It seems like we (NCPH) find ourselves with very little time and no agreed process for dealing with the GNSO Chair nomination to be made by the NCPH. With the dawning realization that the NCPH nominee is due October 2 (Monday), this has gone from a lurking "to do" all the way to fire drill. And as with most fire drill projects, it seems that things are not going as smoothly as one would hope.
It probably isn't fruitful to try and figure out why and how we find ourselves here -- with no formal process before September (when Council elections would reveal the candidate pool) and no ad hoc process (if it can be called that) before this week. Between volunteer burnout, multitasking, "real job" pressures (for those of us whose real job isn't ICANN-related real job), and "real life" pressures (and I hope all of us have a non-ICANN-related real life), etc., there's ample explanation without trying to decide if any person/people did or didn't do something they shouldn't or should have done. This may be time to pull out the old line, "Mistakes were made," and move on from there.
Hopefully, when the dust settles, this can be a cautionary tale for the "new" NCPH leadership and we (they) can fix this before it becomes next year's messy fire drill.
In the meantime, we have to deal with the fire drill. We don't have much time (and, personally, I will be largely off-line from Pre-sundown Friday to Post-sundown Saturday (New York time)).
I understand that it is now clear to the NCSG that Heather Forrest has "thrown her hat in the ring." I'm fairly certain that there is no other candidate from the CSG (but the CSG Excomm is also behind in its process of considering the GNSO Chair issue, so it would be technically premature to say that Heather has the CSG endorsement). If there is no NCSG Councilor throwing their hat in the ring, then this is a bit easier. The choice would be Heather or "not Heather." Of course, we don't even have a process to deal with that choice....
If there is someone from NCSG who is interested, then it gets a bit harder, though at this point I don't know how CSG would consider another candidate between now and Monday. I suppose CSG would do what it had to do, in the spirit of collaboration and muddling through, to consider an NCSG candidate if there was one.
So, where do we stand?]
-- We could ask for an extension of a few days so our hair is not completely on fire.
-- Heather has sort of kick-started the (non)process, in the absence of "NCPH Excomm" action. Messy, but waiting until the clock ran down seems like a worse alternative.
-- the NCSG has met with Heather.
-- CSG Excomm is discussing Heather.
Where do we go from here? I'm not sure we have enough information yet to know (i.e., is there one potential candidate or two?). The Vice Chair process (which is essentially a turn-taking process, with some safety valves) doesn't really transfer well here, especially in an ad hoc one-off context. So, regardless of the number of candidates, we don't have a method for settling on a candidate (or even a method for failing to do so).
I suppose it should be said that nominating the candidate is only that; it is not a pledge of votes in the actual election. (Perhaps, in a different world, the NCPH candidate would get the NCPH votes, but we are not in that world....)
It's late here, and I am out of ideas, so I will ask for some thoughts from the rest of the list about next steps.
Thanks for reading this far,
Greg