Hi all,
 
I must say, I'm learning a ton of stuff here in San Juan.  One of which, is that I had always thought that we had 3 ALAC members representing our region and that is not, in fact, the case.  We have two, who we have just elected being Robert and Beau.  Alan "has no obligation" (his words) to forward any of our causes.
 
I found this interesting because, some time ago, we had a huge discussion on this list (which I do not mean to re-open) on whether orgs-of-orgs (ICANN calls them "Umbrella Organizations") and their member orgs can apply to become ALSs.  We had concensus on this topic, in fact the vast majority gave their consent.  At yet, Alan Greenburg actually put in contrary wording to this in the ALAC Proposed Guide to ALS Application Evaluation which would have prevented this, namely (and I quote):
 
"Where an Umbrella Organisation applies and is accepted for membership, its constituent member organizations may not be accredited as ALSes. If members of an Umbrella Organisation are already accredited as ALSes, and they wish to retain their accreditation, the Umbrella Organisation’s application would not be approved."
 
We were extremely fortunate to have Robert there as he circulated this document amongst several of us here that would have been negatively impacted by this and arranged to have us speak to the ALAC to have this wording removed.
 
It is also interesting that, up until this time, it was a fairly major responsibility of ALAC to assist in the formation of the five regions.  Now it seems that ICANN is revisiting the entire structure.  We may wish to discuss how we would like to see this structure work.  I am wondering why we only get to select 2 of the 3 regional ALAC reps.  If the third one is not actually forwarding OUR causes, then what is the point?  Why does ICANN reserve the right to select these people if, really, they are not answerable to any group?
 
I must say, we are very fortunate to have both Robert and Beau on the committee.  They have been working unbelievably hard already (meetings at 7:30 AM most days, having to stand up and speak although totally new, running like crazy and organizing things).
 
Thank you, Robert and Beau,
 
Darlene