George, thanks for all the hard work on analysis on many, many ICANN documents, and your over all commitment to ICANN. Your willingness to wade thru the Strat plan/operating plan/budget was always a very helpful resource to others who perhaps lacked your history and experience in those areas. I regret that you are making this decision. The Charter is still being discussed. Many members may not have had a chance to fully focus on the broader restructuring of the "House", and that there will, by necessity, be many changes yet to come. The contribution of keenly analytical minds is always helpful in understanding the "thicket" of ICANN docs. You will be missed. Best regards Marilyn Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T -----Original Message----- From: Mike O'Connor <mike@haven2.com> Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:39:58 To: <icann@leap.com> Cc: <bc-gnso@icann.org>; <secretariat@bizconst.org> Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] Parting is such sweet sorrow i'm very sorry to see you go George. i hope we can do something, as a constituency, that will make you and others feel more welcome here. it's been a pleasure working with you, as one cranky guy to another. :-) don't be a stranger. mikey On Oct 22, 2009, at 10:31 AM, George Kirikos wrote:
Hi folks,
After much thought, I've concluded my company is better off leaving the BC. Please remove my company from the BC members list, mailing list, and myself from the Responsibilies page of the website.
It's clear that the charter that will be adopted will not reflect our views. Staying within the BC would simply give the impression that the BC and its officers has our continuing support, which is not the case. The BC cannot legitimately represent the views of businesses when it is captured, top-down, anti-democratic, and actively discourages participation. For example (and not limited to these):
(1) Look at how many times the words "appoint" continue to appear in the charter, despite this being the 18th revision, and despite the demand for more elected and thus accountable leaders (both on the list and during the conference call).
(2) Look at how 7.4 changes the percentages for a required vote from 10% to 25% -- we saw that even when there was actual 10% division over the IRT, there was no actual vote. This will institutionalize that negative trend.
(3) The categories of members has not been modified, despite repeated assurances that this would be done when the charter was reformed.
In other words, it'll be business as usual, and indeed in a worse direction.
I estimate that my company's pro-rata share of the existing BC reserve amounts to approximately USD $2,500. I request that these funds be donated in full to the United Way of Toronto -- http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/ <http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/> .
It's been a pleasure working with some of you.
Try not to miss me too much.
Sincerely,
George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/ <http://www.leap.com/>
- - - - - - - - - phone 651-647-6109 fax 866-280-2356 web www.haven2.com <http://www.haven2.com> handle OConnorStP (ID for public places like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.)