At-Large Summit update
Hello folks. We have been recently informed by Nick that the Summit, as it is presently developed as described at http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/At-Large_Global_Summit http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/ICANN_Ensemble is officially dead, by decree of ICANN staff. No staff support will be offered and no funding would be made available for anyone to attend. We are told by Nick (who has been our sole ICANN contact from day one) that the decision is final, though a conference call has been requested between us, Nick and Denise Michell in order to clarify the rationale. Although no formal application was ever made, we have been told that a formal rejection letter will be sent after the conference call. To say that this early rejection was unexpected and disappointing is an understatement. We have done absolutely everything that has been asked of us by Nick. We have acted in a manner that we believe to be professional, fiscally responsible, and accommodating to all concerns expressed by staff to date. What has been most upsetting has been the attitude of ICANN staff, which has obviously put itself in the role of sole judge of how to spend the money ICANN allocates for At-Large. (Indeed, while being constantly telling us that there was no money available for the Summit, staff has repeatedly refused to actually reveal what the allocation is.) We had hoped that we could work with staff as partner and facilitator, in the implementation of a project which has attracted support from ALAC and all regions. Instead we have found nothing but a stream of obstacles,from staff that clearly has a different vision of ICANN's At-Large community than the community has of itself. We thank everyone who has offered support and help so far, and are certainly welcome to ideas and methods of keeping the project alive. We still believe that the Summit has the potential to be a key component in the development of the community's ability to make substantial contribution to the ICANN decision-making processes. Since staff has been unsupportive of our request for ongoing collaboration resources, we will maintain the Google Group discussion area at http://groups.google.com/group/icann-summit to which all are welcome. Evan Leibovitch Darlene Thompson
Evan Leibovitch wrote:
We have been recently informed by Nick that the Summit, as it is presently developed as described at http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/At-Large_Global_Summit http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/ICANN_Ensemble is officially dead, by decree of ICANN staff. No staff support will be offered and no funding would be made available for anyone to attend.
That shouldn't necessarily kill the idea. What was the total travel subsidy budget? It should be possible to solicit meeting sponsors to help cover some of these costs. As far as staff support goes, I'm certain that this shortfall can be made up from within the community. It would be really cool if ICANN helped out with this (I'd almost consider it part of their mandate, but that's another story) but they aren't. So let's make it happen anyways. I'm not 100% up on the events this far, but as far as I can see, this is just a plan to have an ALAC meeting at the ICANN meeting writ large. If they are able to accomodate the GNSO Public Forum, then they should be able to accomodate this on similar terms (i.e. space, staff support, etc.) -r
Though I am focussed on family matters the next month or so, and not attending LA, I remain supportive of the Summit concept, and I dont view the idea as "dead". The question is really whether this is a compelling concept for us within At Large. I believe that we can still explore making the case of the value of this to ICANN and beyond, Be well MM On 10/4/07, Ross Rader <ross@tucows.com> wrote:
Evan Leibovitch wrote:
We have been recently informed by Nick that the Summit, as it is presently developed as described at http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/At-Large_Global_Summit http://www.icannwiki.org/wiki/ICANN_Ensemble is officially dead, by decree of ICANN staff. No staff support will be offered and no funding would be made available for anyone to attend.
That shouldn't necessarily kill the idea. What was the total travel subsidy budget? It should be possible to solicit meeting sponsors to help cover some of these costs. As far as staff support goes, I'm certain that this shortfall can be made up from within the community. It would be really cool if ICANN helped out with this (I'd almost consider it part of their mandate, but that's another story) but they aren't. So let's make it happen anyways.
I'm not 100% up on the events this far, but as far as I can see, this is just a plan to have an ALAC meeting at the ICANN meeting writ large. If they are able to accomodate the GNSO Public Forum, then they should be able to accomodate this on similar terms (i.e. space, staff support, etc.)
-r
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There are many in the community that have issues with some of the new gTLD recommendations put forward by the GNSO Council. An ad-hoc WG is being formed to aggregate these concerns for presentation to the ICANN Board. Anyone may subscribe to this WG at http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso-liaison_atlarge-lists.i... Details: (1) Short timeframe - WG ends on Thursday, 25 October (2) WG members will each draft comments on whatever issues they might have with certain recommendations (3) Initial comments due by 22 October (4) First draft of Final Document (incorporating all comments) by 23 October (5) Final Document by 25 October (6) ALAC reviews WG effort in LA and provides Statement to accompany the Final Document for transmission to the ICANN board. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today! http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7
participants (4)
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Danny Younger -
Evan Leibovitch -
Michael Maranda -
Ross Rader