[At-Large] [ALAC-Internal] [Fwd: Re: Draft agenda and planning for EURALO¹s 1st General Assembly in Paris]
Thompson, Darlene
DThompson at GOV.NU.CA
Thu Apr 17 11:43:02 EDT 2008
Hello,
Well, the NARALO doesn't have a board so it is rather a null issue for us. Most regions simply have a Chair, maybe a Co-Chair and a Secretariat. LACRALO doesn't even have a Chair or Co-Chair for most of the year - just a Secretariat. So, I am thinking that your region, with its heavy structure, is probably the only one that is experiencing this problem.
Having said that, though, NARALO did have discussions relating to this prior to forming as we do have some individuals on our list that are quite active in ICANN matters. It was more to do with voting privileges, though, rather than travel.
D
Darlene A. Thompson
Community Access Program Administrator
Nunavut Dept. of Education / N-CAP
P.O. Box 1000, Station 910
Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0
Phone: (867) 975-5631
Fax: (867) 975-5610
E-mail: dthompson at gov.nu.ca
-----Original Message-----
From: alac-internal-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-internal-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Jeanette Hofmann
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:56 AM
To: alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org; alac-internal at atlarge-lists.icann.org
Subject: [ALAC-Internal] [Fwd: Re: Draft agenda and planning for EURALO¹s 1st General Assembly in Paris]
Hello, for what it's worth I forward an exchange between Nick
Ashton-Hart and the EURALO board about ICANN's policy re travel support
for ICANN meetings.
The sad story is that the EURALO board hasn't met since it was formed
and, or so it seems, will never meet because 3 board members are
individuals without an ALS affiliation.
In Europe, the status of individual members is still an open issue.
Several of us have been involved in ICANN's early attempts to form an At
Large membership. In 2000, the AT Large Membership was thought to be
the home mainly for individual users. Now it seems they are not that
welcome anymore unless they bring their own funding.
What needs clarification across the RALOs is whether or not board
members have to be ALS members in order to qualify for travel support to
participate in RALO meetings. This is why forward the subsequent
exchange we had with Nick about this issue.
To prevent misunderstandings, our goal is not to achieve preferential
treatment compared to other RALOs. We seek clarification for board
members who are not members of ALS regardless of the RALO concerned.
thank you, jeanette
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Draft agenda and planning for EURALO¹s 1st General
Assembly in Paris
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:15:15 +0200
From: William Drake <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
To: Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu>
CC: Ashton-Hart, Nick <Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org>, Vittorio Bertola
<vb at bertola.eu>, Wolf Ludwig <wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net>, Banks, Karen
<karenb at gn.apc.org>, Miloshevic, Desiree <dmiloshevic at afilias.info>,
Rudi Vansnick <rudi.vansnick at isoc.be>, Dr. Christoph Bruch
<bruch at humanistische-union.de>, At-Large Staff
<staff at atlarge.icann.org>, Sébastien Bachollet
<sebastien.bachollet at isoc.fr>, Veronica Cretu <VeronicaC at diplomacy.edu>,
Annette Muehlberg <annette.muehlberg at web.de>, Cheryl Langdon-Orr
<cheryl at hovtek.com.au>
Hi Jeanette,
Feel free to forward my message if you like.
BD
On 4/17/08 3:46 PM, "Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
>
> I very much share your thoughts and I wonder if this discussion
> shouldn't be moved to the ALAC list as it concerns other RALOs as well.
> ICANN apparently moved from a concept of At large membership for
> individuals to one that only recognizes organizations. I wonder how many
> people are actually aware of this and support this move.
> jeanette
>
> William Drake wrote:
>> Hi Nick,
>>
>> While this conversation has drifted off, I¹d like to share a couple of
>> closing thoughts on your decision.
>>
>> If as you say it is a matter of clear policy that ³no region has an
>> opportunity for non-ALS members to receive travel support to attend
>> ICANN meetings,² one would think this could have been made clear when we
>> asked about it repeatedly months ago. Instead, as Jeanette noted, you
>> gave the impression last August that it shouldn¹t be a problem. I think
>> most people would reasonably read ³One could imagine that the invitation
>> could be extended to allow those officers to attend as well² in that
>> way. If there is a policy to the contrary, one could not have so imagined.
>>
>> Subsequently, a number of times people raised the matter with you in
>> ways that indicated we were therefore assuming the invitation could be
>> extended, and you never corrected us. On the basis of this assumption,
>> people have gone forward and put some time into participating (and would
>> have done much more if we¹d been energized by a F2F meeting in Warsaw or
>> Geneva) with an eye toward finally being able to convene in Paris and
>> really boot things up from there. Now we find out that a chunk of the
>> board is basically to be excluded, not just in Paris, but going forward.
>> Teleconferencing in is obviously no substitute for participating in a
>> first F2F board meeting and a General Assembly, particularly if one
>> wants to get more deeply involved in the work, get to know the ALS
>> folks, etc.
>>
>> More generally, if non-ALS people essentially have no standing, wouldn¹t
>> the time to make that absolutely clear have been last May, before the
>> region elected non-ALS people to the board? If it had been, when I was
>> approached about getting into this, as a non-ALS person I¹d obviously
>> have said there¹s no point and would have saved a lot of time since
>> then. And if the objective is to energize people to get engaged in
>> ICANN work, one would think it right to let regions organize themselves
>> as they need to and elect who they want...
>>
>> Anyway, I guess it¹s been a revealing learning process. I of course will
>> not stand for re-election but wish the next board all the best.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> On 4/14/08 6:20 PM, "Nick Ashton-Hart" <Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry if I was unclear that isn¹t quite what I meant and my
>> apologies if what I said led to confusion.
