Dear all, as discussed and agreed tonight at our monthly call (under agenda point 7), we need to draft the **content part** of our Lisbon GA agenda until our April call (in about four weeks). And as said before, we would like to have broad community inputs and proposals for this agenda drafting. There is some agreement already that our Lisbon discussion should focus on "How to improve member participation at EURALO and its regular activities?" and "How to better represent the voice and interests of European users in At-Large and ICANN?" Some suggestions were already made by some members -- a compilation of these proposals and comments you will find below. Please have a look on it. More inputs, comments and the like are welcome to organize a vivid debate in Lisbon reflecting the questions and concerns of the whole EURALO community! Thanks for your support and kind regards, Wolf _____ Compilation of inputs and suggestions for the Lisbon agenda (received so far): Yrjö wrote 19 March: Sandra's list of questions is a good basis for discussing how to improve the participation of European ALS's in dealing with substantive, sometimes even operational issues like .health. There may be more of that kind when the new gTLD process goes on. Such a discussion is urgently needed. As it was suggested tonight on the EURALO call, we have to concentrate on issues that are of real importance to end users. We don't need to spend precious time of our calls on issues that are far removed from that context, very few of us even understand and nobody wants to comment on. I hope we could devote a part of each call to a substantive discussion on whatever issue is deemed to be important from an end user point of view. As far as communication tools are concerned, the simpler the better. Plain old e-mail is OK, if the topic is interesting enough. As ALS's, we have to try to find out what internet end users in our country/area really think about issues at stake. We are not opinion research institutions and can't afford to commission such studies. But we have our contacts, our networks, our ability to raise an issue and stir a debate. My 2 (€)cents, Bill wrote 19 March: Sandra's proposal makes a lot of sense to me. Oksana wrote 19 March: I would like to support all Sandra's proposition and to add some more aspects. Situation with .health was really very illustrative. ICANN was extremely interested to know what we all (including Ukrainian ALSes) think on this objection process. I do not know anybody in Ukraine, who cares about this .health (except Alexander Kondaurov, who, as a member of WG, spent a lot of his time and efforts to analyze this issue). At the same time, nobody in ICANN is interested to know, what we, Ukrainian ALSes, think about the delegation of Ukrainian IDN .ykp. http://www.icann.org/en/groups/board/documents/resolutions-28feb13-en.htm#2.... Despite we shared with a lot of ICANN/ALAC/At-Large representatives all our concerns regarding this delegation. Of course we have our own responsibility for missing the agenda of this Board meeting. But even now, what transparency and accountability we are talking about? How did Sebastien vote in this case? How did Bertrand vote? What documents were submitted to the board by Ukrainian applicant? Now both EMP and InAU are members of the Advisory Committee on top level domains at National Regulator. And we really would like to help to bridge different national stakeholders between themselves and with ICANN. In more general case, it is the question how national ALSes can help in communication between ICANN and end users regarding national issues. Do ALSes have any additional rights, responsibilities, tools of communication or even dispute resolutions? Once again - I do not propose just now to discuss any specific issues. Just the role of any ALS regarding both ICANN and local Internet community. Sandra wrote 14 March: I propose we discuss how the participation process within EURALO can be improved or revitalised. The .health objection process was a good example that there is no working mechanism to gather feedback form At-Large or have a discussion on an issue where the ALAC is supposed to vote on in the interest of the end user? Questions to be considered (but not limited to): - Are ALSes aware of the issues currently under discussion at ALAC / ICANN? If not, why? - How can EURALO fulfil it's mandate to represent the end user voice? - How can we better link the levels of At-Large and ALAC? - Is email the right communication tool, if not what are the alternatives? Are there any? - How can ALS activities be linked to ICANN discussions and the other way round? Dick Kalkmann wrote 10 March: On point I like to mention. I support democratization, transparency and improved participation initiatives within ICANN. At this moment I'm also looking at the possibilities to improve the participation of the Dutch internet community within ICANN. I'm very interested to discuss all those issues in Lisbon. Christoph Bruch wrote 7 February: Obviously some EURALO member organizations engage very little and of course one could imagine to attract more member organizations in order strengthen EURALO's voice. I therefore welcome the initiative on inreach, which - I believe – will encompass aspects also relevant for outreach. My message is simple: EURALO will be primarily attractive to organizations/individuals who can afford to spend a lot of time for this engagement if it continues to operate in the way it has been done in the past years. This is meant as observation not as criticism! This translates to: Increasing the involvement of the silent members will be dependent on being able to offer meaningful modes of participation which consume little time. Talking about options for "limited" participation is my suggestion for the agenda in Lisbon. EuroDIG Secretariat http://www.eurodig.org/ mobile +41 79 204 83 87 Skype: Wolf-Ludwig EURALO - ICANN's Regional At-Large Organisation http://euralo.org Profile on LinkedIn http://ch.linkedin.com/in/wolfludwig