Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hi, there, Cheryl here.
Heidi Ullrich: Hi, Cheryl. Nick and Heidi are here, we have Danny Younger, we have Evan –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. Alan and I have been on another call for the last 90 minutes, and he did stop at one minute past 6, so I guess he'll be dialing in in a moment – 6 my time. I think it's 3 something in your world.
Okay, who have we got, I mean, other than Alan is expected. We've got – Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Hi – Sebastien is here, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent.
Sebastien Bachollet: Hello, Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Does Vanda need to dial out, or is she dialing in?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Dialing in.
Gisela: I haven't received anything from her, and I haven't heard anything from (inaudible) either.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah, you're psychic, Gisela, I was about to ask exactly that question. Has Alan joined us yet?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Not yet, I don't think.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thanks, Nick. Alan, I think, is wrangling a meeting – not terribly easy one. So he might need to have a sip of water before he dials back in.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Is it PEDNR?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. Post Expiry Domain Name Recovery – a whole lot of fun.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Sounds like a party to me. I have a hard time choosing between that and (inaudible).
(crosstalk)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Danny, I'm sure your people understand how much fun we are having in the TDP workgroup, so that with the balance between industry interests and –
Alan Greenberg: Alan.
Electronic Voice: Joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hi, Alan, I was just telling them that you think that wrangling a rather difficult meeting and that you may very well need a glass of water or something stronger before you talk.
Alan Greenberg: I'll hold off on the something stronger. We really do need to get someone on those calls who is vocal and not a registrar.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes, couldn't agree with you more.
Alan Greenberg: I'm having an awful hard time being the only person defending anyone and sitting in the chair's position.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That might be how it feels but, however, we did get through the whole of that list today, which is something relatively monumental, and we are getting less resistance at each meeting, so I think you should see that as a positive thing.
Now, we've got Danny and Evan on the call.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can – Gisela, can we dial out to Vanda, please? I noticed George is online, so hopefully they are in the office.
Now, Alan, I'm sure, with the preps for the PNDR meeting, whether or not you have gone through your NARALO meet e-mails?
Alan Greenberg: I – I haven't responded to any in the last hour and a half. Prior to that, I think I kept up on them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, I haven't done anything in the last hour and a half either on the (inaudible). But what that does mean is the reason that I certainly invited Evan to join us at the beginning of this call, on a dial-out –
Alan Greenberg: I'm up on that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – was the issue that has been going on in the NARALO issue. Well, not a NARALO issue, but your on-time meeting.
Alan Greenberg: While you're doing that, I can find the wiki page for this meeting. Go ahead.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, fantastic. So we're just slipping in a piece of any other business – an additional piece of any other business. And what we'll do is run that first, so we don't hold up Alan – sorry – Evan and Danny.
Unidentified Participant: (inaudible).
(crosstalk)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible).
Operator: (inaudible) Vanda now.
Evan Leibovitch: (inaudible) longer if you wanted to have me at the end of the meeting. There's no rush.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We've got – I'd rather not. I'd rather deal with this and then get on to the ordinary agenda. Otherwise, we may not have sufficient time, and we certainly want to deal with the – what I would consider a matter of urgency rather than a piece of generic agenda.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. So as soon as we see Vanda is available – Evan, just in prep for this, have you put in the pro forma, or did you send the issue directly to Frank?
Evan Leibovitch: I have not done either of that yet pending my conversations here. My interest in getting a consensus within the RALO to give me a consensus support, and also I have been in e-mail contact with Richard Sexton, the person who was kicked out of the ICANN meeting.
Alan Greenberg: Isn't he the one who should be submitting the request to the ombudsman?
Evan Leibovitch: Well – okay –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, that's one question, Alan, and I guess the other question is he in a formal relationship with – in NARALO in some way? Is he a member of one of the ALSs? Because that would shift what we can do in a different direction.
Alan Greenberg: Perhaps someone can tell us who he is, because I don't really know him.
Operator: Sorry to interrupt, Vanda will be joining in five minutes.
(crosstalk)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Richard Sexton is a well-known anti-ICANNer – has done all sorts of interesting things, not the least of which explains the shock and horror on some of the staff's space, I suspect, and he's gone through ICANN offices with cameras and posted – yeah, I mean – for example, he is one of those that quotes CEO salaries, his discussion with CEO salary, of course, was discussing Paul Twomey's rounding of figures in the Sydney meeting, but he has that next to the new CEO's paper. He's a blogger and a very (inaudible) –
Alan Greenberg: Now I know where I know the name from, okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes. He's been around for a very, very long time, and that's okay. But – we also don't know the basis of his removal or why. But we kind of go on the blog, and I think one of – was it Ward (ph) who said if it went the way the blog was written then that is a matter. But it's the ombudsman's role to find out the specifics of such matters, and that's one of the reasons I think it's a perfect way forward should NARALO wish to take it.
Evan Leibovitch: I'll take it a step further – one of the reasons I've been in e-mail contact with Richard today was to quickly find out, you know, if he's making allegations like this, common sense dictates that there's always two, and usually more, sides to every story. So I flat-out asked him long before any of this broke out, I said, "Look, did you do or say anything that could have been grounds for them to remove you, like physical contact, disrupting meetings or anything like that?"
His answer, and I quote, "(expletive) no, I was the consummate professional."
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. I mean, that's fine. Again, it's not up to us to second-guess or know what did or didn't go on. I mean, there's a whole lot of differences of opinion on what constitutes professional behavior, and it's certainly not something that we need to try and tease out. But what I would do is suggest to you, Evan, that it is a name that will have a visceral reaction with a number of people.
That said, there is a system in place, and that is a perfectly valid system to explore. But I was interested to know whether or not he was asking the regional organization to take this action because, of course, he is supposedly able to take this action himself, excepting, I suspect it would, in some way, by using the ICANN obudsman's office would, in his view, I suspect, go some way to validating that office or ICANN in its own right. And I don't think that would suit his particular approach to how the DNS should be managed, which is in an ICANN-free world.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Let me answer some of your earlier questions very directly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks.
Evan Leibovitch: Richard had no part in the initiation of any of this.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm.
Evan Leibovitch: This, in fact, the circumstance that he went through that he posted on his blog was essentially only, shall we say, the bitter icing on the cake of something that had been previously started. If you recall, I sent an e-mail to the ALAC list immediately after the Toronto meeting was concluded when ICANN staff had posted the results of the meeting without having posting notice of the meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes, followed all of that, and we said that that was very much, in terms of our discussions, it was the reason that certain things had been put into a number of the statements about improving institutional confidence and transparency and, indeed, there was a discussion on why the nomenclature on what is a regional meeting and what we mean. It should be very clear so that there is no wriggle room for misinterpretation or misdirection of interpretation in the future.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, essentially, what happened was, as a result of my e-mail and some of the thread, I guess, that ensued, I received a personal mail from Craig Schwartz of ICANN staff who essentially gave me a letter that went into some detail; tried to, I believe, excuse away the lack of notice by saying that, "Well, it's not a policy meeting. Why would you want to be there?" In which my natural answer would say it's not his call whether we want to be there. We are aware it's not a policy meeting. We still have an interest.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. Evan, of course, any time you are trying to encourage change let alone a paradigm shift of this amount into a more transparent manner, you are going to get a little bit of – if not pushback, excuse-getting. I don't think that's an abnormal thing, but that doesn't mean you don't work and we don't work to increase interaction.
Evan Leibovitch: Right. I just want to give an issue – I just want to bring some context into what's happened to date.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible).
Evan Leibovitch: The issue with Richard was only essentially exacerbating what was already in the irritating situation and was not the start or initiation of anything.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm. Well –
Evan Leibovitch: So, effectively, what I was saying in the NARALO list today was, okay, this is the last straw. I understand that there is going to be a bit of "they said, they said," going on into whether or not he was really inappropriate but –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure.
Evan Leibovitch: – you know, this is something I'd just as soon let the ombudsman deal with because we have two issues. If he is a nut job and, indeed, did encourage – do something to encourage the staff to throw him out, then we still, right now, have his blog as being the only description of this event on the 'Net and deserves a rebuttal if it exists. On the other hand, if his version is accurate, we need ICANN to take responsibility for that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm very pleased to hear that that's the direction you are focusing on, because I'm particularly keen to make sure that NARALO – in fact, any region – is not misled down a pathway. And if you are phrasing an individual – sorry – a group request for looking to a fact-finding mission and a piece of well-informed and considered opinion from the ombudsman, then that goes out as a matter of we have concerns about the openness and transparency and mechanisms for accountability to the Internet end user, which is vastly different than taking a side. Which if that individual feels they have been badly treated, they really should be doing it on their own remit rather than using you guys as a tool.
From my own perspective, I never settle or hitch my wagon to a horse that I haven't gone over face-to-face and very personally with. So I wouldn't associate such an action with the individual, but rather with the principle, particularly based on a very simple search will bring you into an awful lot of reasons why people can have a visceral love-or-hate reaction – not only to Richard but to a vast number of people who have worked in the DNS world for a very long period of time and have a model or an ideal model of how they would like things to be run.
