All, Please be aware of the following letter which was recently sent out to constituency and SG chairs in order to invite participation in the first session of the meeting planned for Friday 22 November 2013 (10h00-11h30). The key purpose of the letter was twofold: 1. To ensure they were aware of the event and best placed to ensure that incoming councillors are too. 2. To ask whether they could offer themselves or an alternate member of the leadership group, to participate in the first session, in addition to councillors. Thanks, Jonathan From: Jonathan Robinson [mailto:jonathan.robinson@ipracon.com] Sent: 20 September 2013 14:14 To: 'Keith Drazek'; Michele Neylon; 'Elisa Cooper'; 'Kristina Rosette'; 'Tony Holmes'; 'Robin Gross'; 'William Drake'; 'Marie-Laure Lemineur' Cc: 'Glen de Saint Géry'; 'gnso-secs@icann.org' Subject: GNSO Council - Induction & Training - Friday 22 November 2013 Importance: High Dear Colleagues, I am writing, I trust, to remind you of an event we are planning to run in Buenos Aires. On Friday 22 November, the plan is to run an induction and training session for the “new” GNSO Council i.e. the Council to be seated and in place from the ICANN Buenos Aires meeting onwards. The background to this is that, when I started in as GNSO Council chair in October 2012, it struck me that the preparation or induction was in place for incoming councillors was limited and necessarily remote i.e. by email and telephone. Significantly, the first time the then “new” council got together in person was many months later in Beijing. There are many good reasons to orient and prepare councillors for their work on the Council in the year ahead and so this is one initiative that we agreed to pursue at our council leadership / staff session back in Amsterdam in January 2013. We subsequently applied to ICANN for funding for an event and this funding was agreed. The support will finance the event and an overnight stay, but not travel, so it must necessarily occur simultaneous with, or adjacent to, an ICANN meeting. Hence the reason we arrived at Friday 22 November 2013. The event will run from approximately 10h00 and will be completed with a dinner in the evening. The intended attendees at the meeting are the full GNSO Council which will be in place subsequent to the council meeting on Wednesday 20 November i.e. the then “new” council. The agenda hasn’t yet been fully developed but the objective is clear; ensure that incoming and existing councillors are as well trained and oriented as possible and moreover, that the whole council is as well-prepared as possible to function effectively together in the year ahead. By function effectively together, I mean that they can work effectively together as a council and be clear on the one another’s relationships with, and responsibilities to, their respective constituencies and/or groups. Therefore, the reason I am writing to you is twofold as follows: 1. To ensure you are aware of this event and well placed to ensure that your incoming councillors are too. 2. To ask whether you could offer yourselves, or if you are not available, an alternate member of your leadership group, to participate in the first session (Friday 22 November 10h00-11h30) in addition to your councillors who we expect will be there for the full day and evening. The purpose of 2 above is to make sure that, from the outset, the Council as a whole is as well aware as possible of the relationship with and connection to the broader GNSO and the groups constituting the GNSO. If you have any questions or suggestions relating to this event, or indeed any aspect of the chairing of the Council, please do get in touch with me. I am personally committed to a well-managed and effective GNSO Council and am open to any feedback in how best to achieve that. Best wishes, Jonathan Jonathan Robinson Chair ICANN GNSO Council jonathan.robinson@ipracon.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7993 6103 skype: jonathan.m.r