Hello everyone, included below, please find the high-level notes from today’s ccNSO Council meeting, held on Thursday, 16 April 2020, 18.00 UTC 1. Welcome and roll call Welcome by ccNSO Council Chair, Katrina Sataki to the ccNSO Council members and others who joined today’s ccNSO Council Meeting. Hope all are well and healthy. Apologies received from Byron Holland. Welcome to Ai-Chin, who joined her first ccNSO Council meeting in her capacity as ccNSO Council Member, from the Asia-Pacific region 2. Minutes & Action Items * Review charters: ongoing * Build knowledge base Council leadership team * Time zone chart ccNSO Council meetings 3. Intermeeting decisions (since 12 March 2020) * Adoption roles and responsibilities: all assigned * Planning for a virtual ICANN68. MPC Chair (Barbara) together with Katrina and Alejandra participated in SO/AC leaders planning meetings. More info to follow during the MPC update by Alejandra, who is the Council liaison to the MPC. 4. ccPDP3 a. Part 1 Retirement – Update ccPDP3-ret WG. Public comment period approaching. By next week there will be a webinar, introducing the public comment period. GAC membership and ccNSO community are welcome to attend. ccPDP Retirement Working Group Draft Report Webinar #1 | 23 April 2020 | 21:00 UTC
 ccPDP Retirement Working Group Draft Report Webinar #2 | 24 April 2020 | 11:00 UTC Minimum period for public comments is 40 days. For instance: 2 months post ICANN68 * Part 2 Review Mechanism – Update ccPDP3-rm WG had 2 meetings to date, chaired by Bart in his capacity as issue manager. Next meeting on Wednesday 22 April. * Appointment Chair (Stephen Deerhake, .AS) and vice-chair (Eberhard Lisse, .NA) Move? Alejandra Second? Pablo Questions or comments? None Against? None Abstain? Stephen Approve? All in favour * Appointment Members (Patricio Poblete). Move? Stephen Second? Demi Questions or comments? Stephen said Patricio would be the 3rd Board member on this WG Against? None Abstain? None All in favour Stephen will formally inform Patricio 5. IDN ccTLD related work items (ccPDP4): Progress draft Issue report a. Issue Report * Informational / Decisional pending General Counsel opinion Bart hoped to share the full issue report today. The Office of the General Council is looking at it. Official opinion by GC needs to be included in the issue report. Once available, it will be sent to the ccNSO Council. For adoption either online, or during the next Council meeting * Meeting with GNSO Subpro WG written update Giovanni Seppia: “Following the ICANN Board recommendation to ensure that string similarity is evaluated consistently in the TLD environment, I volunteered to liaise with the gTLD sub working group regarding the string similarity in the next gTLD application round. The communication flow has been miserable and the impression I have been having is that the gTLD sub working group could not care less to ensure a consistent approach for string similarity across the TLD environment. I was invited to attend their last call on 30 March at the very last minute despite previous contacts. From the call it was clear that the gTLDs have completely different views (large part of the discussion was to exclude “plurals” from string similarity and to eventually introduce a more structured appeal process for rejected strings) and will barely take into account the expertise in string similarity evaluation that the ccNSO has gained from the IDN Fast Track. I suggested they look carefully into the work we have done to refine the IDN Fast Track and introduce a scientific methodology to assess string similarity. I will continue to be available to the gTLD sub working group for any further information they may need.” ccNSO Council to await further developments. b. Progress Bylaw Change Informational. Letter from Maarten Botterman, chair of the ICANN Board of Directors. Forwarded today (16 April) by Katrina to council mailing list. 6. ccNSO Board Seat 12 Nomination process Informational: Tentative timeline proposed. Not being approved now, more in depth discussion at the next Council meeting. 6 months prior to the Director taking its seat, we are expected to have completed the process. The Board seat election has to be certified by the ECA no later than 23 April 2021. Taking into account the time needed for Q&A, background checks, voting rounds etc, we need to start earlier. GRC is looking to update the guideline on the nomination process for ICANN Board Seat 11 & 12. Council will be asked to approve the suggested timeline at the next Council meeting. 