Of course, from an ALAC perspective, what we are doing is working within the model that we happen to have. Now, we are working for change, and anything that encourages a look at how – what we have been asking in terms of change is actually being received and discussed and acted upon fits our particular mandate very well. So I think with the proper approach and with careful wording, if NARALO wishes to put something into the ombudsman to look at this issue because, as you are correctly saying, it's simply bad press, and it would be nice if it wasn't bad press.
If it's true, then, certainly, that's something that we would be somewhat concerned about. But, as you have said, how that happens from an organized, or part of an organization raising the matter in a formal sense, probably needs to be looked at. At that point, I'm wondering how you want to approach him. I know, I mean, at the moment, you've got wholesale support by a significant number of your community to pursue this further. How do you want to do that?
Evan Leibovitch: Well, that's part of the reason why I'm coming to this meeting, which is to get a little bit of advice on, number one, the extent of, you know, support and endorsements that we need to carry this forward. And also just to get some sense, which I am already getting already, that you're okay with this generalized strategic approach that I want to take as opposed to – you know, I don't want to deal with this as "Here is an incident. We want you to investigate the incident." There is a practice – there is a part of me that believes that the truth is probably somewhere between Richard's story and what I've been hearing from the ICANN side in that he probably did overreact. But had he been quietly let in in the first place maybe this might have been averted.
We'll never know, and – but, at the same time, my original point is that the transparency, the lack of notice for the meeting, the general feeling of what I believe to be end-user hostility by the people putting this on through what, at the beginning, seemed to be simply errors of neglect but, you know, errors of omission. If (inaudible) –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan, I must say, I would have thought it is much more likely, particularly when we are a particular point in change management to be errors of omission because, to be totally honest, the expectation is always built on previous experience. And in previous experience, there hasn't been a great deal of need or necessity for Internet end users to be involved in these types of regional industry meetings.
That said, the APRALO experience was, quite specifically, we have held our own meeting in parallel with such a meeting in the past. But our heightened (inaudible), unless we were part of – in other words, some of our members are also involved in that side of the equation – unless we were involved, we didn't actually enter into their meeting. We ran in parallel so we didn't have crossover. So this point of who could be let in and who could have access didn't actually come up.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, the idea of having a parallel meeting struck me as absolutely wonderful, nice to have, in NARALO, we never even considered that as a possibility, for budgetary reasons. But – (inaudible) –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that's a very good basic call.
Alan Greenberg: Can I interject, please?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Certainly.
Alan Greenberg: We've been listening to a very nice dialog between Evan and Cheryl. We have a bunch of other people on this call. Perhaps some of us could have a chance, too. That was the point of order.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually, if it's a point of order, that's entirely different.
Alan Greenberg: I made the point of order. Now it's back to the chair.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fine. So as a point of order – you want – what is the point of order, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I would like an opportunity to speak sometime in the foreseeable future.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I would suggest that the floor is yours.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: I'll post that on my piece, anyway.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Evan.
Alan Greenberg: Okay. I feel strongly that if we do this – and when I say "we" the North American RALO does this – it has to be very carefully worded. I am not convinced that if we remove the Richard Sexton issue, it's an issue that we want to go to the ombudsman with at this point.
Evan Leibovitch: (inaudible) elaborate.
Alan Greenberg: Pardon me?
Evan Leibovitch: Elaborate, please.
Alan Greenberg: I am trying to. Given that this is not the first time it's happened, the Rome meeting was a similar example. I think the next step is, since we are meeting – we have an ICANN meeting coming up, is a face-to-face meeting with the people who have been holding these registrar/registry discussions – or meetings – and getting them to come to an agreement face-to-face about how the next one is going to be handled.
We didn't do that after Rome, we should have. And I think, before going to the ombudsman to complain about it, we should have – I won't use the word "decency," but we should have an opportunity to discuss this face-to-face, and then go to the ombudsman if we don't feel that the outcome of that is satisfactory and believable.
Evan Leibovitch: May I ask a question in relation to that, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: Sure.
Evan Leibovitch: After the meeting, did anyone from at-large make any comment to ICANN staff about the inappropriateness of lack of notice?
Alan Greenberg: After which meeting – the Rome or the Toronto?
Evan Leibovitch: Both.
Alan Greenberg: There was certainly a lot of talk in the community. Whether anyone made a formal statement, I don't know. I don't know of a formal statement, but there were certainly e-mails that got traded.
Evan Leibovitch: The point I'm trying to make is, if it was raised in the Rome, and the error was repeated in Toronto, that's one thing. If they claim they've never had a complaint from us until Toronto, that's another.
Alan Greenberg: I'd have to go back (inaudible) –
Sebastien Bachollet: It's Sebastien –
Alan Greenberg: – what happened at that point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Sebastien, go ahead, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, I think it's important to say that after Rome we were – and I guess that's just – you've been – people were disappointed with the fact that those meetings were not open, and if I recall well, during the summit we discussed about that. It's one of the reasons in different working group motion, we say something about we want to be – that if a meeting is organized originally, it must be open to all constituency, and it's because Rome came that we – does that during our conversation during the summit. And, in fact, Toronto had just renew a piece in this drama. Thank you.
Alan Greenberg: I think what was said during the summit is a little bit different; that is, my recollection is that we said if a meeting is being held for registrars and registries, it should be held for the other groups, also, which is different from saying it's primarily a registrars/registries meeting, but other people are welcome to attend.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And, of course, the (inaudible) –
Sebastien Bachollet: It's not –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The corollary is also the same – we do need to recognize that, you know, we would have to be eating our own dog food. Now, ALAC, of course, does have totally open meetings, but I'm wondering whether or not a whole bunch of registry and registrar reps would be welcome in the next secretariat's meeting in Seoul. I'd like to think yes, but I'm not sure that would necessarily be the case.
So it's important that we work on the principles of openness and transparency, and I'd certainly be counseling the ALAC to keep very much away from any in-principle support of any individual cases but rather look at how we can make the positive changes for the future. We're not going to fix the history, and so coming back to you, Evan, if I may, how now, with this conversation going on around you, do you want to proceed?
Evan Leibovitch: I'm not sure. There's a part of me that still senses that there was dissatisfaction expressed – I mean – Sebastien is absolutely right. There was enough dissatisfaction expressed after Rome that the summit did make clear statements about asking for transparency in this regard. So the fact that, as far as I'm concerned, that wish was ignored in the creation of the Toronto meeting.
Doubly painful, in fact, that I was consulted on the location and the placement of the meeting –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that really is a huge issue.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, I mean, it's a personal thing that I don't mean to keep bringing up, but it just sort of pours salt in the wound.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible).
Evan Leibovitch: And sends, you know, that they've gone through the exercise at Rome. There was dissatisfaction expressed about Rome that was expressed in the summit, as Sebastien said, that was handed, directly by hand, from Richard's hands right to Paul Twomey's hand, and, you know, supposedly these things are read and acted on.
I could only suppose that they're read and acted on in good faith. So when the Toronto meeting is done, and it seems like nothing has been listened to, what other recourse do we have?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, for example, one of the things I'd like now to hear from Sebastien – is Vanda on the call yet? I know she was driving. She will be with us soon, then. Traffic in her area can be a nightmare. And, Alan, is – perhaps to discuss with you any viable alternatives, if you are unsure now whether or not just a specific approach to the ombudsman is the right way to go or not. Alan, what would be your (inaudible)?
Alan Greenberg: I was going to put in the small comment to give very minor credit to ICANN, where it's due. After the Rome meeting, they still pretended it hadn't existed. At least in this one they posted the results after the fact. So we did see something different. Not particularly acceptable, but nevertheless.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, is that Stacey's (ph) picture, the CNTEL (ph) on Facebook, too.
Alan Greenberg: I only found out about Rome after the fact, and I couldn't find any reference to it on the ICANN site two weeks later. So it has gotten better. The question is, what do we do now?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan, and it needs to be pointed out, it's not just our community that's been complaining about this.
Alan Greenberg: No, no.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There is – and, Evan, you need to hear that this is an issue that is being brought forward in a number of (inaudible) wherever the opportunity rises itself, and it's not just by the at-large community or the ALAC that's doing it. That said, what are your options?
Evan Leibovitch: Well, all you're doing, Cheryl, is convincing me that we've heard enough of the, "Oh, my heavens, I'm sorry. We'll do better next time," only to see them not do better next time. Maybe we've just had enough of that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I'm not going to respond to that because that's not my place to do that. I see what you're interested in is the end game and the effectiveness of change being wrought. I would also assume that you would be looking at exploring whatever it takes to make that change happen. So – either Alan or Sebastien?
Alan Greenberg: I'll get in. First of all, I'll point out that ICANN is under new management. One should not ignore the potential impact of that. And this – you know, we're talking about Rome is something that happened a good number of months ago under different management. The lessons may not have been learned properly, and maybe they need to be reinforced. So that's point number one.
Point number two is going to the ombudsman starts a process, which is going to take a long time, leave a lot of bad tastes in a lot of people's mouths, and I'm not sure that's the productive way of resolving this problem.
