1) Have a meeting space at the larger meeting, which if there's a cost ICANN could fund, to allow those of the ALS / candidate ALS community to meet in-person. Those present could also invite others at the PCNA who are interested in ICANN and At-Large to attend.
This is what we recommended. Like, or moreso than, most organizations, ICANN works largely via informal personal contacts. It will be vastly more useful to come to a real ICANN meeting where you can meet the board, staff, registries, registrars, and other constituencies than to a meeting of people with no ICANN experience. There is an ICANN meeting in Puerto Rico in June which would be good for people to attend. I believe I speak for the other U.S. ALS that have been around for a while, when I point out that there has been more than one attempt to build an ambitious at large organization, all of which quickly failed and live on as, at most, dusty web sites. The only thing an NARALO has to do is to select ALAC committee members, and the route most likely to lead to success is the smallest, lightest weight structure that can accomplish that, with no budget, no staff, and no meetings of its own. To the extent that we can get an MOU that commits ICANN to providing us with the stuff that a RALO is supposed to get, so much the better, but that still doesn't require a complicated structure. Also, as Wendy pointed out, if you want to participate in ICANN discussions and offer them advice, you can and should do so now. I was rather surprised that none of the groups who were asking for an in-person meeting submitted advice on the proposed WHOIS changes after I sent out a note encouraging it. CAUCE CA and CAUCE US did (we worked up a joint statement) even though neither of us have any interest in a RALO meeting. R's, John