Hello All, I would like to add an additional agenda item regarding the GNSO IDN working group. As you know, I chaired the original working group on the assumption that the working group had a very short life. Based on the last Council meetings decision to re-instate the working group with no specific time limit, I wanted to hand over the chair to another person. There have been two candidates that have been nominated by committee members - Ram Mohan and Sophia Bekele. I have thus initiated an email election process based on the existing membership of the working group to put a new chair in place. There are however outstanding issues: - clearly defining the charter of the working group - clarifying the rules for membership I have received some requests from people in the ICANN community that are currently not members of a GNSO constituency, but are members of the general assembly mailing list. So far I have been recommending that these people join one of the existing GNSO constituencies to meet the requirement of a "GNSO volunteer" I have since noticed that the current definition of a working group in: http://www.gnso.icann.org/council/names-proceduresv7.shtml opens up membership to "members of the General Assembly (GA) defined as subscribers to the ga@dnso.org, announce@dnso.org or the GA voting register". I am not sure if this is the Council's intent. The working group is attracting plenty of interest, but my concern is that without a clear charter that we are setting false expectations regarding the purpose of this working group. We also need to clearly establish the working group in the context of the President's Advisory Committee, the ccNSO working group, and the new gTLD committee. It has also been noted that perhaps we should hold off on electing a chair until the above is clearer, and we have done a public call for members etc. One alternative is that we continue with the current election and with the current group of members, and that the elected chair work with the group to finalise a charter and submit that to the GNSO Council for approval. I don't personally have the time to do that, hence my interest in handing over responsibility to someone else. We could limit the "initial" term of the chair to three months, and then if the working group is still operational, we could hold a follow up election. Alternatively if the two candidates are willing, we could simply suggest they be appointed as joint chairs for the purpose of moving the work forward. I am interested in ideas on further thoughts via the mailing list, and discussion on the way forward at the next Council meeting on 16 Nov. Regards, Bruce Tonkin