Hi Darlene

The way the structure was set up is that there are 10 regional representatives  on the ALAC. 2 are voted for from each region. The other 5 are global committee members, appointed by the Nominating Committee from people in each of the 5  regions. Their job isn’t to represent the members of the region, but to look after the global interests. So those current NomCom members are:

Alan, Alice, Siavash, Annette and myself. LAC, Asia Pacific and Africa will be ending their terms at the AGM in LA. NomCom will announce the new 3 names before that.

 

As a NomCom appointee, I would say that we are answerable to the global internet community in general who are not covered by the RALOs –  we are  from the region, but looking at issues in a more global context. At least that’s the idea  I was given when I was picked, and that’s how I operate on the committee.

 

To be fair, the wording that Alan had put into the document came out of a long ongoing discussion  - Alan volunteered to draft this one of the positions, as you can see it was a big topic for Annette and some others. Other positions have been also put forward in discussion from LAC and Africa who have a lot of govt-private partnerships and MSH partnerships, especially during and after WSIS.  What we try to do is get a position that works for ALL the regions, as we have to have a global perspective. This document was also circulated over the past 5 months without any comment, and most recently by Alan himself prior to San Juan, in an attempt to force some more discussion on the concepts.

 

You guys came in almost at the end of the discussion without having heard the various things said by loads of other people over a long time in a lot of meetings, so a lot of background was missing for you, I think.

 

Also – I think you misunderstood - ICANN is not revisiting the entire structure – the bylaws mandate  review by an external agency of all ICANN structures on a rotating basis. It may seem  strange that the review happens just as the Interim ALAC is ending, but as Paul Towmey said – the review can focus on the forward looking parts, and the NEXT ALAC review can focus on the functioning of the RALOs after they have been in operation for a while. (This was also discussed with the Board and with the President in Lisbon – but I realize that it is difficult to wade through all the minutes and recordings of previous meetings in order to get up to speed if you are new - I went through it myself 2 years ago)

So it is unlikely that ICANN will revisit the structure before the next review in 3 + years. The task of the Interim ALAC was to set up the RALOS. The bylaws mandate tasks for the ALAC as well, once the RALOs are formed. So we have finished one job, and have to start the other.

 

We have had 3 morning coordination meetings to plan for the main AtLarge Committee Public meeting on Thursday, as we have found that if we don’t prepare, the public meeting where we take decisions and do consultation goes on for ever. These meetings are not an attempt to push through decisions without consultation, but to do the background work to have items on the agenda in the public meeting and to  have worked though most of the main problems that may prevent proper discussion and decision – if Legal needs to give an opinion, we have it, if something needs explanation from Finance, we have that staff person on hand to explain, etc., etc.

 

In some of the past meetings the coordination meetings were after 6, and we went until after 10 pm at times. So the ALAC agreed that early morning was the most efficient time to do this, before the other stuff we had to do. We have generally been really good on time, but today was a really bad exception, probably because the purpose of the meeting was not understood by all the people in the room. Today the job was to get information from the Secretariats for Nick to develop options on the flowsheet for presentation in the public meeting – not to make any decision on the flowsheet.

 

Similarly with the criteria – the meeting was to finish a potential document for presentation to and discussion at the public meeting on Thursday. All the ALSes will be there then. Robert asked for a few of you to be able to attend as you could give assistance on the wording of  some bits that we were having problems with yesterday.  If it were to be a full discussion meeting, I would have made sure that ALL the ALSes were in the room, especially the LACRALO ALSes as well as NA – they weren’t, because that wasn’t the purpose of the meeting. They have the documents, and they will raise their points on Thursday, and we will also have feedback from the other regions present.

 

One of the main problems with the ICANN meetings is lack of time. We try to do a lot online before, and to be as efficient as possible in our meetings with the number of other meetings and panels that we need to do, so we are sometimes not as patient with revisiting things for new people as we could be.

 

I would suggest that the best way to prepare to participate effectively would be to go over the agendas in advance (all on the wiki), comment (on the wiki) and get the background of the items that are on the agenda before the meeting starts. If anyone needs stuff I can explain and locate documents etc, or any other ALAC members or ALS members who have been around before – LACRALO is here and  Erick has been around a LOOOONG time and some members of the other regions are also here and can help you get up to speed on some of the issues that we will be discussing.

 

Jacqueline

 

 

 

 

 

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