User:Rintaran

About
Shawn R. Gray is a Guest Services Agent at the award winning Abigail's Hotel in Victoria, BC. Outside of work, Shawn is a Canadian soccer enthusiast that uses advanced statistics to calculate the ELO ratings for Canadian Soccer Clubs. He writes articles related to the sport & Canadian teams for [Northern Starting XI]. In the past he has written and published a number of articles related to politics, cycling, and transportation systems, as well a handful of short stories and poems.

He has a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario and a bachelor's degree in Education from Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario. He also has a graduate certificate in Event Management with Honours and held a 4.0 GPA through his first 4 semesters of a Business Administration, Materials & Operations Management Diploma from Algonquin College in Ottawa. He opted to cut his diploma program short when he moved with his wife from Ottawa to Victoria in 2014. From 2008-2010, Gray ran events for National Novel Writing Month and Script Frenzy in Sudbury, Ontario, while working in retail electronics. During his time in Sudbury, he was involved in the formation of several writing and critique groups that still operate today.

Shawn is happily married and living in Victoria, BC.

2010, Federal Clerk and PPI-Wikileaks Secretary
Becoming a member of the party in August 2010, Shawn was elected to the position of Federal Clerk on October 19th, 2011. His first duty was the creation of the Clerk’s Quality Guide, which provided a framework from which all minutes and transcripts were maintained, and varied appropriately by meeting level (Local Meetings, General Assembly, Federal Council). Additionally, he developed a sense of accountability for the position through the development of a more precise job description and a specific definition of required oversight. As Federal Clerk, transparency was the necessary signature that Shawn brought to the position, and the continuance of that transparency was something he attempted to enshrine for future meetings of the General Assembly and Federal Council.

He took part in the Constitution Refinement committee in November 2010 to bring the then-constitution into line with government requirements and simplify some of the processes. This was the first of several steps that inevitably brought us to our current constitution, whose initial draft he assisted with creating.

During the Wikileaks Crisis, Shawn sat as Secretary for the Pirate Parties International Wikileaks Coordination Committee. His experience on the international committee gave him a broader view of the PPI. It also revealed the role that leaks play in ensuring open governance, and helped forge some vital international connections that have continued to be of service to the party. Shawn was the initial contact during the Tunisia uprising, bringing attention to local travel agencies about the developing conditions that had yet to be published as travel advisories officially.

2011, Federal Council through General Election 41
On February 14th, 2011 he was elected to the Federal Council with overwhelming support from the membership. During the campaign Shawn developed proper volunteer job descriptions for various aspects of the party. He laid out a decent marketing plan that aimed to help grow the membership of the party to 5k by the end of 2011. Although approved in principal, the marketing plan was not implemented as a result of a number of blocking forces within the council, much to his increasing frustration.

Together with Mike Bleskie and Wilson, Shawn began holding meetings in Ottawa and organized an information session on Bill C-32. For the session we prepared some media in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, where we also intended to show the CC-licensed short “All Creative Work is Derivative”. Posters, pamphlets, and feedback surveys were also developed to provide the attendees. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, the room was booked on the wrong night and the last-minute change greatly affected the attendance level.

During the 41st General Election, Shawn was the official agent for Mike Bleskie, our candidate in Ottawa South. He maintained regular newsletters with the membership in the Ottawa area, developed and printed two campaign pamphlets, one of which was bilingual, and ghost-wrote on Bleskie’s campaign blog. He also hit the pavement and did a fair amount of door knocking for his campaign. Immediately following the election, Shawn put together the wiki-page that gathered all of the results, reports, and other information related to the election in all of the ridings where the PPCA ran candidates.

As mentioned previously, Shawn helped kick-start the constitution rewrite following the election and contributed to it as he was able. As the debate on the constitution dragged on, Shawn allowed the membership to have their say and continue to build the constitution around their ideas as brokered through the main architect of the project, Sean Hunt. Inevitably, Shawn wrote the final letter calling for votes to be cast and had it distributed.

On the local level, meetings restarted in August 2011, with bi-weekly newsletters sent the Thursday prior to the meeting to keep all members in the area up to date at the beginning of November. In collaboration with our local candidate for Nepean-Carleton in 2015, a large quantity of materials has been gathered as well as local advertisement. Signs, banners, stickers, and even a PPCA-branded RV have been developed in order to attend various events in the region, thereby increasing the party's profile. The local meetings have entertained student groups, and he has personally been interviewed by several student journalists.