Now, if you look at it from the registrar/registry's point of view – if you ask them, "Do we want a bunch of other people coming into our meeting and disrupting it and stopping the productive work from getting done," the reason for which the meeting is held, they would say no. If you talk to most of them and say, "Do you mind other people being there?" Most of them say we don't mind at all.
A few of them would say, "We don't want them damn users and registrants messing in with our business," but I don't think that's the majority of what people would say. So I think there's a fair amount of goodwill in a lot of the participants that we don't want to mess up along the way. And the question is – will going to the ombudsman really address the problem in the most effective way or will it start a long, complicated process where people are put on the defensive?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, let's leave that question hanging.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, I'd just address that slightly in saying there's a perception of a lack of reciprocity that Gareth and Rudi have replied in the NARALO threads and mentioning about the hostile reaction that they received from registrar/registries by us extending the courtesy of having them in at our sessions. I personally witnessed at the summit having registrars and registries got into our working group meetings, but that was all part of our transparency. There is a perception, and it's easy to find, that the same level of openness that we are giving to other communities is not being given back to us.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Understood, Evan. But, by the same token, the best examples, of course, you can influence change in positive or negative ways, and everyone saying, "You're not being fair to me, and I'm not being fair to you," and going back to your original sides isn't going to move us forward. And what we are interested in is a better open and more transparent system.
So we do need to look at a best pathway to get to that, and I would – as Dean (ph) cautioned us to only use history as that – a reference point. What we need to look at is how we change future. Sebastien? You might be on mute.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, thank you, sorry. First of all, I think our community is very keen with the registrar community. If I remember well, we elect from the NomCom appointee during two mandates, somebody from the (inaudible) constituency as our North American rep in the NomCom. And I would like very much to ask his view on this meeting as it was in his country (inaudible).
My second point it's – I prefer to have political battles (inaudible). Then my advice, if I can say advice, is to say let all the RALO and the ALAC, each and any RALO taking position, the same ones on NARALO could be great if we can ever share a commitment or a decision together and ALAC endorsing this to send to the new management. Even if I put some brackets into new management, we have a new CEO. We don't have a new management. And I am still to see some change in the management of ICANN. I know that it's my booking that momentum is taking me a long time because it's all in English, but it's a bit strange to have somebody who are pro-staff fish (ph) who are running us by there. And we have to see how we will under that. It will be quite interesting.
But we can't say yes, we'll wait, because all is still there, and the rest of the team is still there. And I hope the rest of the team would stay. But we don't see any change for the moment then. We have a new CEO, and that's a new management. And, once again, my advice is to say each RALO may take a position on that, and I will push to have a EURALO position on that because I think it's an important point and (inaudible) –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) could you just outline for us our position on what? What is the position you are going to be encouraging – your region and others to take?
Sebastien Bachollet: It's a very important question, and I will tell you let's discuss that, because it seems that there are two positions, first of all. The first one is to say any and every ICANN meeting must be open to all constituencies. The second point is that if the possibilities are given to one constituency to meet in a region, it must be offered to all the other constituencies. I prefer the latter, but we can discuss at least on that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. Okay. Is Vanda on the call yet?
Unidentified Participant: Adigo is dialing out to her, sorry.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: She is saying hi. (inaudible) all the time.
Unidentified Participant: She's on, she's on.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah! Excellent. Vanda, you are with us? Oh, she might be in a moment.
Alan Greenberg: Can I have 10 seconds?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan, you wanted to respond to something?
Alan Greenberg: Yes, Evan made a comment – made reference to the note that Gareth sent, you know, saying that we have ALAC or an at-large had hostile responses from registrars. To be quite candid, I was at the same meeting that he was talking about, and my way of describing what happened at that meeting would not be how he described it. So I think there are multiple sides to this, and one has to be careful with how one uses comments from individuals when they personally feel they were slighted.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I'm certainly be strongly on the "let's not individualize any of this" (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: I recall that particular interaction very well.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, okay. Vanda entered. Hello, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: It's been raining cats and dogs. The (inaudible) is a mess, completely a mess (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There will be bad traffic, anyway.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Vanda, we are just discussing the options that are being discussed in the NARALO world. You know about the Toronto meeting and, of course, the history with all of the other regional meetings that a number of the communities, including our own, have not been in advance made aware of. Or, of course, in the case of Toronto, the absolutely amazing situation where they inquired specifically of Evan for some advice, and he quite reasonably assumed he'd at least get to know when the meeting was on, let alone be able to attend. One of the issues at the moment is someone in the North American region but not a member of an ALSs or individual member of a RALO – a name you'll probably know as a bit of a stirrer, Richard J. Sexton. And on a blog, yes, the fact that he was thrown out of the Toronto meeting – I think the title is "Thrown Out of Yet Another ICANN Meeting," I'm paraphrasing there.
We are discussing with Evan, and Danny is also on the call, what sort of way forward we might be able to look at one of the proposals from LARALO was to take it on their own behalf, up with the ombudsman. Alan is suggesting that another pathway might be the best, and Sebastien is talking about each of the regions and, indeed, the ALAC, working on a very specific document about high-end principles based on all the things we've said in the last few meetings including the cost-effectiveness of running things in parallel.
I think I've done justice to the background. Evan, however, this is your issue bringing to us. Have I covered the key points to Vanda or not?
Evan Leibovitch: Yes, you have. I think we're on the – as far as I'm concerned, we're on the issue of if not the ombudsman then what? And what I hearing you saying is that you and Sebastien are suggesting that each of the RALOs or perhaps ALAC in consultation with the RALOs put together a document that is to be sent directly to the new CEO to address, in an attempt to try and not go the, sort of, mutual destructive method that the ombudsman process tends to encompass.
Vanda Scartezini: I tend to agree with Evan. It's (inaudible) working issues, it is better to make it more directly – directive with the people in the high spots like the ward or something like that and explain more clearly the point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm.
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, you left one little part out that I think we pretty well all came to closure that we would not go to the ombudsman about the incident with Richard Sexton, but if we did, it would be on the more general concept.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: On the concept, and I am unsure whether that's actually his mandate. I really think, you know, it's not so much complaint about treatment of us by staff and rather more something that needs to be systemically changed. And I am certainly, also, some sort of resolution cycle, which has as much positive outcome and work from positive energy rather than a negative conflicting one, particularly when we had such bad history.
If we go backwards into the history, then all we're going to do is argue over the to-and-fros of that and not move forward to a solution. And even having heard, I think what you are hearing fairly clearly is a strong flavor for something to be done but not necessarily in a purely compliance point of view. How would you feel about the ExCom recommending to the ALAC that each of the regions are approached – we put a draft together on this higher-level set of principles, send it out to the regions, use some of the specific examples that NARALO has been discussing. And, of course, that EURALO has as does IPRALO, examples of this in each of our regions. I think Africa is probably the only one that can't line up with an example as yet.
And that is sent to both the CEO and the public participation committee of the Board. Would that be a way forward from your perspective?
Evan Leibovitch: Yes, but before closing it off, Danny, since you are on the call – Danny posted a message to the NARALO list that –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) forward yet.
Evan Leibovitch: That ALAC has its own methods of not needing to go through the ombudsman; that because of some of our channels, such as going to the Board, we have the ability, perhaps, to affect things even more directly than going through the ombudsman. Danny, did you want to – I'm not the chair, but I think he might have something to say on this.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, go ahead, Danny.
Danny Younger: Thank you, Cheryl. One of the options available is the reconsideration process. Reconsideration was formally handled by the Reconsideration Committee of the Board. Earlier this year that got changed. Reconsideration requests are now handled by the Board Governance Committee.
But, in essence, they give you the opportunity through that channel to point to inappropriate staff action or inaction. And in this particular case I think what we're looking at is the fact that since 2006 staff every year has convened three regional registry/registrar gatherings and has never once convened a regional gathering for non-contracted parties. To me, that's an issue of fairness that can be addressed for this particular process.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Vanda, you've (inaudible) experience.
Vanda Scartezini: Well, yes, well, from my point of view, reconsideration can't receive its (inaudible) on the action or inaction of the Board. Is that an inaction of the Board or of just never raised or nobody had raised any point regarding this, so they didn't think it was important or something like that. So – I believe, it's, from my point of view, reconsideration is the long process because we need to hire independent contractor to analyze the roles, analysis the by-laws, and nothing of that is really related to an action or inaction of the Board. In my point of view, reconsideration is not the best way to do that. My point is still, you know, reaching the correct person of (inaudible) point and (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Vanda. I'm wondering, from what Vanda said, Danny, if it might be a second-string approach if we take the – right to the CEO and the Public Participation Committee, which, of course, is a duly authorized sub-committee of the Board. If there was a lack of satisfaction, some action or inaction, of the Public Participation Sub-Committee of the Board, then that may, in fact, be something that could be looked at in the realms of a reconsideration approach.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But sort of a left hook/right hook approach rather than the – and I am using that term knowing it's inflammatory, but I couldn't help myself – that that might be a second string to follow. Danny, your response to that?
Unidentified Participant: And Alan in the queue.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks, Rob.
Danny Younger: Alan, you go ahead.
