My apologies, just noticed I have an action item from the March 24 ALAC call, not only had I forgotten I had it, when I read it I still didn't recognize it! follows: "New GNSO Stakeholder Group Petition and Charters - Deadline: 15 April 2009 A Peake will try to summarize the statements made in Mexico City and see how they corrolate to the previous ones" Again, apologies for missing this. Give the short time to the deadline, I think it is too late for a comprehensive statement, certainly no time to draft, comment and vote. All SG charters are online <http://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/stakeholder-process-en.htm> Two NCSG drafts have been submitted, from the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) (current GNSO constituency) and a new group, the "CyberSafety Constituency". I strongly favor the NCUC submission, particularly because it de-links the creation of constituencies from voting seats on the GNSO council. I think this essential. If constituencies are competing for seats and power then they are less likely to be effective in collaboration and representation of non-commercial interests. And we'd likely see barriers to the creation and acceptance of new constituencies (I believe we've seen this throughout ICANN's history, in the GNSO and also to some extent early creation of the At Large which was resisted by the first created supporting organizations). NCUC proposal is not perfect, but I think an acceptable starting point and support it. Note: the organization I work for, GLOCOM, is a member of the NCUC and I represent GLOCOM in the constituency. I also supported the NCUC SG charter as a member of the Internet Governance Caucus <http://www.igcaucus.org/>) New constituency submissions <http://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/newco-process-en.htm>, in addition to the CyberSafety Constituency charter, there's a Consumers Constituency (Beau) and City Top-Level-Domain (CTLD) Constituency (applicants hoping to run new gTLDs, they are potential applicants under the new gTLD round. Not completely clear to me why they wish to apply for the user house, when if they are successful in their TLD applications they will move over to the registrar Stakeholder Group.) The application from the consumers organizations is important. The Board Governance Committee Working Group (BGC WG) recommended that in the creation of stakeholder groups: "We want to emphasize that a new non-commercial Stakeholders Group must go far beyond the membership of the current Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). We must consider educational, research, and philanthropic organizations, foundations, think tanks, members of academia, individual registrant groups and other noncommercial organizations, as well as individual registrants, as part of a non-commercial registrants Stakeholders Group." This has been echoed by members of the current GNSO commercial constituencies. NCUC has attempted outreach and growth with limited success -- it has no resources. BGC WG went on to say: "We also want to point out that the effort to have a balance within ICANN between commercial and non-commercial registrants reflects only a sense of equity. We welcome ongoing efforts to forge a stronger partnership between the international business community and ICANN, and would be surprised if Council restructuring were to be viewed as an impediment. On the contrary, we believe that an improved Council will yield concrete benefits for business and other stakeholders. In addition, all stakeholder groups and the constituencies that form them will be expected to conduct greater outreach and seek to recruit a broader, more diverse membership." ICANN has recently been actively courting the international business community, I suggest ALAC recommend ICANN should begin similar outreach to the non-commercial sector, particularly consumer organizations. For example designing the agenda of one of this year's meetings (has to be Seoul) so its has sessions oriented to the interests of consumers organizations and other NC interests, as ICANN held special sessions for business during the Paris meeting. I think this proposal would also fit with recommendations in the ALAC review and could also be a response to that process. Thanks, Adam