Hi All, I hope the below provides some useful context for the recent improvements to ICANN meetings that will commence in Prague. (1) In the past, the Board has typically worked with staff until midnight, and in some cases 2am, on the Thursday before the Friday Board meeting to prepare resolutions for voting. This is after a busy week listening to feedback from the community, and the end result is often Board resolutions that are poorly crafted and create problems in future. (2) For Prague, the intent is that the Board will focus on listening to the community, and then in a Board/community session on Thursday give the community some idea of what future resolutions will be voted on in or actions taken in response to that feedback. A board meeting will then be held shortly after Prague to approve any necessary resolutions. (3) An example of this approach was on the topic of Conflicts of interest in Dakar in October 2011. The Board listened to the community during the week, and then in the public session on conflicts Board members gave some feedback to the community on specific measures that would be taken with respect to new gTLDs. After careful review by the legal team, and review by Board members, the Board held a meeting on 8 Dec 2011 - where a resolution was passed on managing conflicts for new gTLDs, along with other resolutions that resulted from the discussions in Dakar. (4) The Board has also been working to ensure that most resolutions at the Board level are relatively routine. This means that bodies like the ccNSO have already reached consensus on a topic or staff have managed a public comment process on a topic - and there are no controversies associated with the matter. For such routine resolutions - we either have a short teleconference or we take advantage of face-to-face time at a Board workshop to pass these resolutions. For example, at the Board workshop just concluded in Amsterdam we had a short Board meeting to pass mostly consent resolutions. It is likely that in Prague we will pass resolutions on routine matters in the Board workshop on the weekend of 23/24 June - if there are matters submitted by staff for approval - and can report on them during the public meetings. If there are controversies on a matter, the general approach would be to seek to return the matter to the relevant body or bodies to reach a stronger consensus. Thus you will see fewer matters that are not on the consent agenda at Board meetings. (5) Where there is a major policy vote, or where there are differing views on a major policy, the Board will continue to schedule such discussions for the public Board meetings. Past examples of such matters include the launch of the IDN Fast Track, .xxx decision and the approval of the new gTLD program in Singapore in June 2011. (6) With respect to transparency, the Board has been publishing rationales for each of its decisions - including those on the consent agenda. There are also detailed minutes of meetings, where contributions from Board members made during a Board meeting are captured. For example, from the minutes of the meeting on 8 Dec 2011 (http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/documents/minutes-08dec11-en.htm) there is a detailed record of the discussion on conflicts as well as on batching. (7) We are still refining improvements and certainly welcome feedback from the community. (8) It's likely that the Board/community session will be held just before the Public Forum on Thursday. Therefore it is unlikely to interfere with ccNSO WG sessions that often take place whilst the public forum is going on. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or concerns, and certainly feel free to provide feedback to the Board in the Board/ccNSO meeting in Prague. Cheers, Chris