[NA-Discuss] ALAC Members

Tue Jun 26 16:13:22 EDT 2007

Hi Darlene

The way the structure was set up is that there are 10 regional
representatives  on the ALAC. 2 are voted for from each region. The other 5
are global committee members, appointed by the Nominating Committee from
people in each of the 5  regions. Their job isn’t to represent the members
of the region, but to look after the global interests. So those current
NomCom members are:

Alan, Alice, Siavash, Annette and myself. LAC, Asia Pacific and Africa will
be ending their terms at the AGM in LA. NomCom will announce the new 3 names
before that.

As a NomCom appointee, I would say that we are answerable to the global
internet community in general who are not covered by the RALOs –  we are
from the region, but looking at issues in a more global context. At least
that’s the idea  I was given when I was picked, and that’s how I operate on
the committee.

To be fair, the wording that Alan had put into the document came out of a
long ongoing discussion  - Alan volunteered to draft this one of the
positions, as you can see it was a big topic for Annette and some others.
Other positions have been also put forward in discussion from LAC and Africa
who have a lot of govt-private partnerships and MSH partnerships, especially
during and after WSIS.  What we try to do is get a position that works for
ALL the regions, as we have to have a global perspective. This document was
also circulated over the past 5 months without any comment, and most
recently by Alan himself prior to San Juan, in an attempt to force some more
discussion on the concepts. 

You guys came in almost at the end of the discussion without having heard
the various things said by loads of other people over a long time in a lot
of meetings, so a lot of background was missing for you, I think.

Also – I think you misunderstood - ICANN is not revisiting the entire
structure – the bylaws mandate  review by an external agency of all ICANN
structures on a rotating basis. It may seem  strange that the review happens
just as the Interim ALAC is ending, but as Paul Towmey said – the review can
focus on the forward looking parts, and the NEXT ALAC review can focus on
the functioning of the RALOs after they have been in operation for a while.
(This was also discussed with the Board and with the President in Lisbon –
but I realize that it is difficult to wade through all the minutes and
recordings of previous meetings in order to get up to speed if you are new -
I went through it myself 2 years ago) 

So it is unlikely that ICANN will revisit the structure before the next
review in 3 + years. The task of the Interim ALAC was to set up the RALOS.
The bylaws mandate tasks for the ALAC as well, once the RALOs are formed. So
we have finished one job, and have to start the other. 

We have had 3 morning coordination meetings to plan for the main AtLarge
Committee Public meeting on Thursday, as we have found that if we don’t
prepare, the public meeting where we take decisions and do consultation goes
on for ever. These meetings are not an attempt to push through decisions
without consultation, but to do the background work to have items on the
agenda in the public meeting and to  have worked though most of the main
problems that may prevent proper discussion and decision – if Legal needs to
give an opinion, we have it, if something needs explanation from Finance, we
have that staff person on hand to explain, etc., etc. 

In some of the past meetings the coordination meetings were after 6, and we
went until after 10 pm at times. So the ALAC agreed that early morning was
the most efficient time to do this, before the other stuff we had to do. We
have generally been really good on time, but today was a really bad
exception, probably because the purpose of the meeting was not understood by
all the people in the room. Today the job was to get information from the
Secretariats for Nick to develop options on the flowsheet for presentation
in the public meeting – not to make any decision on the flowsheet. 

Similarly with the criteria – the meeting was to finish a potential document
for presentation to and discussion at the public meeting on Thursday. All
the ALSes will be there then. Robert asked for a few of you to be able to
attend as you could give assistance on the wording of  some bits that we
were having problems with yesterday.  If it were to be a full discussion
meeting, I would have made sure that ALL the ALSes were in the room,
especially the LACRALO ALSes as well as NA – they weren’t, because that
wasn’t the purpose of the meeting. They have the documents, and they will
raise their points on Thursday, and we will also have feedback from the
other regions present.

One of the main problems with the ICANN meetings is lack of time. We try to
do a lot online before, and to be as efficient as possible in our meetings
with the number of other meetings and panels that we need to do, so we are
sometimes not as patient with revisiting things for new people as we could
be. 

I would suggest that the best way to prepare to participate effectively
would be to go over the agendas in advance (all on the wiki), comment (on
the wiki) and get the background of the items that are on the agenda before
the meeting starts. If anyone needs stuff I can explain and locate documents
etc, or any other ALAC members or ALS members who have been around before –
LACRALO is here and  Erick has been around a LOOOONG time and some members
of the other regions are also here and can help you get up to speed on some
of the issues that we will be discussing.

Jacqueline

From: Thompson, Darlene [mailto:DThompson at gov.nu.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 12:13 PM
To: na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org
Subject: [NA-Discuss] ALAC Members

Hi all,

I must say, I'm learning a ton of stuff here in San Juan.  One of which, is
that I had always thought that we had 3 ALAC members representing our region
and that is not, in fact, the case.  We have two, who we have just elected
being Robert and Beau.  Alan "has no obligation" (his words) to forward any
of our causes.

I found this interesting because, some time ago, we had a huge discussion on
this list (which I do not mean to re-open) on whether orgs-of-orgs (ICANN
calls them "Umbrella Organizations") and their member orgs can apply to
become ALSs.  We had concensus on this topic, in fact the vast majority gave
their consent.  At yet, Alan Greenburg actually put in contrary wording to
this in the ALAC Proposed Guide to ALS Application Evaluation which would
have prevented this, namely (and I quote):

"Where an Umbrella Organisation applies and is accepted for membership, its
constituent member organizations may not be accredited as ALSes. If members
of an Umbrella Organisation are already accredited as ALSes, and they wish
to retain their accreditation, the Umbrella Organisation’s application would
not be approved."

We were extremely fortunate to have Robert there as he circulated this
document amongst several of us here that would have been negatively impacted
by this and arranged to have us speak to the ALAC to have this wording
removed.

It is also interesting that, up until this time, it was a fairly major
responsibility of ALAC to assist in the formation of the five regions.  Now
it seems that ICANN is revisiting the entire structure.  We may wish to
discuss how we would like to see this structure work.  I am wondering why we
only get to select 2 of the 3 regional ALAC reps.  If the third one is not
actually forwarding OUR causes, then what is the point?  Why does ICANN
reserve the right to select these people if, really, they are not answerable
to any group?

I must say, we are very fortunate to have both Robert and Beau on the
committee.  They have been working unbelievably hard already (meetings at
7:30 AM most days, having to stand up and speak although totally new,
running like crazy and organizing things).

Thank you, Robert and Beau,

Darlene

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