All, I am concerned that the current discussions about running 'admin' sessions in Paris and beyond have somehow moved away from the original intentions for the sessions. I think there may be a level of confusion (certainly on my part, at least) about what we set out to achieve and how we should go about achieving it. So, I thought it would be useful to provide this note. I don't want the ccNSO to be perceived as over-reaching its mandate but, on the other hand, I do want us to be responsive to feedback we receive especially in respect to increasing participation. When we formed the ccNSO it was envisioned that it would not purely focus on global policy, but also serve as a global platform to exchange information, assist each other, and develop best practices (see extract from bylaws below). In Delhi, Gabi and I had a brief discussion about the possibility of the ccNSO organising admin sessions for ccTLD managers as part of the ccNSO meetings. We considered the possibility of a 2 hour session at the end of Tech Day and confirmed with Eberhard that, if we did wish to proceed, he had no problem, in principle, with finishing Tech Day 2 hours earlier. My intention was that these sessions would be topic driven, of interest to ccTLD managers whatever their stage of development and organised and managed by Gabi with ccTLD managers volunteering to present or demonstrate at the session. 'Complaints handling' springs to mind as the sort of topic that would fit into these sessions. Lesley and the Participation WG had received feedback from some currently non-attending ccTLD managers that if there were additional, practical, reasons to attend that would help them to justify the cost they were more likely to do so. It seemed that these best practice admin sessions might be the answer. A discussion in the Participation WG came up with one suggestion that a joint ccNSO/Regional Organisation session be run at each meeting - with the RO responsible for the agenda and speakers. And, for the upcoming Paris meeting the suggestion was that the session could highlight the best of the presentations made over the last year at CENTR meetings. Since then, a suggestion has been made by a WG member that we should instigate a small program steering group to assist with this work and task them with ensuring regional and size diversity in the program etc. Of course, it may be that the very idea of running admin sessions is not acceptable. But it may be that it is worth doing and something we should be doing, in which case we need to: a) agree the principle and what the goals are (effectively create a 'charter' for the sessions) b) discuss it with members (and non-members) to ensure buy in c) create a system and topic flow to ensure consistency from session to session so that people can plan ahead (much as Eberhard does for Tech Day). I would appreciate a discussion on these notes on our call on Monday. Cheers, Chris Disspain CEO - auDA Australia's Domain Name Administrator ceo@auda.org.au www.auda.org.au According to Section 1 of the ccNSO bylaw: There shall be a policy-development body known as the Country-Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO), which shall be responsible for: 1. developing and recommending to the Board global policies relating to country-code top-level domains; 2. Nurturing consensus across the ccNSO's community, including the name-related activities of ccTLDs; and 3. Coordinating with other ICANN Supporting Organizations, committees, and constituencies under ICANN. In addition to the above core responsibilities, the ccNSO may also engage in other activities authorized by its members, including: seeking to develop voluntary best practices for ccTLD managers, assisting in skills building within the global community of ccTLD managers, and enhancing operational and technical cooperation among ccTLD managers. _____