Alan Greenberg: I just wanted to point out that we're talking about two different things in parallel and weaving back and forth. Danny and Sebastien I've heard basically saying that if there are meetings for the contracted parties, there should be meetings for the other parts of ICANN as well. And what I think I heard Evan say originally, and part of what I was saying was if there is a meeting, which is not a secret contract negotiation, that there should be notice of it ahead of time, and other people should be welcome to attend.
Evan Leibovitch: There are (inaudible) –
Alan Greenberg: And I think those are two separate things, and we want to make sure when we're talking about it, which one are we talking about, because I think we may find agreement on one and not on the other.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, as far as I'm concerned, one is a must-have and the other one is a nice-to-have.
Alan Greenberg: Oh, yes, but there is significant budget implications about holding many more meetings, and there are not budget implications to allowing someone to attend and have a cup of coffee.
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah, I –
Sebastien Bachollet: (inaudible).
Evan Leibovitch: I don't want this complaint about transparency to be turned around as to, "Well, they just want more money for another meeting."
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly.
Alan Greenberg: Exactly. And the (inaudible) money – it's past time and there's a lot – we're talking about a lot more – renting 12 hotel rooms is different than renting one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes.
Alan Greenberg: So I just want to separate the two issues and make sure we have clarity when we're talking about them. What I'm commenting on the goodness of either of them. Let's keep it fair.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks for that clarification. Sebastien? You might be on mute.
Sebastien Bachollet: Not just on mute – I don't – I think we need – it's better to go directly to the CEO with – in fact, no – (inaudible) my advice to the Board and (inaudible) ALAC who make an advice we send to the Board, and we send also to the CEO who happen to be Board member. And for the other point, you know, which one we want to take, I understand the question of money and no money, but I really think that – and I say that since the beginning, we have those meetings running in different region, why they are admitting four contracted (inaudible) because I am sorry to say why that once again – they use our money to organize those meetings for the contracted party, and they don't choose our money to help us meet together. And it's unfair. It's my main point.
But if we need to just say that we want to – the door open, I will sign for that, but my really concern is to possibly in each region where we don't have the ICANN meetings to have a regional meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, and I'm sure what you said there, Sebastien, would resonate with a great many people. But we do need to make some sort of agreement now as we need to get onto the rest of our agenda, and I'm sure you'll realize why I wanted to run this first, because I wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to explore the options and possibilities rather than just have a knee-jerk reaction, because we really want to get maximized outcomes out of this.
Unidentified Participant: (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, so to that end, even, you've heard a lot. You have to get back to your region what's your feedback to us about our proposal to advocate to the ALAC with a draft that we will then promulgate around the regions of a letter very specifically raising these points to the Board focused at the Public Participation Sub-Committee of the Board and, of course, the CEO and the Chairman.
Unidentified Participant: Good. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, do you believe that would meet the needs that you are hearing from your community?
Evan Leibovitch: I'll let you know after I've spoken to them, but it's –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Now, that doesn't stop individuals within your community taking whatever action they like and, of course, if you are in conversation with Mr. Sexton, of course, he has every right to the processes that the ombudsman's office offers anybody. You don't have to be part ICANN to take advantage of that.
Danny, any final points before I want to wrap this one up? It's an action (inaudible) on up now, and we will go down this pathway and I will obviously make one or either of us available for each of the regional meetings so that we can get some moderate Q&A as to why we think this is a good idea. Danny?
Danny Younger: I will defer to the wisdom of the NARALO chair.
(laughter)
Alan Greenberg: Scary, isn't it, Evan?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What an awesome responsibility you carry. Okay, Evan, we'll put a draft together. Obviously, I'd like to work quite closely with you on that draft as well as the chairs of the other recently affected regions. So I'm thinking, Sebastien, if you can give Wolf a heads-up, and I'll give Kiasedana (ph) a heads-up. Vanda, are you aware of this issue occurring in the LAC region?
Vanda Scartezini: No. No, I haven't heard, because most of the – there is still (inaudible), you know, around here so there is no point for people to come down and make – the only meetings that we have potentially here is with the (inaudible) group is the LACNIC and it's open for everybody.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes, same as APNIC and the other NICs are as well. Heidi, are you on the call? Yes, you are, aren't you?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can I ask you to reach out to Africa and just make sure we're not missing a situation in Africa as well?
Heidi Ullrich: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So, Evan, I hope you feel that this is a matter that we are taking seriously; that the voices are definitely being heard, but that you are comfortable taking back our proposal to your region and know that that is something that we are very keen to pursue but in a way that we believe will be most effective, particularly when we have Danny's issue of going for a reconsideration as a second-string to our bow, so to speak.
Evan Leibovitch: I am perfectly comfortable with that. That's the reason I came to this meeting in the first place was there is a suspicion that maybe the ombudsman path is maybe a bit too heavy-handed at this point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm, sure.
Evan Leibovitch: So, yes, I'm comfortable with that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. All right, well, Danny, Evan, thank you very, very much for joining us. I hope you feel that, despite the fact that we've wiped off a huge amount of time from our agenda, that we are reactive and we are responsive, and hopefully, Evan, you might say that this is exactly the sort of job we need to do.
Evan Leibovitch: Absolutely. And I'll just take another 10 seconds to tell you that although you haven't heard from him much, the IRT reboot is not dead, it's still moving, and I will throw something on it soon.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent, I look forward to that. Thank you both – thank you, Danny. Thank you, Evan.
Danny Younger: Bye-bye.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Danny, did you want to file a (inaudible)?
Danny Younger: No, we can stick around for the remainder of the agenda items, correct?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: My dear boy, if you have nothing better to do with your time, you are more than welcome. It saves you listening to the transcript later, okay.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, back to the standing agenda items. Obviously, we now have a new action item. Who wants to – let's just wrap up who is going to own that. Who wants to do the first drafting on that?
Sebastien Bachollet: (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastien or Alan? Who feels – ?
Sebastien Bachollet: (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Who feels the pen wanting to write a first draft on this letter?
Alan Greenberg: Which letter are we writing, though?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) –
Alan Greenberg: Of the two different ones I talked about?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, the first matter is – the first one you raised, which is the specific matter of openness in the regional meetings.
Unidentified Participant: (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So –
Alan Greenberg: I'll be glad to try that one, if you'd like – in consultation with Evan.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Do you want to pick up on the second point, because we might actually have an opportunity to integrate that as a separate but nevertheless related issue in terms of –
Unidentified Participant: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: In terms of non-contractors and contracted party meetings?
Alan Greenberg: My feeling that it belongs in comments on the next year's strategic plan and operational plan, because it's a significant budget issue.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Alan Greenberg: And if we put it in for the – I mean – if Danny's writing those three meetings a year, and we've only had one, so far – there's two more. And to say those should be open to everyone and everyone else invited as a significant budget implication on this year's budget, I think we should be doing this through the process that ICANN has to try to move the organization in strategic ways. Whereas, simple openness costs nothing – or virtually nothing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I hear that. Sebastien, your response?
Sebastien Bachollet: I think the way you present that is to write something who couldn't be integrated but who could be useful in the work of ALAC it's fine with me. I would write something. We will decide if we will put in the same letter on other document or any other way – just to have something written on that matter.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay and, in fact, it would be good homework in preparation for our comments on the strategic plan, anyway. Vanda?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Do you agree with it that way?
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, yes, (inaudible). My point is the superior to plan will be a completely different matter for the next year.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm, it certainly will be, yes. And I think it's another opportunity for us to make some meaningful change, which is why I (inaudible) for the changes in the approaches we make, particularly at what I see as a very – and when I use the term "fragile" I don't mean – perhaps that's the wrong term – an "opportune" time for our voices to be effectively heard. We need to make those voices not only as powerful as we can but direct them into exactly the right places.
Alan, how is your life going to pan out? What sort of time course are you thinking of for a first draft?
Alan Greenberg: It's either going to get done in the next couple of days or not get done at all.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Heidi, when is our first regional meeting this month? Who is up first?
Heidi Ullrich: NARALO on the 14th.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: Well before then, hopefully.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, fantastic.
Alan Greenberg: At least for what comes out of my pen.
Unidentified Participant: Cheryl, I just had one thought.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Evan.
Unidentified Participant: The ALAC has, in previous statements, commented on regional meetings and equivalent access for non-contracted parties to contracted parties, and the like. If you like, I can dig up those references and send them along to the list of you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic, that's (inaudible) to have those links and references, because we do need to remind them that this is not something new. We had been harping on it before.
Now, my Internet connection has been throttled down to 64 kilobits thanks to us having a huge amount of updates done in the last couple of days. We actually had a power out – a proper power down and a whole lot of new stuff done in the office over the weekend. So not only was I unconnected, I've pretty much eaten up a whole lot of bandwidth getting everything else up to date. So if I'm a little slow on getting things onstream, please forgive me.
That, however, did (inaudible) enough time for the action items for the 25th of August to come to my screen. So with that new action item on any other business we've just discussed, let's now look at the action items from 25 August. What have we got that hasn't been tracked? We've got Caliph (ph) and Adam – we can't do anything about that. We basically have to wait for the next ALAC meeting to see what Caliph and Adam have done or not done.
