It's election season for Ontario Eages clubs

Every local aerie and auxiliary everywhere elects new officers with nominations the last meeting in April and voting the first meeting in May. For all of us, that's coming right up. London's aerie nominations are April 1, Heyden-Goulais River's April 17, Webbwood's April 22, Toronto's April 23 and the Sault's April 24.

If this year runs true to form, we'll have plenty of acclamations - technically candidates who have the unanimous support of their members.

That may even be true sometimes. In reality, however, many acclamations are for people pressed into filling vacancies no one else wants to fill. In extreme cases, some aeries will finish nomination night with vacancies unfilled.

The Model Election Rules, available in the Members Only section of the FOE website, there's provision for that: "if there is no candidate nominated for an office(s), nominations for that (those) office(s), nominations may be re-opened at the next meeting upon notice to the membership. Only those offices without a candidate may be reopened."

Vacancies are a shame. If nothing else, elections are great fun. There's no shame in losing either: you've made your point, offered to serve and had the chance to campaign for issues you feel are important.  Even better, even if you lose, you might force the winner to make a real effort to listen to his or her fellow members and to commit himself to getting results.

Go to the nomination meeting to see who's interested. You might decide you want to serve after all. Don't worry if you haven't planned ahead and arranged for someone to nominate you. Again from the Model Election Rules, "a member may nominate himself/herself for an office".

And because nominations start at the top and close for each position before moving on to the next one, you might just nominate yourself for an office higher than the one you planned to run for.

My brother Robert was initiated into the Eagles on a Saturday many years ago that happened to be just before nominations the following Monday. As a joke, a "friend" of mine nominated him for Trustee, which I assumed Robert would decline. He accepted to my surprise, and became a Trustee by acclamation.

"What were you thinking?", I asked him as he sat down. "You don't know anything about being a Trustee!"

"That's OK, you'll show me," he replied (I'd already been a member for years).

"Hey bro, I've never been a Trustee, you're on your own," I replied.

He served his three years and was, by all accounts, a pretty good Trustee.

And the story doesn't end there. Years later I won a hard-fought and very close election for Trustee myself. On hearing that I'd won, I went out to the bar and stood beside the now-departed OPA President and Grand Aerie Hall of Fame member Ian Carry. I lifted a glass to him (basically congratulating myself).

Ian deftly punctured that balloon, loudly saying for all to hear, "congratulations, Steve, it only took you ten years to get your kid brother's old job."