[NA-Discuss] At-Large Summit update

[Evan Leibovitch]

Hello folks.

We have been recently informed by Nick that the Summit, as it is
presently developed as described at
http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/At-Large_Global_Summit
http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/ICANN_Ensemble
is officially dead, by decree of ICANN staff. No staff support will be
offered and no funding would be made available for anyone to attend.

We are told by Nick (who has been our sole ICANN contact from day one)
that the decision is final, though a conference call has been requested
between us, Nick and Denise Michell in order to clarify the rationale.
Although no formal application was ever made, we have been told that a
formal rejection letter will be sent after the conference call.

To say that this early rejection was unexpected and disappointing is an
understatement. We have done absolutely everything that has been asked
of us by Nick. We have acted in a manner that we believe to be
professional, fiscally responsible, and accommodating to all concerns
expressed by staff to date.

What has been most upsetting has been the attitude of ICANN staff, which
has obviously put itself in the role of sole judge of how to spend the
money ICANN allocates for At-Large. (Indeed, while being constantly
telling us that there was no money available for the Summit, staff has
repeatedly refused to actually reveal what the allocation is.)

We had hoped that we could work with staff as partner and facilitator,
in the implementation of a project which has attracted support from
ALAC and all regions. Instead we have found nothing but a stream of
obstacles,from staff that clearly has a different vision of ICANN's
At-Large community than the community has of itself.

We thank everyone who has offered support and help so far, and are
certainly welcome to ideas and methods of keeping the project alive. We
still believe that the Summit has the potential to be a key component in
the development of the community's ability to make substantial
contribution to the ICANN decision-making processes.

Since staff has been unsupportive of our request for ongoing
collaboration resources, we will maintain the Google Group discussion
area at http://groups.google.com/group/icann-summit to which all are
welcome.

Evan Leibovitch
Darlene Thompson