The Seoul meeting is, of course, on our agenda. NCUC, joint meeting with the NCUC, that is also not only on our Seoul agenda but, I gather – now, Robin did get back to somebody. Was that, Nick, you or Heidi or what?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, she responded, and we have a time. We can go through when we talk about all of the Seoul issues.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic. So I should simply take it personally that she refuses to respond directly to me on anything. That's fine, I can work through staff. That was the (inaudible) hard to insult, it's all right.
(crosstalk)
(inaudible) for periods, that's been done, that's been done, and I have contacted Yannis (ph). I will check my mail while we are going through the other matters, but I haven't heard back from him as yet.
That looks to be it from the top thing. Patrick, did we get the ESSEC (ph) retreat for ratification? I don't believe I saw that. Was that while I was at conference?
Heidi Ullrich: This is Heidi. I have not seen that, and Nick has stepped out of the room for a moment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Can we perhaps just flag that? It might mean that we just need to – it might be better if someone just has a quiet little word to Patrick saying, "Dear Patrick, How are you doing with that draft? Can we help?"
Sebastien, did you want to have a word to Patrick about that?
Sebastien Bachollet: Okay, I will.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Geographic is done. I think that that should be closed if not now in the next day or so. Is that the case? And we've changed the dates on the geo regions, and we are also discussing the NCUC Top 10 Myths on the agenda.
Okay, does anyone want to discuss anything on those items? I think we've got everything covered or on today's agenda. Can you start anything, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: Well, on the top 10, I think we need to decide what we're doing. There has been a lot of traffic on the mail lists since that point. Some people pointing out we should be dealing face-to-face with the NCUC in correcting the errors, and they will be glad to fix them, some of which they say they have already fixed. Of course, it's a bit late at this point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, do you have (inaudible) item 3.
Unidentified Participant: (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Agenda.
Alan Greenberg: Sorry? There are several people talking.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan, that is item 3 on our agenda.
Alan Greenberg: Oh, sorry, I thought you were opening the discussion on it now.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was saying have you noticed anything on our action items, which hasn't been picked up by our agenda.
Alan Greenberg: Sorry, my apologies.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's all right, not a problem. Okay. Heidi, can I ask you to have a quick look at the policy advice development calendar and see if there is anything we need to follow up with other than that matter with Patrick. I am unaware of them, but if you can just double-check on some of those, that would be good.
Sebastien Bachollet: It's Sebastien.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go ahead, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: I have one. I just had one point in the other business, I think we need to go through with the improving the institution of confidence way forward, and I will talk to that when we will go to any other business.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. Isn't that on our any other business? I thought it was.
Sebastien Bachollet: I did, just, 20 minutes ago, then, I wanted to tell you that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I must have – I opened it after it was added, because I could see it under any other business. Thank you. If it's there, we'll do it. Alan? We're on item 3 – at-large follow-up to NCUC recent activity.
Alan Greenberg: Okay. The question is, I suppose, was our immediate reaction at the ALAC meeting overreaction and do we want to reconsider or recommend reconsideration or do we want to follow through on what was proposed (inaudible). Assuming that is within our jurisdiction to even talk about.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I mean, we have a clear direction from the ALAC meeting, and I've got some drafting done on that, which, as a result of whatever we discussed today I was going to share with you all later today to dot the i's and cross the t's on. My personal view is that we do go out instructed, but we need to add in one or two particular points, not the least of which is after what I saw, Alan, as an undertaking from Robin in an interchange with you, that the errata – some of the errata – in the Top 10 Myths we were specifically concerned about was going to be corrected. They then put out extensive press releases including into our regions through our regional people that did not have that errata corrected.
Now, either that is duplicitous or incompetent, I don't care which. But I would like to use the words "duplicitous" or "incompetent" in the drafting of what I've got so far. I just want to know from you am I being too much of a horrendous bitch or not?
Alan Greenberg: Well, I'm not aware of that publicity you are talking about. So I can't –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) of Africa.
Alan Greenberg: I know I had some private follow-ups berating me for being so picky. I was also berated for not calling Rob on his somewhat misrepresentation in that Rob did exactly what NCUC did. He just picked the parts he liked, which were different from the parts NCUC did from our statement. You know, they each picked their own parts and said that was our position. Were we wrong in not catching Rob and pointing it out? Yes, I think so.
Vanda Scartezini: Someone talk – someone – I saw a lot of documents around in the old version with – that is not what we think about that, but my idea was to talk with the region at least, and to explain to folks that the version is not the correction to (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I agree with that, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: But I don't know if we should do this in the coordination, some kind of coordination, and I don't know if you are going to talk with Robin.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I've made all sorts of attempts to talk to Robin but, for some reason, all of my e-mail addresses aren't getting through her correct filter. So I go to Robin via staff now, but that's all right, that's working.
Alan, do you want to finish what you were saying now?
Alan Greenberg: I don't really have any sage advice. I'm just pointing out that it has been pointed out that we should take a less formal and more collegial approach to this if we don't want an ongoing war with NCUC and the NCUC people in the future.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The aspects of collegiality, I'm certainly going to maintain the moral high ground on – and, in fact, that's one of the reasons why I would want all of your input on the drafting.
And, of course, I still maintain, as I wrote in one of the responses, the early responses to NCUC chair, that, of course, what we are interested in is an ongoing relationship and, indeed, probable future liaison. We're the non-commercial stakeholder group. Let's not lose sight of that. NCUC as she is now and in the future is a subset of a GNSO structure, which is changing and, obviously, where our interests match, we want to promote that. I mean, things like the IRT work that was done in Sydney is quite clear that when we do have mutual interests, we could and should work well together.
That said, I find the specifics of some of the treatment and some of the behaviors, which I find very maladaptive from some of the leadership in the NCUC trying very hard to basically get as cranky enough to pack up our bat and ball, get sulky, and go home, or that's not going to happen. We are here – only here for the long haul.
So, to that end, Sebastien, any input from you?
Sebastien Bachollet: No, I agree with you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Alan, do you think we are overreacting then – because you raised that question?
Alan Greenberg: To be honest, no, because we've attempted to explain our position to them innumerable times, and it always resulted in stomping out of the room. And I think this misquoting us is another version of that, and if it's fixed, fine. If you point out they distributed after the time they said they would fix it, they distributed after the time they said they would fix it. They distributed the old version again. That's something that's got to be pointed out to them.
I will say, I also had an extensive discussion with a number of people on the issue of the term "civil society." In one of my e-mails I pointed out that it doesn't sit well with some people that they are now using the term "civil society" instead of the ICANN traditional term of non-commercial. And I received back a lecture saying any political scientist knows that they were the same. And I –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah. (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: And I was trying to point out not to argue the fine points of nomenclature but simply say that one term rankles some people, and the other one doesn't, we may be advised to use the term that doesn't bother people. They didn't understand the concept so I stopped that discussion.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes, I think there is only so much energy you can put into this sort of change.
Alan Greenberg: But that shows, sort of, the attitude of pointing out that they were right as opposed to listening to what I was saying.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, sure.
Sebastien Bachollet: I just want to pick up this point because it's an important point – not just for NCUC. It's also important for a lack from some RALOs. I am finding also, again, this civil society words because I think it's coming from IGF, and it's not the ICANN way of organizing. And I don't think that's a good way to go, because we have multiple constituency and some of them could be the civil society all together but not just one of them. And I don't think that – I like (inaudible), and I need the – also of the staff of that and ID will know what I am talking about, because in the flyer of the – EURALO flyer – I really cite what this word out of the document, and I didn't succeed each time, but sometimes only. Thank you.
Alan Greenberg: It's important to remember that the term "civil society" has one meaning if you go to Wikipedia, for instance, and a different meaning in the environment of U.N. organizations.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes.
Alan Greenberg: Within U.N. organizations, it is far more restrictive, and you have to be approved to be a representative of civil society and things like that, whereas, in the generic political science term, it's a far wider definition, which comes pretty close to non-commercial, because I couldn't find a single major group that fits in non-commercial, which doesn't fit into that definition. But that's different from the U.N. use of the term "civil society."
Vanda Scartezini: I also – may I?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go ahead, please, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, now, I agree with Sebastien. We need to take care with this movement, because there is a lot of IGF ideas inside the concept of a non-commercial that is community-basis issues. So I also believe that some people inside the non-commercial group is much more interested in having a personnel attend and getting over with this IGF ideas, change the issues, and they, in some way, we could – we should not allow them to use us as mentors of the ideas; as quoting us wrongly. So I am very concerned about what is going on.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I agree with you Vanda. In terms of next steps then, I'll (inaudible) the drafts and stuff. I wanted to also raise with you a proposal. I'd like to send this out on the piece of (inaudible) for wont of a better word, and I wanted to – I'll include that letterhead as a separate template, but on the draft I send you, I'll use it. What I want to do is ensure that what goes on this letter clearly states that this is the At-Large Advisory Committee and remind people of our regional structure.
