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Rachel McCluskey, Alister O’Loughlin, Tommy Sheppard and Sam Gough have been elected to the board of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society at the 2011 Annual General Meeting.

Last year the Society adopted a new constitution in which board members were put into three categories: performers, venues and an open category.

Tommy Sheppard from The Stand Comedy Club won the election in the venue category with Nicola Bolsover from PBH’s Free Fringe second and Charlie Wood from the Underbelly in third place.

In the open category Sam Gough was successfully elected over Caroline Pearce, Adrian O’Donnell, Helene Brown, Richard Hillier and Tomek Borkowy.

Because no nominations were received at the election earlier this year there were two vacancies in the performer’s category. Alister O’Loughlin and Rachel McCluskey were named the winners in this category over Pab Roberts, Julian Constant and Jenny Sutherland.

The elections were carried out using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system of preferential voting. Further detail on the count can be found below.

The General Meeting also agreed to a resolution to change the name of the organisation to include the word “Edinburgh” in the title. The organisation will now be known as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Ltd.

In the venue category 373 valid votes were cast and the quota was set at 157. 59 of the votes were non transferable.

At the first stage Charlie Wood did not make the quota and was excluded. In the final stage Nicola Bolsover received 140 votes and Tommy Sheppard received 174 votes.

In the performer category 341 valid votes were cast and the quota was set at 108.67. 44 of the votes were non transferable.

Pab Roberts and Julian Constant did not reach the quota and were excluded. In the final stage Rachel McCluskey received 108 votes. Alister O’Loughlin received 94 votes and Jenny Sutherland also received 94 votes. Under the standard rules for preferential voting Rachel McCluskey and Alister O’Loughlin were elected as Jenny Sutherland did not have as many first preference votes as Alister O’Loughlin.

In the open category 345 valid votes were cast and the quota was set at 143. There were 59 non transferable votes.

Caroline Pearce, Adrian O’Donnell, Helene Brown and Tomek Borkowy were excluded for not reaching the quota. In the final stage Richard Hillier received 128 votes and Sam Gough received 158 votes.