It's been a busy couple of months as I've been coming up to speed in my new job. In August I went to Munich for an Executive Committee (EC) meeting. The work of the JCP is carried out by two Executive Committees: one deals with Java ME while the other deals both Java SE and EE, but we meet as a single group. We meet every month - usually by phone but three or four times a year we get together face-to-face.

I went on from Munich to St Petersburg to work on some transition issues with my previous TCK team and then to Manchester, England to visit family. I didn't get to see much of historic Munich (just my hotel, the corporate park where we met, and a local beer-garden). However, as I always do, I enjoyed the architecture of St. Petersburg and of my home town, Manchester. I think I feel at home in St. Petersburg because in some strange way it's like Manchester. (Why is a raven like a writing desk?) St. Petersburg was an imperial capital. It's full of canals and palaces and churches and cathedrals, but there are also many 19th century commercial buildings. Manchester was the industrial capital of the British empire. It doesn't have palaces, but there are gothic cathedrals, canals, and 19th-century warehouses that are similar in style to those that line the St. Petersburg canals.

Once I returned to the US it was time to prepare for the annual JCP elections.

Each year elections are held for one third of the membership of each committee, so that five ME EC seats and five SE/EE seats are up for re-election. The elections are carried out in two stages: JCP members first vote for three ratified seats for each EC (the candidates for these seats are nominated by Sun). Later, members vote for two elected seats for each EC (JCP members nominate themselves for these seats).

This year's nominations for the ME EC are Research In Motion, Samsung Electronics, and Time Warner Cable. The nominations for the SE/EE EC are Apache Software Foundation, Nortel Networks and Red Hat Middleware.

Voting for the ratified seats is now in progress (voting for elected seats will take place in November). For more information about the voting process, including an election timetable see the EC Elections 2007 page on the JCP website.

If you're a JCP member please vote. If you're not a member please consider joining (it's free for individuals). Instructions for signing up are here.