Following up on an offer made by the Staff during the 1 November 2007 ALAC meeting in Los Angeles, and followup conversations with Cheryl, may I suggest that the staff of ICANN provide two briefings on policy issues at a standing time and date twice per month - one convenient to the eastern hemisphere, and the other convenient to the western hemisphere, approximately every two weeks.

We would then facilitate callers to dial in to the briefing, or if they do not live in a country with a freephone number, the service could dial out to them. The calls would be recorded, so that those who could not participate 'live' would be able to listen to the recordings later. Setting a standing date and time may make it easier for the volunteer community to schedule time to participate sufficiently in advance to ensure good Q&A sessions so that recordings are of maximum use to other parties - even other ICANN communities.

Might I suggest that with respect to the subjects of the call, these could be decided by a procedure where the ALAC Executive Committee proposes a list of subjects for the next four calls (two months' worth) to the public ALAC list on a no-objections basis after their next meeting (20th December). These calls would begin in the new year and proposing the subjects in good time like this would allow the Policy staff to schedule the right people to do the briefings with sufficient warning.

I hope that this will meet with your favour. With the various working groups really getting underway, it seems that this may help to raise understanding of the issues and their complexity so that the At-Large community can provide the best advice possible on the subjects which concern you.

I will separately liaise with my colleagues in the Policy department to see if some time / date combinations are most suitable to ensure over the course of time the best access to the widest number of potential briefers :)