[At-Large] Proposal: Rotating Chair for ALAC

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

With respect to this proposal, perhaps as the staff I could comment  
on the idea from the perspective of administrative overhead, and also  
perception outside the community:

Firstly, if the chair changes that often, you will have to have some  
way to select between the three regional representatives where more  
than one of them is willing to serve. This means more elections.  
Elections cause a fair amount of administrative overhead, and  
generally involve campaigning, lobbying others for votes, etc. This  
takes away time from policy discussions and other substantive work.

Secondly, as everyone is well aware, after spending years in  
procedural discussions and forming RALOs, those stakeholders outside  
of At-Large are very much looking to see how much policy work the  
community does. Having just finished forming all the structures, do  
you think that those outside of At-Large will see it as a good sign  
that you are turning immediately to desiging more administrative  
processes which involve elections?


On 9 Jul 2007, at 02:52, Alan Greenberg wrote:

> Although I like the idea conceptually, I am dubious how successful it
> would be. My intuition tells me that the Chair job is a lot of work.
> Just because a meeting will be in a specific region does not mean
> that one of the three regional people (or less if terms are up) will
> be willing to devote the time to do it, or capable of taking on the
> tasks (that is not meant as a negative comment - I *know* what my
> strengths are and where my interests lie, and I presume others do as
> well). Perhaps once things are working well and on a regular basis
> within the ALAC, it would be time for such a change. In my mind,
> today is not that day.
>
> However, similar to the issue that Izumi raised, I proposed several
> months ago that the chair's responsibilities be somewhat divided.
> Specifically I suggested that there be several vice chairs and that
> for any given task (agenda's, intra-ICANN coordination, etc) that
> either the Chair be the lead person and one of the vice-chairs backs
> them up, or vice versa. This would spread the work around a bit more,
> play to people's strengths, and ensure backup for all  
> responsibilities.
>
> I also agree with Izumi about term. 3-4 months is too short to really
> get the feel of the job (and too long if the wrong person is  
> selected!).
>
> Alan
>
> At 08/07/2007 09:30 PM, Izumi AIZU wrote:
>> I am rather conservative on this idea of rotating chair.
>>
>> I think we should first define/agree on the division of labor of the
>> whole committee's works, who is going to work on which areas.
>>
>> After that, we can agree on how much the Chair should
>> do, either with the current model, or with the proposed
>> rotating Chair model.
>>
>> In case we adopt to the rotation, perhaps the term may be
>> longer than one meeting. I think 3 to 5 months are too short to
>> become effective.
>>
>> izumi
>
>
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