Patrick Mächler steps down - Jerry Weyer Steps up!

Before the Viena conference in 2007, PPI was nothing but a mailinglist. Andrew Norton (United States) was appointed as coordinator of the PPI collective in September 2008. He had to step down in August 2009 due to the high workload and resulting health issues.

He passed the function over to the "coreteam" which since then lead Pirate Parties International. Patrick Mächler & Samir Allioui lead this team of hard-working pirate volunteers as co-presidents. So far, at lot of progress has been made.

What happened since we founded the coreteam?

• We kept the infrastructure of PPI intact and expanded it
• We officially founded PPI in Brussels
• We registered a bank account for PPI
• We are in the process of establishing a more democratic PPI
• We have set up several taskforces
• We have improved the communication between several parties
• We introduced more than a dozen new pirate parties to the world
• We provided moral support and proof of international support during elections
• We distributed infrastructure facilities to new pirate parties
• We represented PPI at several events
• We managed to establish an open book management
• We have laid down the foundation for a strong corporate identity every Pirate can identify with
• We shared and distributed information to and from NGOs
• We're in the process of stabilising the IT infrastructure
• We answered thousands of inquiries and requests, by parties and individuals
  etc. etc. etc.

Yesterday however, Patrick Mächler stepped down as PPI interim Co-President in favour of Jerry Weyer who was elected, unanimously, by the Coreteam.

Jerry Weyer is co-founder and Vice-President of the Pirate Party of Luxembourg.

I joined the PPI Coreteam because it's only by working together on an international level that the Pirate movement can advance. My short-term goal is to help organizing the PPI conference and lay down a foundation for a more democratic PPI. If I get the opportunity to continue my work after the conference, my long-term goal is to make of the PPI the umbrella organisation for every Pirate-related association, capable of providing help and guidance for its members from the creation process to national elections. I will invest a lot of time and effort into increasing the international cooperation between Pirate parties and I am confident that my background in European law and the fact that I speak four languages will help intensify the relations between national parties and the PPI. I want to thank Patrick for his enthusiastic work and I am looking forward to be part of a motivated team with the aim of spreading the Pirate agenda all over the world.

Jerry will be the PPI interim Co-President until the PPI conference in April.

In preparation for the conference our taskforces still need motivated Pirates.
The statutes taskforce is dealing with drafting a set of statutes for PPI that will be voted on at the conference. If you are interested in helping out, please drop a mail to statutes-tf (at) pp-international.net or join the group at mypirates.net.

The conference taskforce is responsible for setting up and running the conference. It is in charge of all administrative and infrastructural tasks concerning the conference. If you are interested in helping out, please drop a mail to conf-tf (at) pp-international.net.

The entire coreteam is very grateful to Patrick for his dedicated work and wishes him good luck in his future endeavours!