Thank you to the members of the BC for your participation in the election. This will be a first of occassional Chair's communications. It is intended to update you on a few items, and ask you to mark your calendars for some working sessions ahead. In general, once we are organized as an Executive Committee, we will have regular scheduled communications. This communication is intended to thank you for participating in the election, to say that I appreciate the opportunity to serve as chair, mention some key events and describe how work is progressing in the transition, and to ask for your help, as we all work together. ========================================================================= Thank you for this opportunity to serve as chair. All of the newly elected officers are already at work, as you would have expected. I have been in touch with all other newly elected officers, and we will be holding informational and transitional discussions next week, so that we can be prepared to put proposals before our membership on various items where we believe the membership should be informed and have a chance to weigh in. You may find that a bit more communications on detail in the early stages of organizing the BC's new ExeComm's work, but please bear with us. For at least through February and into March, we will, as a constituency, need to make some general decisions that will affect our work for this year. After these processes are accepted by members, I expect to have more routinized/scheduled communications processes and meetings/conference calls. I want to thank everyone who stood for election, and recognize the commitment to working on behalf of the memberships that led each candidate to make the commitment to work as hard as I expect us to, as the new Executive Committee (ExeComm) this year. According to the election analysis shared with all of us, 83% of our members voted. That is actually quite excellent turn out. All of us, as BC members, were served well by having candidates who gave thought and work to developing platforms and commitments to work for the Constituency and presented their views to the Constituency. The BC is stronger for having had these elections, and the opportunity for participation and for broadening our membership through recruitment and outreach is before us to build more geographical diversity, and to develop processes that will enable even more of our members to commit to working roles in the BC this year and in years ahead. As a sort of short update for your calendars:There will be some transitional discussions next week, followed by a full ExeComm discussion where we will be developing draft proposals to present to the Members for work programs and processes. In addition, I want to have a full Members call during the last two weeks of February -- depending on when we see an agenda from ICANN [I've checked in with ICANN staff and believe it is going to be posted 2/15]. Our call will be during the last two weeks, but as early as I can make it, so that you have preparation time before the Kenya meeting. That call will address preparation for Kenya ICANN in March, and have a short update from each of the officers. We will have one more preparatory update call before Kenya ICANN. Remote Participation/debrief on Monday and Tuesday, during ICANN meeting: During the ICANN meeting, there will be one hour debriefs for business users/ISPs/IP stakeholders TENTATIVELY scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, as well as remote participation during various meetings, supported by ICANN. As an individual, I have been organizing these special debriefs with help and advice from Sarah Deutsch and Steve Metalitz and Fred Felman with ICANN, and want to mention them to any BC members who are traveling to Kenya, and to those of you who are not. They are open sessions [to which you can invite guests] but are focused on business concerns. This is an effort to ensure communications from Kenya, since the time frame is going to be tough for participation into the meetings, and is focused on the informal sharing of insights and information with colleagues. The actual BC meeting will have remote participation as well. Attendance in Kenya:Please send an email to the Secretariat at secretariat@bclist.org to confirm your attendance in Kenya. Please include in your personal email to him your arrival date/time, and which hotel you are at. I would like to ask that you include your email and cell phone. That will enable us to reach you during the ICANN meeting, but that is an optional decision for you. He will compile a private list and will provide that to the officers and councilors. We sometimes set up a private email list for those attending the meeting. I am not inclined to do that for this meeting, given the number of members who are not traveling to the meeting whom we should keep in touch with. We can discuss this on the Members call. Transition Period: February We are fortunate to have Gary Hills, our Secretariat, assisting with the transition period. Gary will leave us at the end of February and his focus during the rest of February will be on transitioning the details of the operational aspects of the BC to Mikey O'Connor, Vice Chair, Operations and Finance. His work is much appreciated and his help in the transition is very important to our smooth transition. Valuing our Members:All BC members are important to the full participation and involvement of the BC in ICANN -- in its policy development in the gNSO; in broader work related to the stability and functioning of the organization itself, and in the legitimacy of the BC within ICANN. We have a lot of work to do in 2010. We need each other, and I look forward to working with you, with my fellow ExeComm members, and with new members whom I am confident we will all work together to bring into the BC. I look forward to our work together. As always, my email and telephone number are available to all of you, should you want to contact me directly. Marilyn CadeChair, Business and Commercial Users Constituency+ 1 202 251 6787marilynscade@hotmail.com