>>
>> Basically, no region has an opportunity for non-ALS members to
>> receive travel support to attend ICANN meetings. Therefore, if
>> EURALO is allowed to send non-ALS representatives to an ICANN
>> meeting and other regions are not, those other regions receive
>> unequal (lesser) treatment to EURALO.
>>
>> The Secretariats have previously discussed in principle the idea of
>> establishing differential rules by region related to travel support.
>> The community has not however explored this idea and of course any
>> proposal would need to be equitable across regions, and also within
>> regions.
>>
>> On 14/04/2008 17:55, "William Drake"
>> <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Nick,
>>
>> Thanks for this reply, but I still need help understanding the
>> nature of the inequity you see. Your argument is that the
>> boards of other regions would consider that ³it would unfairly
>> prejudice² them if the full European board were funded, just as
>> they are? They demand that only some of our board participate
>> in our board meeting and GA?
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> On 4/14/08 5:28 PM, "Nick Ashton-Hart"
>> <Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org> wrote:
>>
>> Actually nothing has changed. As you will note from the
>> email below, sent more than 7 months ago, you will notice
>> that the statement I made did not say that the extension
>> would be provided, only that it was possible. I¹m sure that
>> you all understand that we do need to be equitable to all
>> regions.
>>
>>
>> On 14/04/2008 17:17, "Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Nick,
>>
>> last year, 15.08.2007 16:22
>> you sent the following mail below to the euro-discuss
>> list. It would be
>> great if you could you let us know what has changed in
>> the meantime. I
>> hope you get better soon.
>> best, jeanette
>>
>> Re: [EURO-Discuss] Funding Request and Draft Agenda for
>> EURALO Board meeting
>>
>> ALS' are invited to send a single representative to
>> ICANN meetings when the
>> region that they are in is provided travel support.
>>
>> At this point Europe is the only region which has
>> regional officers who are
>> not also ALS representatives. One could imagine that the
>> invitation could be
>> extended to allow those officers to attend as well.
>>
>>
>> On 15/8/07 14:45, "Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette at wzb.eu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>> Hi Nick, from what I understand only ALS get
>> financial support for
>>>> attending ICANN meetings. Is that correct?
>>>> This would mean that several board members would
>> either not attend
>>>> regional meetings or pay for themselves.
>>>> jeanette
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
>>> My apologies for taking a few days to respond to this
>> email. I¹ve been a
>>> bit under the weather (unwell). I¹ve taken the liberty
>> of copying in
>>> Cheryl Langdon-Orr (ALAC chair) and the three ALAC
>> representatives from
>>> EURALO given the importance of the email to planning
>> overall...
>>>
>>> On the first point, as those of you who have attended
>> many ICANN
>>> meetings will know, it is pretty much impossible to
>> ensure that all
>>> scheduling conflicts can be avoided in connection with
>> an ICANN meeting.
>>> The Paris meeting is even more challenging, as it is
>> one day shorter
>>> than the usual meeting since it ends on the Thursday
>> instead of Friday.
>>> Having a EURALO meeting on Sunday wouldn¹t work as the
>> ALAC are meeting
>>> that day and on that day ALAC is meeting with the
>> GAC at lunch, and
>>> the GNSO for breakfast (and members of EURALO would
>> wish to attend these
>>> meetings I suspect). Saturday was chosen only after
>> careful review of
>>> all options. You should know that there are always
>> issues of the kind
>>> you mention with RALO GA planning so EURALO is far
>> from the first to
>>> experience issues with scheduling. In fact, I believe
>> that the last
>>> EURALO GA was split over three days due to scheduling
>> problems.
>>>
>>> With respect to travel support, the situation is that
>> each ALS will be
>>> invited to send one representative with travel support
>> provided by
>>> ICANN. Since no other region has received travel
>> support on any other
>>> basis, it would unfairly prejudice the others to treat
>> EURALO
>>> differently and provide more travel support for one
>> region over any
>>> other. I can tell you that ensuring that telephonic
>> remote participation
>>> that works well is a priority at the Paris ICANN
>> meeting as internally
>>> the discussions about how this has not worked well
>> previously have been
>>> taken to a higher level than was previously the case.
>>>
>>> I hope this answers your questions even if it is not
>> the answer that you
>>> might wish to receive.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12/04/2008 18:34, "William Drake"
>>> <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch> wrote:
>>>
>>> It sounds like it would have been good to check
>> with people on
>>> scheduling
>>> before fixing a date.
>>>
>>> Nick, could we please get definitive clarification
>> of the funding issue
>>> raised today by Vittorio and Jeanette, and
>> previously by Wolf, Karen,
>>> Annette, myself, maybe others? Somehow I'd
>> thought it was resolved that
>>> there's no problem, but looking through my saved
>> Euralo message folder I
>>> can't find a message that's actually from you to
>> that effect.
>>> People need
>>> to know whether and how to plan...
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Bill
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/12/08 6:02 PM, "Vittorio Bertola"
>> <vb at bertola.eu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Wolf Ludwig ha scritto:
>>>>> To the members of the EURALO board:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear all
>>>>>
>>>>> According to our by-laws, we are supposed to
>> have our first GA this
>>>>> year and the coming 32nd International Public
>> Meeting of ICANN in
>>>>> Paris (from 22 to 26 June 08) offers an almost
>> perfect opportunity
>>>>> for that. After a short discussion I had with
>> Nick he already
>>>>> reserved Saturday, 21 June 08, all day for us.
>> Thanks Nick!
>>>>
>>>> I still don't know whether I'll get funding for
>> Paris, but in any
>>> case I
>>>> won't be able to get to Paris before the
>> morning of the 22nd.
>>>> Ciao,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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