Shawn developed and released press releases and made updates to the PPCA website, handled many of the forum-related queries and taken steps to transfer information and event notices through our social media outlets, which include Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. He was hard at work getting the Wiki updated so it can continue to become the bastion of knowledge that required. Templates were developed to aid expanding CaPT, and he sought the ability to expand our line of merchandise and increase the PPCA's fundraising capabilities.

Shawn briefly served as a central point for candidates planning to run in 2015 to help coordinate, having touched base with all of them concerning social media and personal “vote for me” webpages. He has distributed contact information to each candidate so that they may communicate independently to determine what they need, and distribute their requirements amongst candidates, making it much easier to develop and distribute materials nationally. He is in the process of gathering some basic information from our candidates in preparation for introductory feature articles to be released in 2012. Additionally, Shawn made overtures to our past candidates to return for another attempt in addition to sending our formal thanks for having assisted us during the May 5th election.

2012 - 2014
Although initially interested in running for Political Board in 2012, Shawn stepped out of the running due to personal and medical reasons. He continues to support the Pirate Party as an "individual of no consequence", and served as moderator during the 2012 debate amongst candidates for the board.

Gray regularly & actively posted articles related to International, National, Provincial, and Municipal news on "Through the Eyes of a Pirate" that are generally of a pirate-related nature. When appropriate, these posts have been echoed on the PPCA's front-page, and linked through the PPCA's Google+, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. By focussing on current news elements, Gray highlighted interconnectivity with the Pirate Party's core ideals and proposed numerous policy steps that could be taken to improve the party's position on various avenues of governance. Unfortunately, Gray decided to fold "Through the Eyes of a Pirate" due to financial concerns in 2013.

While he pursued a diploma in Business Administration, Materials & Operations Management from Algonquin College in Ottawa, Gray was overwhelmed with school & work. This caused him to take a step back from PPCA and political work for a short time. Despite this, he was still regularly contacted by the Political Board & Executive Board as a good person to bounce ideas off. Gray's varied expertise & experience has proved invaluable throughout the year.

2015 & the 42nd General Election
Gray recently relocated to Victoria, BC and has been trying to contact Pirates in the area. He is currently very optimistic about getting a local riding association up and running in the relatively near future. Additionally, he has been in contact with a member who may be interested in running during the election. Gray has already begun work on some advertising pamphlets and has been able to distribute some older generic brochures to a few hundred homes since his arrival.

Furthermore, Gray is currently running for the position of VP on the Executive Board as he ramps up his involvement with the party.

Student Council / Program Council
At Algonquin College, Gray was elected to represent the Event Management Program on both the Program Council and the Student Council for the 2010-2011 year. He was directly responsible for bringing forth the following recommendations:


 * Extension of program through a third semester
 * No wish event conversation during first semester
 * Integration of Food & Safety, WHMIS, First Aid, Smart Serve workshops as part of course
 * Wish event introduced 2nd semester and completed in final semester


 * Removal/Lightening stress on Strength's Quest component
 * This component is not integral to the course and is currently taking class time and thought that would be better spent on course materials


 * Introduction of a week-long fall break
 * Many colleges and universities are utilizing a fall break to provide students with a chance to catch up
 * These can be done on a program to program basic, not necessarily program wide
 * Fall breaks have been shown to both increase retention and decrease suicide rates among students

New Democratic Party
In 2005, Gray attended NDP party debates to determine who would be replacing Ed Broadbent in Ottawa Center. As a result of the debate he wrote an influential and mostly impartial review of candidate positions, and was recruited onto the team of Tiffani Murray. Paul Dewar won the nomination for the riding. During the following federal election in 2006, Gray worked in data entry, flyer distribution and on the telephones for Dewar's campaign. Gray also worked at one of the polling stations at Carleton University on election night. Dewar was elected by a margin of nearly 5,200 votes.

Scouts Canada
During his youth, Gray was a member of Scouts Canada. In both Cubs and Scouts, he was appointed the leader of a squad. During his time as a Cub, he acted as Keeo for the Beaver group. While a Scout, he was Kim to the Cub pack.

After earning his Chief Scout Award, he was vital in the formation of the 12th Timmins Venturer Company. With the help of his fellow Venturers, Gray drafted bylaws for the company, which were summarily approved by the 12th Timmins group council. Immediately following the passage of the bylaws, elections were held.

During his 4-year tenure with the 12th Timmins Venturers, Gray held the following positions:
 * President (2 consecutive terms, max allowed by constitution)
 * Finance Officer (2-terms)

Gray also provided service as a leader for the 12th Timmins & 5th Timmins Beavers. He was also chosen as the local Youth Representative for the regional council.

Social Media
Gray is freely available on numerous social media channels including:


 * LinkedIn
 * Facebook
 * Twitter
 * Google+