11, 2008

3. Final ballots (Elections)

All candidates will be presented on WSO website and the site will be open for voting electronically.
Individual and Organizational voting members will be able to rank (order in preference) their preferred 3 candidates.Timing: May 27 to June 20, 2008

Online voting form will be available from May 27, 2008

Click HERE to submit your vote

The Committee will validate the election and inform the successful candidates.
Timing: June 23 to July 9

The list of elected Board members will be available on the WSO website.
Timing: July 9

Online voting form will be available from May 27, 2008