Dear All, On behalf of Olivier Crépin-Leblond, ALAC Chair, and Cheryl Langdon-Orr, ALAC ccNSO Liaison, a call for volunteers from the RALOs to join a new ccNSO Study Group on the Use of Names for Countries and Territories is being made through 4 March 2011. This Study Group will work on the use of names for countries and territories. One representative per RALO is needed. The first meeting of the Study Group will be held during the 40th ICANN Meeting in San Francisco, so At-Large representatives who will be participating in this Meeting are preferred. This Study Group was established at the 39th ICANN Meeting in Cartagena in December 2010 in response to the note of the chair of this working group that some of the issues that are raised are considered outside the scope of the PDP (for example how to deal with meaningful representations of country or territory names that do not contain a non-ASCII character or are not in a designated language). The purpose of this Study Group is to provide the ccNSO Council, ccTLD community and other interested stakeholders, including the GAC and GNSO Council, an overview of the scope and issues associated with the use of Country and Territory names as TLD strings and the scope and impact of alternative action paths on IDN ccTLD and new gTLD processes. The statement of purpose for the study group can be found at http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/unctwg.htm. If you are interested in volunteering for this Study Group, please contact At-Large staff ( <mailto:staff@atlarge.icann.org> staff@atlarge.icann.org by Friday, 4 March at 23:59 UTC. Regards, Heidi Ullrich, Matthias Langenegger, Seth Greene, Gisella Gruber-White, Marilyn Vernon, ICANN At-Large Staff