Thanks to everyone that attended the AGM and particular thanks to everyone that participated in the debate regarding the term lengths of board members. For the benefit of those people that weren't at the AGM, the resolution to extend the term of board members to two years failed to reach the required 75% majority. You can see that resolution here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Annual_Conference_2011/AGM_Resolutions)
While the discussion we had was fresh in my mind, I decided to have a go at re-drafting the resolution to deal with as many of people's concerns as possible. I realised as I was doing it that the version we voted on didn't actually make sense anyway - it talked about votes and elections that are part of the Election Rules not the Articles. You can't have Articles that depend on Rules - that's backwards! So I've split it into two resolutions, one to amend the Articles and then one to amend the Election Rules (it could be combined into one resolution, but this way gives more flexibility if we want to consider alternative proposals).
You can see my proposal here:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Annual_Conference_2012/AGM_Resolutions
You will note that my proposed Article 16.2 is a grammatical nightmare. If anyone has any full stops to spare, please add them! It may be because it's 2am, but I can't for the life of me work out how to word that Article in a sensible way without losing some precision.
I think this approach simplifies things a little and prevents the tranches getting uneven. There will always be at least 3 seats up for grabs at any AGM (it won't necessarily alternate 3-4-3-4, though, since if one of a group of 4 people elected resigns in their first year, there will simply be 4 people elected the next year for 2 year terms and 3 people retiring the year after that - the 3's and 4's will have swapped - this seems better to me than trying to force an alternating pattern).
Please feel free to edit it, comment on the talk page or comment here (I've given up on asking people to only comment in one place, it never works anyway, so just comment anywhere!).