Hi, Thanks for volunteering. I would like to point out that this planning group is really just the beginning. As was pointed out in the BGC-GWG Report as well as in the status the planing committee sent to Board, there will be, we expect be many task oriented group yet to be formed. e.g. current discussions include: - A standing committee on council process. This committee would be responsible for dealing with issues like WG structures and revision of the PDP process. One of the ideas being explored is that each of these and perhaps other issues would have a separate team focused on creating specific draft recommendations. this reflects some discussions w have already had in council in ND. - A standing Committee on Operational issues such GNSO communications, constituency operational support mechanisms, council operations support mechanisms ... There will also be a discussion on various teams to handle specific topics such as how to get more involvement from constituencies, how to bring in new constituencies and the myriad of other specific tasks and topics that fall out of the Board's recommendations. This is all very sketchy at the moment, but the main idea, as I understand it, is that the planning committee recommends charters for setting up the standing committees to the council, and if the council accepts these charters, the committees are formed, they recruit membership from the constituencies and community at large and then get to work on things in a charter that the council has approved. The standing committees are then responsible for doing the chartered tasks and would be the ones to recommend the charters for the specific work teams to the council, though the planing committee may offer some initial suggestions. Part of the work the planning team is trying to do at the moment is to develop proposals for the initial charters for the standing committees. These yet to be formed standing committees, are in my view the real place the work of the transition will be done. The main function of the planning committee, in other words is to bootstrap the process by making recommendations to the council and then to create reports for the GNSO council and board on the progress of the transition. My goal is to keep this team as small as possible. And my preference was for a fewer members in this initial bootstrap group. But having said that, if the predominant view of the council is that we need to allow for one person per constituency (not necessarily a council member) and nomcom members instead of just a few organizationally oriented people with a representative diversity of views, then that is the way we will have to go. I am, however, still hoping to keep it small (which I now is a relative term) To summarize, at the moment there are 5 people who have put their names forward (to varying degrees), that I am aware of: - Ken Stubbs - Olga Cavalli - Philip Sheppard - Milton Mueller - Ute Decker (4 constituency members and 1 nomcom appointee) currently there are 8 people on the Committee. Denise Michel, Liz Gasster, Robert Hogarth, Penelope Wrenn from Policy Staff Glen De Saint Géry - GNSO secretariat Chuck Gomes and Avri Doria - GNSO (1 constituency member, 1 nomcom appointee) Susan Crawford - liaison from the Board Governance Committee. adding 6 or 7 more would bring it to 14-15. I tend to think small stops at a dozen, maybe a baker's dozen. To reiterate, personally, I would like the council to pick 2-3 people from a list, but given the list of names we have so far, I want to point out that there is no one on it that I would not welcome on the committee. Thanks a. On 26 Mar 2008, at 10:56, Ute Decker wrote:

Hi Avri,

In preparation of this week's Council call, I would like to volunteer to contribute to the work of the planning group because I think this is one of the most important and urgent work items and because I believe that there is a merit in broadening this out to all constituencies that care to be represented. I realize that some see downsides in adding one member per constituency - however constituencies are the structure we have at the moment and I would hope that having more than one representative from e.g. 'the commercial side' will not distract in any way from the constructive character of the work going forward.

Best wishes Ute

-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org ] On Behalf Of Avri Doria Sent: 18 March 2008 18:56 To: Council GNSO Subject: [council] "Improvements" Planning Efforts

Hi,

Attached a copy of a message that is being sent to the Board concerning work that is beginning on the GSNO Improvements. As you will note we have started a planning group together with the staff. This group is going to be doing the high level planning of how we will organize the main work of the GNSO Improvements Project, and will not be responsible for any substantive decisions or recommendations about the improvements themselves.

Currently Chuck and I as well as several members of the ICANN Policy staff, including Denise, Liz and Rob, are members of this group. This is just the core of this group. We have invited the Board BGC GNSO Review Working Group to add a member to this group and need to add more GNSO members. We want to satisfy three goals simultaneously in adding members to the group;

- insure that a diverse set of perspectives is included in the planning group - include some participants with relevant organizational experience - keep the group small.

In the GNSO Improvements Project we will not need to restrict ourselves to council members, but for this planning committee, I would suggest that we do choose from among council members and constituency members. I also think that adding a person from each constituency might be unwieldy and hope that we can limit participation to a few people who can be trusted in this planning task by several constituencies. As you can read in the note below, we are planing to organize several other Standing Committees and other work teams and there will be a large number of opportunities for participation by council members, constituency members, and others in the ICANN community in the groups making the actual recommendations.

I would like to initiate conversations on the list on the designation of 2-3 other members of this group. I would like to resolve this as soon as possible, with resolution during our upcoming meeting at the latest if not before.

Thanks

a.

It is quite likely that the work of this group will be mostly done in 3 or 4 weeks. It will require at least one teleconference call per week and some email and document review work between meetings. Ultimately the full Council will make decisions regarding any plans proposed by the committee. It is important that the plans are developed quickly so that we can get started on the real work as soon as possible and we will need broad representation there. Chuck -----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Ute Decker Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:56 AM To: Avri Doria; Council GNSO Cc: Metalitz, Steven Subject: RE: [council] "Improvements" Planning Efforts Hi Avri, In preparation of this week's Council call, I would like to volunteer to contribute to the work of the planning group because I think this is one of the most important and urgent work items and because I believe that there is a merit in broadening this out to all constituencies that care to be represented. I realize that some see downsides in adding one member per constituency - however constituencies are the structure we have at the moment and I would hope that having more than one representative from e.g. 'the commercial side' will not distract in any way from the constructive character of the work going forward. Best wishes Ute -----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria Sent: 18 March 2008 18:56 To: Council GNSO Subject: [council] "Improvements" Planning Efforts Hi, Attached a copy of a message that is being sent to the Board concerning work that is beginning on the GSNO Improvements. As you will note we have started a planning group together with the staff. This group is going to be doing the high level planning of how we will organize the main work of the GNSO Improvements Project, and will not be responsible for any substantive decisions or recommendations about the improvements themselves. Currently Chuck and I as well as several members of the ICANN Policy staff, including Denise, Liz and Rob, are members of this group. This is just the core of this group. We have invited the Board BGC GNSO Review Working Group to add a member to this group and need to add more GNSO members. We want to satisfy three goals simultaneously in adding members to the group; - insure that a diverse set of perspectives is included in the planning group - include some participants with relevant organizational experience - keep the group small. In the GNSO Improvements Project we will not need to restrict ourselves to council members, but for this planning committee, I would suggest that we do choose from among council members and constituency members. I also think that adding a person from each constituency might be unwieldy and hope that we can limit participation to a few people who can be trusted in this planning task by several constituencies. As you can read in the note below, we are planing to organize several other Standing Committees and other work teams and there will be a large number of opportunities for participation by council members, constituency members, and others in the ICANN community in the groups making the actual recommendations. I would like to initiate conversations on the list on the designation of 2-3 other members of this group. I would like to resolve this as soon as possible, with resolution during our upcoming meeting at the latest if not before. Thanks a.