Is two years (for VPs) too short?

There was a strong consensus (only a couple of people not supporting this) that two years is too short for a Trustee term, unless the person had already been on Council in some other role. There was also a strong consensus that three years felt about right.

NB: It is extremely common to allow two or three consecutive terms before someone has to step aside from a role.

Is five years (for Secretaries and Treasurer) too long?

There was some feeling that five years for Secretary and Treasurer was too long, but not quite as strong. I think this was because fewer people have held these roles, so there were fewer responses, so even one or two person happy to do five years creates a larger percentage happy with the status quo.

The case against five years came across as:

• five years is daunting - and two lots of five years even more so. Two previous Secretaries said they had to be persuaded very hard to take on the second five year term.
• it might be harder to get younger people to stand for these five-year roles, as they often don't know where they will be in five years, and certainly not ten

So... if five years is too long, and two years is too short... should we be looking at three years, or four years?

To decide what to recommend to Council, it's important to remember the possibility of doing two or three terms. There's no need to think of it as "Three/four years and then out you go into the cold for ever".

So although there is a lot to learn as Treasurer, for example, it is highly likely that an individual could do another term of three/four years after their first term. This would give them six/eight years in the role, which is plenty of time to get to grips with the work and then perform highly.

If you do want to recommend a shorter term, then whether it's three years or four years is really just up to Council to decide what they want to recommend to the Membership.

Steve was right to point out (in his recent email) the need to think about the timeline, or rotation cycles, for when different roles finish, so that Council never loses too many people in one go. You don't want a situation like when two broods of cicadas emerge in the same year. 

This can usually be sorted through "transition arrangements" whereby in the first few years of the Society's new term lengths, terms are slightly longer or shorter than they will be, to enable a sensible alignment of "who finishes when" later.

My preference is very slightly for three years rather than four. And I think both are better than five.