Hello everyone Just a few personal thoughts from my perspective which may assist. The role of chair is a heavy load and there is a lot of very close collaboration with the staff to make sure all the threads come together. Separating out the role of chair -- to be a neutral facilitator; to provide policy input and to help steer the work - is critical. From my observation, there is too much work for one person. The vice chair roles -- as Bruce has described below -- would be a really good way of spreading the work around and having people involved in work that suited their differing skill sets. Also, the vice chair roles act as good succession planning mechanisms for future council and board leadership roles. On the first -- this would be great because there is a lot of logistical work to arrange meetings which isn't necessarily the role of the chair. As we have moved to a series of intersessional meetings in addition to the very full schedule at ICANN meetings, having someone from the Council as point person here would be terrific. On the second -- great idea for many reasons not least because the load and complexity of the work only seems to be increasing. An orderly and predictable approach to the work will help everyone -- staff, councillors and any one else who wishes to be involved in the process. This division is also consistent with what the ICANN Board does with various committees like meetings, governance and finance. Kind regards. Liz ..................................................... Liz Williams Senior Policy Counselor ICANN - Brussels +32 2 234 7874 tel +32 2 234 7848 fax +32 497 07 4243 mob On 17 Apr 2007, at 10:23, Bruce Tonkin wrote:
Hello All,
Having been in the role as chair for a while, I can see at least a couple of vice-chair roles that would help spread the workload:
(1) vice-chair for meetings
- work with staff to schedule the various GNSO related meetings at each major ICANN meeting, as well as help plan any inter-sessional meetings
(2) vice-chair for operating planning
- work with staff to develop the budget for GNSO related expenses to feed into ICANN's annual operational plan/budget - e.g travel costs, as well as work with staff to plan for both staff and GNSO volunteer resources for various projects (task forces, working groups etc)
- identify projects that provide efficiency improvements (e.g website updates, new use of collaboration tools, document management systems etc)
- maintain a rolling 12 month operational/work plan - ensure we don't over commit projects to the available resources
Note that in either case the vice chair would work with staff to essentially prepare documents for review by the Council as a whole, and publish the relevant material in sufficient time to allow Council feedback and discussion at a Council meeting.
Note that at various times these roles have existed - but never really formalised. Marilyn Cade often assisted in meeting planning, and we did have a planning committee chaired by Grant Forsyth at one time.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin