Hi Danny, 1. WOW! Thank you for forwarding this on to us - it really is helpful. 2. Now here is me, speaking as a "newbie": If I got a letter like that, I would still be asking myself why I would bother and why this is of use to me. It wasn't until they did outreach in Toronto with a bunch of us Canadians that I was finally able to wrap my mind around why this stuff should matter to me. John L gave a really good presentation as did others. They brought up problems/concerns/ideas that I, as a general internet user, hadn't even thought of. For someone like you that is REALLY into this stuff, I can understand why you would think that such outreach is silly but it does help those of us that aren't knee deep in ICANN related issues like you are. 3. In San Juan, ICANN was so concerned that the NARALO form up that we all had to miss the meetings that would have given us a grounding in the current ICANN issues and such. So, great. We've formed up and now I see this big discussion about the RAA and I am completely unable to give the slightest opinion on it because I am just completely uninformed about the issues and will likely stay this way until the next meeting. So, basically, in a lot of ways you are right. Why aren't we talking about the issues? Well, I do not feel that I can because I don't think that I understand enough about them. So, in order to try to "help out" in the best way that I can, I've done the Secretariat thing to try to do what I feel I am able to do. I don't think that I am alone out here in feeling left behind and uninformed. Its even worse in the other regions. So, part of our "Outreach" was going to be education. That is what I, personally, think is really needed. Apparently, though, ICANN does not feel this way and would rather have the "window dressing" of having a RALO, whether its effective or not. As to people contacting ICANN - yes, registrants will do so in a "Registerfly" type of fiasco. But what about the end users? They, IMHO, don't even know that this type of thing happens (I didn't before my involvement with ICANN). That is why I think we need to do outreach and education. So, if you ever want to call me (or e-mail me privately) as to why you don't think this effort went ahead before, feel free. Other than that, I look forward to seeing you in LA and look forward to hearing you speak on a subject that you know more about than God himself! D Darlene A. Thompson Community Access Program Administrator Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910 Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0 Phone: (867) 975-6531 Fax: (867) 979-8870 dthompson@gov.nu.ca -----Original Message----- From: Danny Younger [mailto:dannyyounger@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 1:18 PM To: Thompson, Darlene; Nick Ashton-Hart Cc: NA Discuss Subject: Outreach Plan Darlene, With regard to an outreach plan, the text below may be of help; it comes from the naralo.info website (now decommissioned -- you can still view it through archive.org) that I set up for my local ISOC chapter many years ago: 1. Organizations throughout North America need to be contacted and made aware of the opportunities for participation in this endeavor. On the "organizations page" you will note that a list is being compiled of organizations that possibly may be responsive to this initiative. The list is being built by feeding keywords to search engines such as COMPUTER USER ASSOCIATIONS, PUBLIC INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS, etc. Deadline for this segment of the project -- February 20. If your organization is not on this list yet, please send us a note. 2. Upon completion of this Outreach List, chapter members will divide the list into manageable units for contact purposes. Contact addresses will need to be researched, and letters and/or e-mail will need to be sent to these organizations so that they may be aware of the opportunity for involvement. A proposed introductory letter is posted here: Subject: Organizational collaboration requested To: the members of [ORGANIZATION], We, the members of the New York Chapter of the Internet Society, have launched a project to facilitate the expression of the public interest to the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); if at all possible we would appreciate your collaboration in this endeavor which calls for the eventual launch of a North American Regional At-Large Organization to channel such public input to the ICANN Board (please note that ICANN is the private sector, non-profit corporation with technical management responsibilities for the Internet's domain name and address system). Project details are posted at: [URL] At this time we are seeking to collect "Expressions of Interest" from the community which will be forwarded to the Board-appointed North American representatives on ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee. We ask you to review the nature and scope of the project, and to decide whether your organization might be willing to participate in this effort. Should your organization choose to become involved, we ask that your correspondence be sent to the following address: [e-mailing address] Deadline for initial organizational outreach efforts -- March 20. 3. As we will be collecting "Expressions of Interest" from organizations throughout North America and posting information pertaining to these organizations on the website, it is imperative that a Privacy Policy be established and posted. Deadline for policy development -- March 20. 4. In that the At-Large community consists of individuals as well as organizations, efforts need to be made to reach out to non-affiliated individuals; this will require the drafting and posting of letters to appropriate venues (examples: Slashdot, ICANNwatch, community discussion lists, etc.). A list of such distribution channels will be compiled here: [URL] Deadline for the list preparation -- February 20. Deadline for initial outreach to individuals -- March 20. If you are aware of other outlets for such correspondence, please send us a note. Additional project steps will be added in due course. -------- Darlene, please note that our chapter received an extremely limited number of positive replies to this initiative. I'll be happy to speculate on why this was the case if need be... Frankly, while I am not keen on the concept of pursuing outreach (as I am of the view that when people want to contact ICANN they will -- as illustrated by the flood of correspondence during the RegisterFly fiasco) I am offering this "plan" as a possible guide in the spirit of mutual assistance (even though I don't support the expenditure of such effort that in my view could better be applied to policy development or fact-finding initiatives). best regards, Danny ________________________________________________________________________ ____________ Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase. http://farechase.yahoo.com/