I wanted to pick up on some of the (inaudible) and the listing that we use during the at-large summit from there. I also wanted to put on this pamphlet somewhere – and I'll have a fiddle (ph) with the most appropriate place for impact, but I'd appreciate your feedback on whether or not I get it right or wrong, and this is the specific quote of our role as the voice of Internet end users and the registrant. Just to not argue that point in the text so much but make clear where our credibility is coming from.
So if you don't think that's too unreasonable as a tool, I'll be happy to go ahead along those lines. (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: As usual, we want to make sure that it's credible not only recites what's in the rule book but what we do in theory.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. I just (inaudible) market this fairly carefully, that's all. And I thought one of the easier ways to market it is if we set up a – you know, just remind them of some of the outcomes, the very important outcomes of the ALAC review. Then that would be fine. Now, the final matter on this before we look at the specifics and logistics of how we reach out to the regions and, of course, each one of us have a role in that – I find it absolutely fascinating, you know, the 215 percent growth of the NCUC. And I've taken the time to look through the listing of the members and, yes, 50 – more than 50 percent now of the members' growth is very much in the individuals sector. They're not picking up that number of new organizations. But I am concerned where our membership has a mutual membership with many of those organizations that were signatories to the letter – to the open letter to the ICANN Board that whilst we write as we've been instructed by the ALAC, that will sort of deal internally within ICANN, but it's not going to address the matter of the misrepresentation of our views and what it was that we were saying to those signatories.
So I'd like to propose the just a chair rather than drag you all into this potential quagmire with me. But, as chair, I was planning to write to the Board chair and (inaudible) with each of those signatories, some 75 or 73, organizations who signed that open letter, and just give them the same – we are concerned about the errata; we are equally concerned that your member base or constituency, depending on which type of organization of this has instructed whoever has the delegated authority to represent you in the NCUC to sign this letter, and that if it had been based inadvertently on misrepresentation for error in the report.
So – that will give us an opportunity then to make sure that our members, particularly our in the regions who are members of both signatories of the NCUC letter and perhaps ALSs, that we approach them to try and give them the opportunity to let their membership know that these errors have also occurred. Are you happy for me to do that?
Alan Greenberg: I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. The errata we're talking about are in a document, which came out way after those endorsements.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, which endorsements?
Alan Greenberg: The ones that that supported – the NCUC stakeholder group position.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm.
Alan Greenberg: So I don't think they did it based on that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: And trying to link the two, I think, lessens our credibility not increases it with these people.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, see, I saw them as highly linked. What do you think, Vanda?
Vanda Scartezini: I don't know, maybe Alan has a point in that.
Alan Greenberg: I only saw the myths relative recently, and it was after the board decision.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, but the open letter to the Board and the myths, to me, came out pretty much at the same time.
Alan Greenberg: That may be, but if you think about it, the open letter would have had to be in process for quite an amount of time for them to have gotten the support of all those signatories.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I don't know.
Alan Greenberg: I don't know, either.
Unidentified Participant: Nobody knows.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I have no idea what the process would be, but it had to be out on the Board decision because the open letter is written in reference to the Board decision on the non-commercial stakeholder group.
Alan Greenberg: No, no, okay but – sorry.
Danny Younger: I wonder if I can jump in for a minute.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, certainly, please.
Danny Younger: Having followed the NCUC process day-by-day, I think we were given as organizations one day to either have our names removed from the list or simply have (inaudible) forward with our names on it. So, basically, there was no real notice given to the membership.
Alan Greenberg: So it wasn't an opt-in, it was an opt-out, you're saying?
Danny Younger: Yes, pretty much.
Alan Greenberg: Well, that changes the picture quite measurably.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right, well, I take that offline, and I'd like you to have us think about that approach, because I'm perfectly happy to write to each of those member orgs and just say, you know, if they want to talk to us, we're more than happy, or whatever. But, anyway, I just think – I'm concerned about reputations in those particular spaces as well, because we are being, I think, misrepresented, and I'd rather not have that happen.
Alan Greenberg: Assuming Danny is correct, and I have no reason to believe he's not, that this was an opt-out. We have to assume that most of the principals involved didn't know that they signed that letter.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, that –
Alan Greenberg: And that changes the issue considerably.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, that's a possibility. But I don't know of any way of finding out that, other than if we (inaudible) the response to a letter I'm happy to write to them.
Anyway, think about that. We'll work through on that one. Sebastien, your feelings on that?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yeah, yeah, I – I think we need to react and then just we'll be happy to read your proposal in the next (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. In terms of logistics, what I'd like to consider is if we can have this draft, certainly, in penultimate, if not ultimate form so it can go as either a draft or a "for your information" and I'm – you can discuss that online with me as well, so that each of the regions, with each of the regional meetings this month can have it on their agenda, if they wish to. And that each of us make ourselves available to speak to that letter at the regional meetings we attend. Are you happy for that to be (inaudible) forward?
Alan Greenberg: Yes.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, so we also then, Heidi, need to pick up with Sathmarta (ph) and make sure that if she isn't available for her regional meeting – I know she is very busy putting real connections to the Internet out at the moment – one of us might need to make ourselves available for the AFRALO meeting. And if that's the case, I would assume, Sebastien, because you can manage the French as well, you'd be the natural fit there.
Sebastien Bachollet: I think it's one good reason. The second is it's almost in my time zone, and it would be there for me such reason, too. I will be happy to do that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic. I just think it's really important that the regions have an opportunity to have discussions because it's at the regional level that a lot of this damage is being done, and we need someone there to respond and, indeed, bring anything back to the ALAC from each of the regions.
Okay –
Unidentified Participant: Okay, next point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Onto at-large Seoul meeting and meeting agendas. Heidi, I guess this is something that you've been slaving over.
Heidi Ullrich: Nick and I have both shared the pain equally.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good, well, I like to share pain. That's good, shared pain is always fine. What I might also do, I won't be coming offline, but I do need to take a small break for a moment. Vanda, can you just chair for a few seconds while I am listening but not speaking as we go through the at-large Seoul meeting and meeting agendas.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay, let's go. Let's (inaudible) on our agenda.
Heidi Ullrich: Just put it onto the (inaudible) chat so that everyone can see that. And I think what we need to do is just review the dates and the times and come up with some possible agenda items that we can then take to the great ALAC.
Vanda Scartezini: Mm-hm. All right, we already have the regional meeting posted in this agenda.
Unidentified Participant: Yes.
Heidi Ullrich: Just the dates and the times.
Vanda Scartezini: So let's start in the (inaudible) 19 regional – (inaudible) to add the (inaudible) for our Sunday agenda.
Unidentified Participant: Yes, that's true of all the agendas.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, most of the agenda is not completed.
Heidi Ullrich: Well, the dates and the times have, for the most part, been determined, but what we do need now are the – some possible agenda items.
Vanda Scartezini: So it's – let recheck all those – what is new on that is – we're going to have the meeting with the GAC. We already have this one?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's not been confirmed.
Heidi Ullrich: So, for example, on the Sunday, what are some of the issues that you would like to talk about? What we have done upon request of ALAC is that we have taken the planning and resource allocation topic that was – in Sydney was on Monday, and we put that into one of the items for Sunday. But we do need other items to talk about as well.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, but I think Sunday, it must be – is a day where, first of all, we will meet the first time for the week, then we need to reconvene and then we have to be aware where we are in the main topics we are discussing within the applause (ph) and we have to take each working group or each discussion topic and talk around discussion to be aware of where we are and exchange on that.
And I guess we will have to discuss about new GTLD, about –
Vanda Scartezini: I guess (inaudible) and that will be in the agenda – in general, because a lot of people are not really falling so deeply the point, so it's always good to make a review of the bosses (ph) to make everybody, you know, in the same level.
Sebastien Bachollet: And by that, I wanted – there are two points I would like to add. The first one is that it's important to have – to start with GPA because we will be one month after the end of the current GPA, and we will have to discuss – maybe we'll have to discuss that before, but it's important to know where we are and how we fit with that. The second –
Vanda Scartezini: What happened, yes, what happened, yes.
Sebastien Bachollet: And my second point is that we may have some new faces joining us the first time, and we need to have some sharing time, some presentation time to allow each one to be part of the family.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes. I do agree. We have – the next two persons that is not so familiar with the ALAC group.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm. Well, let's have a small amount of time in the general opening for a little bit of a team-building, general bringing people up to speed and sort of more of a roundtable discussion. Nick, do we know who of the new people are going to be there? Have we got – because I have no knowledge on travel issues, who is going – ?
Nick Ashton-Hart: At the moment, the only new person is going to be elected-wise will be Sylvia, because it looks like the other comments have been returns, and we will have the new ALAC members, presumably – the two new ones.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Nick Ashton-Hart: But Carlton isn't new, so we'll have two new ones and one who knows you well.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Alan Greenberg: But you're saying the new NomCom ALAC people will be there?
Nick Ashton-Hart: They're supposed to be funded through NomCom or somehow, yes.
Alan Greenberg: I was less worried about funding than visas and whatever.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Not our area, but, yes, they're coming.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, well, that's good. That means we have to start off with that title from part of exercise. I heard you mention new detail. These that also I would afford IDNs would be a subset of the new GTLDs, and highly appropriate for us to discuss in Korea when – the issue of variance is one that's the CJK countries is particularly important.
