As soon-to-be Board liaison, I have been invited to a Board retreat in Frankfurt next week, along with the Board's newly appointed members. As I understand it, the purpose of this retreat is to discuss the Board's chairmanship, since Vint Cerf's term is up at the end of the LA meeting. I have not yet had any briefings on the subject, nor do I know what confidentiality rules I'll be asked to follow once I am included in the discussion, but I anticipate I will not be able to get and ask for at-large guidance in real-time. So I would like to ask the at-large community for advance input, particularly on the qualities at-large deems important for a Chair and for Board governance. I imagine that those, and the reasoning behind them, will have more influence than preferences for specific individuals, given our non-voting status. I'm happy to take other thoughts at this time too, although I do not believe this meeting is intended for other substantive discussion. A few articles speculate that Peter Dengate Thrush and Roberto Gaetano are front-runners <http://www.stuff.co.nz/4218747a13.html>, <http://www.domainesinfo.fr/actualite/1317/qui-apres-vint-cerf.php>. Please feel free to send me comments on-list or off-. Thanks, --Wendy -- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org Visiting Professor, Northeastern University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/ http://www.torproject.org/