Dear Jordi, thanks for your comment. Please be so kind to find my comments inline: On 28/06/2016 11:14, Jordi Iparraguirre wrote:
Hi,
first, please accept my apologies for not being present during the complete GA, it overlapped some early morning family duties.
I'd like to stress what Veronica said (typed) during the last minutes of the meeting.
It would be nice (and a milestone in our engagement endeavour) if ICANN staff (regional and HQ) and fellow ALAC members could drop a line and try to meet with local ALSs whenever they get close to an ALS place.
+1. A previous ICANN President and CEO committed to making sure that whenever he or his senior staff visited a country, they would work with At-Large to make sure they make time to meet with the local community. This happened with a few countries, but then priorities appeared to change again, so this was not continued. The Regional VPs (in Europe Jean-Jacques Sahel & Michael Yakushev) have also committed to do so - and I have spoken about this to them in between meetings -- they are committed to do this. The proposal that you make of ALS reps travelling to another country meeting other ALSs is a very good proposal indeed. It can be promoted and can be done on a voluntary basis. Networking between ALSes is one of the opportunities that comes with being part of At-Large.
ALS members not directly involved in the IG/ICANN processes experience low involvement, and thus face a low barrier to leave the ALS, so difficulting ALS growth, participation and renewal.
They join the ALS because they somehow feel identified with our goals, but many do not have time or wish to actively participate in the policy development processes. To increase engagement, having the opportunity to meet or to listen to other people directly related to these processes may help. They may feel identified and satisfied to have this 2nd row seat to the process.
+1
Warn enough in advance. Let's keep in mind that many members of the ALS do have a job not related to IG and cannot ask for a free day to attend and/or organize a formal meeting. So sending them as much in advance an invitation to attend your presentation, or reserve some minutes for an informal afterwork meetings might be very well received.
This makes absolute sense. As a side track, we have been trying to set-up agendas as early as possible but often things move at the last minute. That said, we have a regular EURALO call slot per month to provide people with an advance notice. There is also a calendar for outreach & regional events, which our RALO has not made use of at all!!! (only I have looked at it now and it appears to have disappeared.... let me see what we can do). That calendar is EXACTLY for all ALSes to know what is happening with other ALSe and of local meetings/events.
For any average ALS member, to fully participate in the ICANN policy development process asks for high involvement; learning curve is long and almost flat, you need quite a lot of time to read, understand and participate, and quite often you need free time during standard working hours to join a teleconference or other activities. Not easy.
BTW, this is something that we have also proposed to ISOC staff.
A new initiative, Document Production done by a third party to explain policy topics, is being launched. More details soon (apparently we will learn more about this in the ALAC regional leadership meeting in 30 minutes: https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Meetings+-+Tuesday%2C+2... Kindest regards, Olivier