7. Work Plan discussion: setting ccNSO priorities & strategy Introduction by Katrina: ccNSO priorities from a policy perspective are ccPDP3 and ccPDP4. Other bylaws mandated obligations. Setting the priorities and strategy is work in progress. How do we meet our obligations of the ccNSO being a part of ICANN on the one hand (decisional participant, supporting organisation) and as a global platform for and by ccTLDS on the other hand? Presentation by Bart (slide will be shared after today’s meeting): strategising about ccNSO activities. Pandemic might have a serious impact on the way we live, and how we work within the ccNSO, not only during the next months, but beyond. Starting point: what is the purpose and value of the ccNSO? And for whom? When it was created in 2003, it was a global platform for and by ccTLDs, but it is also a part of ICANN (decisional participant, supporting organisation). Global platform? To distinguish between the regional organisations. Main buckets: * policy (ccPDP3, ccPDP4) and policy-related work (e.g. emoji Study Group, Framework of Interpretation) * Capacity building * Engagement & outreach: how to keep the ccTLD community involved and informed The ccNSO needs: * Resources: Subsets of ccTLDs, members, volunteers, council, staff (ccNSO Secretariat and other ICANN staff that contributes to the work of the ccNSO) * Means: how do we get work done? Transparency & Accountability | Voting, WG committees, communications | webinars, meetings * Tools: workspace, mailing list, website, zoom, etc Mindmap. Priority of work items: food for thought for the ccNSO Council. It is high on the agenda of not only the ccNSO, but also other groups. What are important items? What is urgent? Delivering on the work items? Volunteers (limited in numbers and time), staff, tools. The way in which the ccNSO organises its activities: WG and committees, Council, ccTLD community meetings (limited subset attends: about 50 ccTLDs attend, out of 172 members and out of approx 300 ccTLDs in total. Very focused on in-person meetings.) What are the weaknesses? Limited use of online tools, format of the meetings, leadership groups, participation levels. What are the strengths? Core group of volunteers (weakness at the same time) Important that the Council starts thinking in these terms. Areas for improvement and long-term view of where to take the ccNSO Environmental scan and assumptions, which may or may not impact the ccNSO in the next 2 to 3 years, or even beyond that. E.g. pandemic, changing role of governments, role of ccTLD managers, recession may hit the DNS industry, change of working, climate change may impact travel, etc. What are the threats and opportunities for the ccNSO? To achieve the objectives of the ccNSO? To deliver on the work items? How will we know if the ccNSO still is fit for purpose Katrina: Slide deck will be shared after the meeting. Giovanni suggested adding another question: What should the ccNSO differently? Katrina suggested adding this once we identified the things that do not serve the purpose. Jordan prefers to have the slides prior to the meeting, even at short notice, for future similar circumstances. Nick: periodic reflection is a good practice. Jordan: what feedback would be most helpful? Katrina: any feedback. How to improve, how to do things differently? Bart: from a staff perspective, we hope Councillors start to own this slide deck, this process. The Secretariat can support it, but it should be owned and discussed by the broader Council. Having a discussion, going through the questions, and having some answers is important. It should not be the Chair and Vice Chairs only owning it. Katrina intends also to seek input from the community. Continue the discussion: online, offline. Separate call by the Council, for those interested in shaping the ccNSO Strategy? Bart: suggestion, prior to ICANN68 or around that time, have a Council Workshop on this topic. Dedicated to this topic. Nick: good idea. We could also tick off some of the review actions Katrina: doodle poll to be shared regarding a possible day / time. Not mandatory to participate. 