Sebastien Bachollet: I think we need to pick up each important item – new GTLD, short track CC, IDN GTLDs, improving international and confidence and so on and so forth. I have no – my list in front of me, but we need also – and that must be the important part, but we must also have one part of the meeting for some, let's say, internal at-large issue like the process of how we follow the Web done by each and every elected people. How we want to be organized if we want to change something in the organization or not and whatever – and how we work with the geo zones and so on and so forth.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. So, really, we're looking at a bit of an orientation exercise, and then a properly convened ALAC and regional meeting perhaps before lunch and then focus on information workgroup activities, information sharing, and any briefings that we may need all – as a result of that agenda. Will the new DAG be out in enough time and what are going to be the translation issues and things on the DAG? Will the DAG be out by then, Nick, do you know?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Yes. It will be out, at the minimum of 15 days before the meeting in England – whether or not –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Will it be out in English?
Nick Ashton-Hart: We don't know if it will be simultaneously available in the non-English languages or subsequently.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Nick Ashton-Hart: We'll be available. The other thing – it strikes me you may wish to add to the agenda is review implementation.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, it's one part I wanted to add, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that gets a huge Guernsey (ph). Really, I think we've got a very full agenda on this Sunday. I'm not concerned about not having things to fill out the day, that is for sure.
Alan Greenberg: We will have the position description – I'm not quite sure what the status is, but the comment period is pretty well closing in the next few days I think. So that one, we should have to discuss, a final one, assuming we do something on the list. The performance guidelines are something I'll be sending out in the next couple of days – a draft to the – excuse me – ALAC list.
In terms of new GTLDs, I think there are two issues we haven't discussed before that I think we really need to formally discuss. One is the issue of vertical integration, which has gotten really hot.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It high school, yes.
Alan Greenberg: Especially if you look at how our GTLD workgroup list was taken over by a number of people. And so I think that one is going to become a real issue, and the second issue is something that Patrick said in response to that. Basically, he said, and I will probably misquote him, but he said, "We didn't do all of our homework ahead of time and identify the real important issues. It's too late now. The train is coming down the track. We can't stop it."
Unidentified Participant: Yes.
Alan Greenberg: Now, there are some people in ICANN who believe that there are enough problems with the new GTLD process that we should stop it. Now, whether that means stop the whole thing or stop the non-IDN ones or not – I'm not defending the position –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, I'm grimacing here, I can tell you.
Alan Greenberg: Well, a lot of are grimacing, but there are people who are saying we better slow down and do it right or half right than do it very badly wrong. And I think that needs to be discussed around the table. Each of us have positions on it, but we cannot say –
Sebastien Bachollet: I agree.
Alan Greenberg: I mean, Patrick said one thing, Vanda said another, someone else said another, and I really think this is something that should be discussed, because we are going to get asked what we think, because I'm almost sure on the new Board, it's likely to get raised.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, let's face it. That's a perfect meaningful, whole – all-group discussion for a good whack at the Sunday.
Alan Greenberg: Yes. We are not going to come to closure on that particular one, but I think we need to start the discussion.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Nick Ashton-Hart: What do we call it?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hell.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I thought of a number of terms like that myself, but – the agenda. I don't know, Sidetrack or – what do you want to?
Unidentified Participant: We'll call it (inaudible) –
Sebastien Bachollet: Did we open Pandora's Box?
(crosstalk)
(laughter)
Nick Ashton-Hart: Sebastien, we opened that several – quite a while ago. And all the ugly things are coming out.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually, I think having something called new details these, Pandora's Box will at least get people's juices going. I think that's it.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I think that's a good title, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Perfect agenda. We might actually get more people outside of at-large in the ALAC in the room based on that one.
Nick Ashton-Hart: We may need Sebastien's help in translating that into French, because I'm not sure our interpreters will know what to make of that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, well.
Alan Greenberg: It's Greek mythology – it's available in all languages.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I'm teasing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right, where else do – I think Sunday is fairly set, and I think also the fact that we're going to go through our policy development process, tracking tools, as well as allocate who goes where for the meeting is very important to have it on the Sunday. I was most concerned at the Sydney meeting where some of our liaisons chose not to even come to the allocation of a duty meeting let alone many of the other meetings, because they were off wandering around doing what we can only assume was other ICANN meeting activities.
I think by moving that forward to the Sunday, at least we'll capture them and make sure that we're all on the same page, and we're not tripping over each other. Does anybody disagree with that?
Unidentified Participant: No.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I'll bring the rope.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, and you're still here.
Alan Greenberg: I'll question whether you capture everyone on a Sunday. But, other than that, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We can only do our best. But I also think that same process as we used in Sydney is one that's, I think, worthy of continuing as a model. It might need a little refinement but other than that it's fine.
I still haven't managed to open the Seoul schedule for us, so can someone tell me what else is on the Monday?
Sebastien Bachollet: We need to add in our work, we say that –
Alan Greenberg: Sorry, I missed that. I didn't understand you Sebastien.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, yeah, we cannot hear some noise comes in.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Did you drop out?
Sebastien Bachollet: No, I didn't.
Vanda Scartezini: No, no, just asking for Alan about something with you.
Sebastien Bachollet: Is that okay? Did you hear me well?
Vanda Scartezini: (Inaudible).
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, okay. One point we say is at by Seoul we will have a position on how we were under the trouble for the next two meetings in fiscal year, and we have to do that (inaudible) – all during the Seoul meeting and I would like to extend the discussion on how we would like to see the future organized for the meetings, (inaudible), and the summit. I don't want to leave that in the Pandora's Box too much anytime.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. I'd like to also get somewhere started, and I'm not sure it will fit in on the Sunday, but I'd like to slot it into one of our meeting spaces. The beginning of getting the regions and any of the attending ALSs start thinking about inputting to the strategic plan and the budget ramifications of that.
Danny Younger: Cheryl, this is Danny.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, sorry – yes, Danny, go ahead.
Danny Younger: Okay, on the strategic plan, I believe the timetable calls for discussions to be opened in October/November. So it's probably a good idea to begin discussions within the ALAC on the strategic plans. But I also wanted to bring up the points that with the DAG coming out from 15 days before the meeting, the DAG will – that would address key issues with regards to the IRT recommendations. And I think that the final version of this DAG should at least have some comments from the ALAC as to the ALAC's view on whatever has been adopted by way of our key recommendations.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, yes. I'm sure we'll have a very busy time with that. And, again, we won't know exactly what lump of time we need to devote to that until a little closer to Seoul, but I want to make sure that we do have that time available.
Unidentified Participant: I'll just let you know I have made a request for some extra time for the (inaudible) of IRT reboot meetings that I'm hoping will go under.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Again, I still don't have it open. I'll just give up. I'm just going to stop that, and someone can tell me. Heidi, is that slotted in somewhere or what?
Nick Ashton-Hart: (inaudible)
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, we have that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: When is that happening? Just – because I can't open that page at the moment. It's just taking too long to load.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, actually, we need to look that up. Just a second.
Sebastien Bachollet: Maybe we can go through the agenda that we have discussed on Sunday. On Monday there is no meeting except AFRALO meeting, and we have the AXO (ph) meeting, of course, but it's not in our –
Unidentified Participant: It's not clear the AXO meeting is on Monday, the last I heard.
Sebastien Bachollet: It seems to be that it's – yeah, maybe. It is written like "Joint ISO meeting in (inaudible) as the schedule of review."
Alan Greenberg: I understand that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It will be on – whether it will be Monday or Thursday is still a matter of internal debate from some people within the gap. And I've got an additional meeting on Friday morning about that. We're working on it. If – and when it is on, I should say, rather than if it is on, it's going to be focusing on new detail days inclusive of IDNs. So that's something that will mean our Sunday preparation will have put us in good stead for our work around the ICSO table on that.
Sebastien Bachollet: And I am sorry, I was wrong. It's return for the (inaudible) on Tuesday as a joint SO and AC meeting.
Unidentified Participant: No, it can't be Tuesday, that's Constituency Day.
Sebastien Bachollet: It is written currently – if you look at the ICANN page on the schedule of review for Seoul it is currently written on Tuesday.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Why (inaudible) imagine why we wouldn't be told about that where I needed chairs. Look, it's going to make my Friday morning meeting very interesting. It will happen, we don't know when, but it will happen.
Unidentified Participant: Cheryl, in answer to your question, the trademark issue, which I assume is what it's called, is Wednesday afternoon.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. There is going to be, I believe, the GAC (ph) is pressing fairly hard – some form of DNS abuse, or abuse of the DNS discussion, with – I wanted a strong end-user perspective that should be running – they were hoping on the Monday, and I believe something (inaudible). The 2:00 slot was what was being discussed. Again, it's one of those "watch this space" issues. Either I know nothing about it, but I guess, Heidi, if it's going to happen, you'll know a whole lot about it, and I suspect that if they are looking at having some form of input from end-user perspective, we will therefore be involved.
