Dear all, I have drafted a proposed statement based on the discussions that took place with Kurt Pritz during the ALAC Conference call of 23 August 2011. Please find the statement on: https://community.icann.org/x/cYB6AQ This aims to respond to Item 8 of the comment gathering process, "General Comments on Strategic Plan". The deadline for comments is today, 29 August 2011, but has been open for at-large since 23 August. No suggestions on a statement were received on-line to the statement was written entirely on the input from the ALAC and ALAC ExCom calls. At this stage, may I emphasize that this opportunity to comment is only one of *several* which will be afforded to the ALAC in the run-up to the Dakar meeting. Furthermore, we plan to arrange for a meeting with Kurt Pritz in Dakar, specifically to build on the issues we are addressing. It would be helpful to receive more comments from members in At-Large Structures in the run-up to the Dakar meeting, so as to be able to continue the fruitful discussion that has started and to devise a plan to make sure that our RALO and ALAC requests for funding that fall directly in-line with ICANN's activities stand a better chance of being granted in the future. If you feel like you need to make a last-minute comment prior to the statement being finalised and sent, please make it so on the wiki page referenced above, by Monday 29 August 2011, 20:00 UTC. Warm regards, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond ALAC Chair