8. Update ECA & CSC a. ECA Membership stable. Quiet period currently Stephen working on a handbook documenting the secretariat function Katrina: there was a review for RSAC (RSAC New Generation): RSAC wants to become a Decisional Participant. This implies also quite some bylaw changes, incl threshold related etc. b. CSC i. Informational PTI met SLA for 100% in March. CSC is waiting for approval to amend SLA’s. See next agenda item ii. Decision to approve change IANA Naming Function SLA Creation-Transfer ccTLDs Move? Pablo Second? Demi Questions or comments? None Against? none Abstain? None All in favour 9. Council updates (Chair, Vice-Chairs, Councillors, Regional Organisations, Secretariat) Ongoing discussion: * Priorities. ccNSO priorities from a policy perspective are ccPDP3 and ccPDP4. * Planning for ICANN68 10. WG/Committee Updates a. GRC * Ongoing: Update to Board nomination guideline. Some elements will be presented to Council for discussion. * GRC started working on a guideline (removal of Councillors) * Started discussion on how to simplify guidelines. The guidelines have certain elements in common. i t would be helpful to refer to a document with the basis, without repeating it explicitly in every guideline * b. SOPC (written update Giovanni Seppia, chair SOPC) Sent to council mailing list c. TLD-Ops d. Tech WG e. IGLC Update by Joke. IGLC wishes to meet as part of ICANN68. IGLC is preparing a repository of IG topics relevant to ccTLD managers, as included in ICANN68 agenda. Willing to contribute to a session on the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on ccTLD managers, focusing on the topic of capacity building f. MPC Update by Alejandra. Waiting for block schedule by planning team (time, session hours, timezone) Cross- community plenary: proposed fix slot between noon and 4 pm Kuala Lumpur time Feedback from the community is helpful. To participate in the survey, go to https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/planningforICANN68andbeyond g. CCWG new gTLD Auction Proceeds How to structure the approval process Final Report? The CCWG Auction Proceeds is on the brink of finalizing its Final Report and submitting it to the Chartering Organisations to seek support for its recommendations. According to the Charter of the CCWG Auction Proceeds the ccNSO as one of the Chartering Organisations will therefore be asked whether the ccNSO supports the CCWG Auction Proceeds recommendations. Given the virtual nature of ICANN68 for discussion how does the ccNSO Council want to structure the decision making process? Options: 1. ccNSO Council decision, highlighting the rules of the ccNSO 2. Consultation of ccTLD community (temperature of the room, poling of webinar attendees) followed by decision of ccNSO Council 3. Survey of ccTLD managers 4. Abstain/no decision. 5. Other procedure CCWG AP leadership team is available to hold a webinar for the chartering organisations. 11. Update liaisons a. Update ALAC Liaison (written update) Shared on council mailing list ahead of the meeting today b. Update GNSO Liaison (written update) 12. Meetings a. Update, if any ICANN68 Feedback from the community on how to best shape a virtual ICANN68 is helpful. To participate in the survey, go to https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/planningforICANN68andbeyond b. Rotation Council meetings Background material: email exchanges Table with council timezones: We chose the most slots marked in green, the least in red. To avoid the need to council calls, since the quorum is not met. Quorum is needed when making decisions. Currently: 12 UTC and 18 UTC. Table shown in winter time. Alejandra proposed to rate between 12 UTC, 18 UTC and 21 UTC. Meeting time suggestion
: 12:00 UTC - 1 red
 18:00 UTC - 3 red
 12:00 UTC - 1 red
 21:00 UTC - 3 red
 start over
 12:00 UTC - 1 red
 18:00 UTC - 3 red
 12:00 UTC - 1 red 
21:00 UTC - 3 red Stephen: The RM WG is favoring an 8 hr meeting rotation, rather than the 6h that the Retirement WG uses.
 Jordan: I would support a three- or a four-meeting cycle, either a rotation between the three times, or the method that Alejandra has proposed.
Either option is better for me than the current 12/18 cycle No objections to Alejandra’s proposal. Thanks to Ai-Chin for whom 18 UTC is inconvenient (2 am her time). c. Next Meeting schedule · 21 May 2020 – 12:00 UTC · June @ICANN68 (Virtual) · 20 August 2020 · 17 September 2020 · October @ICANN69 · 19 November 2020 · 17 December 2020 Cycle as proposed by Alejandra (12 UTC, 18 UTC, 12 UTC, 21 UTC) 13. AOB 14. Closure Thank you. Bye all. Please stay safe and healthy. Joke Braeken ccNSO Policy Advisor joke.braeken@icann.org<mailto:joke.braeken@icann.org> Follow @ccNSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ccNSO Follow the ccNSO on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ccnso/ http://ccnso.icann.org