Dear All, Following Suzanne's suggestion that staff could possibly put some ideas together in relation to the concept of a reverse liaison, Olof and I had a little brainstorm and came up with the attached which as a first step tries to identify what the respective objectives and expectations are. Fleshing out that part of the conversation further may assist in determining whether or not a 'reverse liaison' would be the best mechanism to achieve the expectations. We also tried to identify a number of questions that would need to be addressed should it be determined that a liaison is the way to go, as well as some possible alternatives that could be considered should it be decided that a liaison is not the most effective mechanism to achieve these objectives. As the issue of funding of a possible liaison has come up on various occasions, Olof and I have also discussed whether it would be an idea to submit a special budget request on behalf of the GNSO and GAC that would foresee for funding for a liaison to attend the ICANN meetings in FY15. This could be presented as a pilot project which would allow the GNSO-GAC to experiment with this position and consider at the end of FY15 whether this should be continued as a pilot, transformed into a fixed funded slot or discarded. Obviously, we are still in the early phases of determining whether a liaison is the way to go and the nature of that role, but unfortunately, the deadline for special budget requests is 7 March. If you all think this would be a helpful approach, Olof and I could go ahead and complete the required forms for your review, noting that at any point the GNSO-GAC could decide to withdraw the request should a different approach be pursued. As noted by Mikey, the group is still looking for topic leads to address this issue, so hopefully this may encourage some of you to come forward. We look forward to receiving your feedback. Olof & Marika