As head of a newer At-Large Structure ... I'm in favor of elections and a review of the operating priorities of NARALO ...
Tom, Colleagues, How each At-Large Structure -- with a functioning membership, structure, which has (or will be in the case of recently certified applicants) empowered informed individual contributions to policy development, on the record at its URL of record -- arrives at its vote of record is an internal matter. With that observation made, and as Tom has been able to attend several ICANN meetings (while wooed by vendors seeking .nyc), and hence may appreciate the effect attendance has upon persons new to network policy issues and ICANN policy issues and processes in particular, allow me to suggest that if, in the course of a year, six individuals active in ALSes which meet a reasonable interpretation of the 2007 MOU receive travel support, this will make more accessible the informed individual contribution to policy development in those ALSes, and provide all ALSes -- again, which meet a reasonable interpretation of the 2007 MOU -- motivation to be selected in each subsequent meeting for which travel support is offered by the Corporation. While I'm on the subject, the purpose is "informed individual contributions to policy development", a purpose poorly meet by spending the better part of the meeting week in "the ALAC silo" doing meet-and-greets with others sent to or hiding in the ALAC silo. Self-symmetric exercises in mutual admiration do not informed individual contributions to policy make. The two individuals selected by the RALO and accepted by the ALAC are tasked to spend their meeting week working with their counter-parts from the four other RALOs and those the NOMCOM has selected. Whether they are effective in their tasks or not, they are not responsible for enabling informed individual contributions to policy development, only for the articulation of ALAC advice to the Board, and only on the instruction of the RALO, which may be specific, or general. Individuals who receive travel support other than the two ALAC-tasked persons should get as broad and as deep an exposure to the GNSO and its component organizations as they can -- with the registries, the registrars, the trademark portfolio managers at the very least, and their Council and its current policies and the processes by which it arrives at changes of policy. They should do the same for the Governments that form the GAC and arrive at an improved understanding of the long-term interests of the two governments on the region which have leading roles in the GAC, and the governments which are active in the formation of each GAC Communique. Rinse and repeat for SSAC, and an informed awareness of what the catch phrases "security and stability" mean when uttered indifferent to some interested party, and when uttered by a party with an interest in a policy or implementation outcome. I could go on, I've lost count of how many ICANN general and regional and invitation-only gigs I've worked wearing the hats of registry, registrar, and even RALO stand-by, but the point is travel support is best spent informing, and necessarily from experience and knowledge gained outside the ALAC silo, not reciting received wisdom from inside those confines, as that is duplication without benefit the reports the two ALAC tasked representatives of the RALO must provide. The purpose captured in the 2007 MOU is furthering informed individual contributions to policy development, not, to rephrase a frequent saying of my friend Marshall Rose, the maintenance of a small club given to frequent fine dining in exotic locations. Eric Brunner-Williams Eugene, Oregon