[At-Large] ICANN-provided travel support for Liaisons to ACs, SOs, etc.

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Dear All:

As many of you know, several of the ALAC Liaisons to to other  
Advisory Committees and Bodies of ICANN do not require that the  
person chosen be a current member of the At-Large Advisory Committee.

Since 'tis the season for selecting liaisons for the coming year, and  
since there are likely members of the community who may not be  
familiar with these matters, I thought I should send out a brief note.

In the past, there have been serving liaisons - Bret Fausett, to the  
GNSO, and currently Hong Xue, for all IDN matters - who have been in  
this situation. ICANN has provided travel support for them to attend  
the face-to-face meetings necessary in order to be effective liaisons  
for the At-Large community, though there has never been any  
"official" policy related to this. Why is this, you might ask?

Simply that ICANN wants the community to be able to appoint the best  
candidates to important liaison positions such as these. If there are  
members of the community who  believe they have something to offer by  
volunteering for one of these posts, we would not want them to be  
discouraged simply because they cannot personally afford to pay to  
attend the ICANN meetings, and sometimes intercessional meetings,  
that their liaision brief would require.

It should be emphasised that we have to look at these things on a  
case-by-case basis to at least some degree. We would expect, for  
example, that a person who was from outside the ALAC who wishes to  
serve in a liaison capacity which would require funding from ICANN to  
support would be someone who, for example:

* Is clearly knowledgeable about the area they propose to be a  
liaison to - which would include having worked on the issues related  
to their proposed liaison role as a member of the At-Large community  
in an active way preceding their possible appointment;

* Knows the people in the ICANN body to which they would be a  
liaison, preferably with relationships already in place with at least  
some of the main players;

* Will commit to the time required to be effective in their new role  
- which would include measuring up to the standards required of  
liaisons in the ALAC's Rules of Procedure, reporting regularly to the  
community, working actively on At-Large policy working groups that  
relate to their liaison role or the body they are a liaison to, and  
the like;

* Has been a part of the At-Large community and a participant in  
their RALO's work in a meaningful way (meaningful to their RALO at  
least, and hopefully meaningful to the whole of the community).

I hope everyone understands that the above isn't meant to be  
carefully scrutinised as a precise criteria or anything like that,  
but rather to give a sense of what kind of person would be  
appropriate for receiving travel support for being a liaison - in  
some cases quite considerable funding. After all, the funds which are  
used to send a liaison to the necessary meetings and the like are  
coming from funds which would otherwise be spent on other members of  
the community - I feel sure that you all would want to feel that if  
such an appointment were made, that the person in the liaison role  
would be felt by the community to be providing 'value for money' to  
the whole community (to use a UK expression).

As always, please feel free to ask questions.
-- 
Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
Director, At-Large
ICANN
Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88
USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460
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email: nick.ashton-hart at icann.org
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