Hello everyone! I hope you have had a great Festive break and New Years celebrations. As so many regions are accelerating their work towards forming RALOs, an effort which has sped up in many regions following the launch of LACRALO in Sao Paulo, I thought I would make a few comments about how we could move forward in Europe. Firstly, On the incorporation of a legal entity for EURALO: As you all know, it has proven somewhat contentious to agree the country of incorporation. During the public forum in Sao Paulo, Paul Twomey, ICANN CEO, may have made this issue slightly easier to resolve by the following statement: ...I WOULD JUST MAKE ONE OTHER OBSERVATION ON THE ONE LANGUAGE ISSUE. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT -- AND I THINK THIS IS TRUE IN MANY INTERNATIONAL ENTITIES. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE MAINTAIN A SINGLE LANGUAGE FOR BUSINESS. THAT SORT OF FOR THE ACTUAL DOING OF BUSINESS AND FOR THE CONDUCTING OF LEGAL AFFAIRS, IT IS ACTUALLY VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE DO THAT IN ONE LANGUAGE. THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T TRANSLATE DOCUMENTS. BUT THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE -- THE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS SHOULD BE IN THAT ONE LANGUAGE... This is excerpted from the scribe of the session on Thursday - you can see the whole notes of the session at: http://sp.icann.org/transcript/7dec06/public-forum It had already been the subject of consensus that the country of incorporation would be determined by: 1) legal documents could be filed in English 2) The cost of incorporation is low 3) The cost of operating the company is low There are only two countries we had explored incorporating in which allow ALL legal documents to be filed in English: The United Kingdom, and Switzerland. As a result, these are the two countries we must choose between. Secondly, on completing work on the Bylaws: There are still open points on the Bylaws as you know. Some of these can likely be resolved via online debate and discussion, but some of them may require a face-to-face discussion. Thirdly, the ALS community needs to agree on the contents of a Memorandum of Understanding As previously stated, I will produce a draft text incorporating the ideas from Africa, Latin America/Caribbean Islands, and Asia-Pacific, for review; this should be done in the next 10 days or so at most. Process to conclude work: What I suggested on the ALAC monthly teleconference yesterday was that we should borrow from the LAC region's experience on how to conclude these discussions. The model they used was as follows: 1) Work in advance had produced an MoU and Operating Principles which had a high degree of consensus, with only a few areas which were still the subject of discussion. 2) Arrangements were made for the ALS community to come to the ICANN International Meeting in Sao Paulo and meet for several hours to conclude work, over three separate sessions. ICANN staff prepared draft agendas and put forward proposals for discussion in relation to the remaining open areas, with the participants completely free to go in other directions with respect to those points, but with the staff proposals as a place to start 3) Agreement was reached on a text, which was reviewed onsite by the ICANN General Counsel's office to make sure that there were no problems with the MoU in that respect. After that was concluded, the regional ALS representatives elected the two representatives from the region to the ALAC. 4) A signing ceremony involving the press, and Vint Cerf and Paul Twomey, were conducted in the plenary hall, and a resolution of the board was adopted accepting the MoU subject to completion of a public comment period. If the region is willing, we can proceed on this basis, replacing Sao Paulo with the Lisbon ICANN meeting scheduled for 26-30 March 2007 ( http://www.icann.org/meetings/lisbon/). Part of the benefit of this approach is it also allows the ALS community to attend the ICANN international meeting and engage with other constituencies and policy development discussions. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart PO Box 32160 London N4 2XY United Kingdom UK Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135 mobile: +44 (7774) 932798 Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart FESTIVE GREETINGS! As per usual, in lieu of cards for friends and colleagues, I have made a donation in your name to Medecins Sans Frontieres, to help them provide medical care to those much less fortunate than ourselves.