How about the chair of a WG checking with the chair of the council before confirming a request to join a WG? It will then be at the discretion of the chair to approve, reject or consult the council before deciding. Best regards, Roelof Meijer CEO SIDN | Utrechtseweg 310 | 6812 AR | P.O.Box 5022 | 6802 EA - Arnhem | The Netherlands T +31 26 352 55 00 | M +31 611 39 57 75 Sent through my mobile device Op 26 jan. 2011 om 16:02 heeft "Gabriella Schittek" <gabriella.schittek@icann.org<mailto:gabriella.schittek@icann.org>> het volgende geschreven: Dear Councillors, During the ccNSO Council call yesterday, it was suggested by the ccNSO Secretariat to change the process in which new Working Group members are accepted. The current process is that all working group members need to be approved by the Council. As we quite often receive requests for working group membership outside of the call for volunteers period, we suggested, in order to speed up the process, that we only require the approval of the Working Group Chair, and then inform the Council on who has been added. It was, however, pointed out during yesterday’s discussion that in some cases “controversial people” might be able to obtain a working group seat if the process gets outside of the Council’s control and that that the changed procedures in general could be abused by people who were not approved by the Council in the first place. As this probably only would happen in very rare cases, it would be desirable that the Council comes up with a solution which would suit both the wish for a smoother and faster process, but would not leave the Council out of total control. A solution could be to introduce a right for the Council to “veto” a Working Group Chair decision. However, I would welcome more thoughts and suggestions on this. This topic will also be discussed during the upcoming Council call on the 1st March. Kind regards, Gabi