[AFRI-Discuss] [lac-discuss-en] Happy Holidays and Thank You!

carlos dionisio aguirre carlosaguirre62 at hotmail.com
Mon Dec 30 20:05:26 UTC 2013


Dear Olivier, 
As others said before, your leadership cappacity is enormous, diplomatic  and very smart. To get all of this in only one person is almost impossible, but you get  it.
Congratulation ALAC & congatulations to you, for giant task done, for the good comments recibed and for excellent expectations. 
Sometimes this kind of leaders not often appear, and we have a good luck to get you. 
Thanks 4 your work & to be good people, what  is more important than the first.
All the best is my wish for you, knowing if you are well,  represent a good thing for a whole At Large community. 
Thanks a million times.

Carlos Dionisio Aguirre 



Enviado desde mi dispositivo inalámbrico BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2013 16:08:46 
To: <alac-announce at atlarge-lists.icann.org>; <afri-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>; <apac-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>; <euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>; <lac-discuss-en at atlarge-lists.icann.org>; <na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Cc: <staff at atlarge.icann.org>
Subject: [lac-discuss-en] Happy Holidays and Thank You!


Dear members, staff, and friends,
 
 as we near the end of the calendar year, the traditional holiday season
 allows us to take a week where we can reflect on this year's past
 challenges and the ones we have ahead of us.
 
 Looking back at the year, I am really delighted with the advances this
 community has made. We now have active working groups with a very
 diverse membership. Some people take part in one or two working groups,
 or take part in regional activities, and they bring in the valuable
 diversity of input that is needed in a geographically balanced,
 bottom-up multi-stakeholder system. Others promote this community by
 performing outreach in fora outside of ICANN. Others work behind the
 scenes designing courses and capacity building for newcomers and for
 those members who are not yet taking an active part in this community.
 Some are very active in enhancing their RALO's capability at helping
 their members with understanding and taking part in ICANN processes.
 Some people are active in GNSO working groups. I could go on for a long
 time to explain all of the activities of this community. As ALAC Chair,
 I try to keep aware of all of the work that our members do for this
 community, but occasionally I am surprised by people who are taking part
 in an ICANN process but have not directly "advertised it" - such is the
 humbleness of some people in our community.
 
 When interacting with the Board and in other fora, I often receive
 congratulations from people who tell me that they are so pleased that
 At-Large has matured over the years. They are so pleased with the
 quality of the Statements that we draft and send to them. I tell them
 that this would not be possible without the great Team that I have on
 the ALAC and in the RALOs. So I wanted to thank you for the work you are
 doing as volunteers. It is truly inspirational to a lot of people in ICANN.
 
 Next year is about to arrive and there are a lot more challenges coming
 up. Our work in Policy Development will continue to grow as we now need
 to expand our competencies beyond commenting on ICANN processes but also
 in Internet Governance as a whole and the defense of the
 multi-stakeholder model as practised in ICANN. I have concerns that a
 few people have done the majority of the work in "holding the pen" when
 drafting Statements - so I look forward to new volunteers adding to the
 list of writers. Remember, you could co-draft Statements and you do not
 need to be an ALAC member to be a pen-holder. Policy work is very
 important to improve ICANN as a whole and I am thankful that many in our
 community care enough to take the time to propose constructive comments
 to improve ICANN's processes.
 On Organisation building, there is a lot of ongoing work in Capacity
 Building. This is an integral part of building our community. Outreach
 brings more people and organisations in At-Large to share the workload
 among more people and to reach more parts of the world and more diverse
 communities. In-reach makes sure that our At-Large Structures are more
 actively involved. However, after three years as ALAC Chair, I am still
 not satisfied that we have done enough to help engage our At-Large
 Structures.
 Thankfully this year we will have the second ever At-Large Summit (ATLAS
 II) which will take place in London in June 2014. This is an opportunity
 for every At-Large Structure named delegate to experience an ICANN
 meeting but also to learn about the bottom-up multi-stakeholder process
 of governance. It is the opportunity for participants to meet face to
 face and discuss the challenges facing ICANN and this community. The
 Summit is being entirely prepared by At-Large Structures, for At-Large
 Structures. It is vital that our Capacity building programs continue to
 expand since without knowledge, it would be impossible for At-Large
 Structure representatives to engage more in policy work. Capacity
 building is the first step to involvement of Internet end users at all
 levels of policy - please make sure you make use of the ATLAS II
 opportunity to enhance your knowledge!
 With efforts on the way to make ICANN more accountable after the end of
 the second round of Accountability & Transparency Review (ATRT 2), it is
 also important to recognise that our community is taking steps to make
 the ALAC and At-Large more accountable. Whilst I am delighted to see a
 significant number of organizations having signed up as At-Large
 Structures, it is equally as important for our RALOs to check on the
 existence of their members and to report back to the ALAC if an
 organisation's status has changed. Equally, ALAC members, selected by
 their RALOs and by the Nominating Committee, should be effective in
 their position. Non participation is to let down the community that has
 chosen them to assume this position and puts an unfair workload on other
 ALAC representatives from the region. As ALAC Chair, I am therefore
 delighted to see that our community is looking at Metrics to more easily
 identify matters which need to be improved. These are all small but
 significant steps to make our community more effective and more
 answerable to Internet end users and to therefore continue to improve
 its legitimacy when bringing input into the ICANN processes.
 
 Our bottom-up multi-stakeholder model is not perfect and still needs
 much improvement but it is a work in progress! I am proud to be able to
 work with you all in what I consider to be a cutting-edge experiment in
 bottom-up governance. I am proud that so many of us are actively trying
 to make the model work, to find its limits and shortfalls, but also to
 find its force and its opportunities. Some days, the model works beyond
 my expectations - what a great surprise! Some days it fails miserably
 and we are then able to learn from our mistakes. You are pioneers and
 just being able to work with all of you has been an immensely rich
 experience. It is so unique, I don't believe there is any other process
 like it out there.
 
 And for this, I thank you all, volunteers and staff, and I send you my
 Best Wishes for the Holiday Season and for the New Year 2014. Prepare
 for an exciting year. Prepare for a lot of work. Prepare for a lot of
 rewards. Expect the unexpected, but never give up.
 
 Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
 ALAC Chair
 
 
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