Heidi Ullrich: My understand is that it's going to be on Thursday in the morning, and it's just going to be two hours this time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, but my understanding is the people specifically from the U.S. in the GAC are going to have it on the Monday.
Heidi Ullrich: Ah. Okay, let me see if I can –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm not going to second-guess what's going to happen with the greater scheme of things. What I'm saying is when it happens, we will need to be involved, and clearly we want our people at the table, and I'd like to have a good smattering of local talent there as well. So what I'm asking you to do, Heidi, is start thinking now in advance of when you are told it's going to go on, who we can encourage. Okay?
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's just a matter of prior planning. It's going to be something that's going to come at us at the very last minute.
Danny Younger: Cheryl, it's Danny.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Danny, go ahead.
Danny Younger: Speaking of last minute, can you make arrangements to have a session devoted to compliance, please?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Compliance?
Danny Younger: Uh-huh.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Where can we fit that in, guys? As part of the – ?
Danny Younger: I think it would be appropriate to have a briefing by ICANN compliance staff on their current activities. Alan, you can –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I'm wondering, Heidi, if that's something that we might be able to engineer onto? I mean, I just know that you're going to end up at the last minute being asked to throw this meeting together. That might be an ideal time to see if we can – sorry, guys, I'm actually seeing my animals, as you can hear. They are excited because they hear me. Could we try and see if that will fit in on the agenda, or what sort of work have you done on that agenda already?
Nick Ashton-Hart: We're looking. I think there is a compliance session on the main session agenda.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because to me, what Danny has raised and, Alan, you might want to comment on that, too, seems to be sitting perfectly well with a number of activities that are going on, not the least of which is the PDD (ph) process that you and I are involved in at the moment. Information from the compliance team is fairly important, if not pivotal, to outcomes.
Danny Younger: Well, that one on post-expiration domain name recovery is really (inaudible) at that point because it is a formal PDP. There's supposed to be a session on it sometime in the week. I don't know when it is.
However, there is also going to be a process going on in the same timeframe, not likely complete by then, of identifying issues that should be discussed in the next round of RAA amendments. And that comes pretty close on the compliance side.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Unidentified Participant: Now, I don't when – I hope someone is starting to schedule that, because that workgroup has a target of getting something out sometime. The group hasn't been informed (ph) yet, but I would hope that there is a working session scheduled sometime in Seoul, but I don't know anything about the details.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, Danny, we're going to do our best to weave it in – either as a lump or through a number of sessions.
Danny Younger: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks. Can someone tell me what's next on the (inaudible).
Unidentified Participant: The at-large elections for Board Director, implementation (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Have we finished with the Seoul meetings and meeting agendas?
Nick Ashton-Hart: No, we haven't even got to the end of Monday.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that's sort of what I was asking about then.
Unidentified Participant: Oh, okay.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Keep going down – so we have a – on Tuesday we have a policy discussion from 9 to 11. The idea being that you all would identify three topics, which are not already covered by a workshop, which you would like to talk about. We've looked at the draft schedule, and the version we have does not have a main session on compliance, so you could certainly make that one of your three topics, if you wished.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic, okay. Let's pencil that in there, then, and if we need to shift it into some other mainstream activities, at least we'll have already done some prep work for it.
Nick Ashton-Hart: And then you just have to pick two others that you fancy. But you might want to pick those once you've seen what's on the main schedule.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that would make sense.
Nick Ashton-Hart: You then have, on Tuesday, from 11 to 12:15, with the Structural Improvements Committee.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I presume your topics are the election of an at-large voting director and the implementation – outline plan.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Of – (inaudible). Absolutely.
Unidentified Participant: Nick, when is the Board review working group final report scheduled for release?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Sometime up to Seoul. It will probably be 15 days before Seoul, I believe. I have also heard that it may be presented in Seoul. So I really couldn't tell you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. (inaudible)
(crosstalk)
Nick Ashton-Hart: What was that?
Unidentified Participant: It was down on the list as APRALO meeting.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Yes, skip that (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's okay.
Unidentified Participant: Ah, the next one is a good one – at-large and NCUC joint meeting.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I would note that Robin has not confirmed – that she wants to do this meeting or when.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. I was wondering about what the purpose of this is going to be?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Well, we put in for this stuff – I don't even know where this came from. Is this stuff from last time?
Unidentified Participant: I think this still is from Sydney.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: When I wrote to Robin, I said, "Can you tell me if we need the meetings, why we need the meetings, and if we're going to have it, what it will all be about."
Danny Younger: Cheryl, this is Danny, it's a comment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Please.
Danny Younger: Would it be possible for the ALAC to consider having meetings with other groups? I mean, you know, we've got some intellectual property folks out there that you've never met with.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would like to question, Danny, why we are meeting with a subset of a subset at all.
Danny Younger: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And then, if we're going to meet with one part of constituencies in the GNSO, we should meet across the board.
Danny Younger: Yes, I would tend to agree.
Unidentified Participant: I mean, you do have to use the house meeting, which is cross communities.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly, and that's the place where we need to clearly engage and grow relationships not only with the non-commercial stakeholder group and what is the form it's going to exist in. But also the other parts of the user house, which brings us into exactly what you were saying, Danny. And it builds on the work that Alan has done right back to the post-Paris meetings where what we were working very hard to establish is a working relationship across the board, not just from defensive bunkers.
Unidentified Participant: I suggest we take this time slot and allocate it to policy issues – either policy or internal administration issues.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. And I am – I see no value in navel gazing over what is the (inaudible). I'd like to perhaps look at some of the timing on that one, Alan. Is that somewhere that we can establish a little bit of general feed-in for what needs to happen with the registrants' bill of rights?
Alan Greenberg: Maybe. I don't know what the schedule is on that, but that may end up being scheduled for Sunday or something like that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I think Sunday is already fairly full. To me, that would be time well spent on a Tuesday to be looking at that and an opportunity, you know – ?
Alan Greenberg: You're not likely to get a meeting on Tuesday, which is Constituency Day and the individual constituents are pretty well blocked out – at least many of them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no, no, about our group establishing –
Alan Greenberg: Ah! Okay. If we come into that meeting armed with lists, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That, to me, seems like an ideal use of our time. So I think we can spot that in.
Alan Greenberg: I'm agreeing that the RAA is one of the things we need to be talking about. Whether this is the opportune moment or some part of the Sunday meeting, or there was also a Monday or something from policy, I'm not picky about. It's one of the critical items that we cannot defer to the next meeting. That train is moving, to use the same analogy as we used before. There are a number of things that we cannot avoid discussing at the Seoul meeting, and those are the ones that I think we have to allocate as high as (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. So, Nick, if you don't mind just pinning a little note on my behalf to Robin saying, "At our executive committee meeting today we finalized our Seoul agendas and, unfortunately, we require the space that we may have allocated to any joint meeting with NCUC to policy development processes. And remind NCUC that, of course, all of our meetings as scheduled are open, and they are more than welcome to pop their noses in at any point in time."
Alan Greenberg: I would add, in the absence of any response from them, to date, we have finalized.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, it works for me.
Vanda Scartezini: (inaudible).
Nick Ashton-Hart: I'll copy the list.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, sir. Well, it's no use me writing it. It will just come back to me. What else have we got?
Unidentified Participant: The next meeting on this agenda is regional secretariats on a Wednesday.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Not our problem – next.
Unidentified Participant: Okay. At-large trademarks, we already discussed; EURALO we don't discuss; ALAC and Board breakfast, Thursday.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Do you wish to use the table topics format that you used last time?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I think table topics work well.
Unidentified Participant: What are table topics?
Vanda Scartezini: No more than two to allow us to really have a discussion among the others, because it seems to have a lot of items in the table. We cannot sit back in time for the people sitting with us.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Vanda, I'm wondering, if we put from Sunday a couple of the table topics together in (inaudible) –
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we asked the table to pick an envelope, even randomly choose one – just talk about –
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – that might be better. So we can give the Board a list of, you know, three or four topics.
Vanda Scartezini: Ideas, yes, and they (inaudible).
(crosstalk)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And which tables, we will discuss one of these.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You know, and we can, you know, have a bit of fun, you know, with a couple of envelopes and sort of say, you know, "Will you pick one, Mr. Board Member, and send us your thought what you're going to talk about."
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, and the what I would also suggest if we change a little bit the way we do that because I believe we need to raise the point openly, you know, you will send and open the idea, and a kind of (inaudible) in the end, just to allow people to focus, because if we don't do that, you know, someone start to, you know, drive in another direction and so what.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. So, Vanda, you'd like, say, me to open up the conversations, ask them to pick a topic, give them the right length of time, and then say "Make sure you've got a spokesperson or two because we want feedback at the end of this before we all go off to our meetings?"
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, something like that, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. I'm happy to (inaudible) that.
Vanda Scartezini: You know, in each table someone from our side will write the ramp-up of that, and, you know, quickly define in the end of the meeting before people leave, because –
Unidentified Participant: Are we talking about each table will present their results?
Vanda Scartezini: We don't need it. The best idea is to have, you know, one sentence from each table just to ramp up all the issues and the different ideas that came from the Board group. But if we don't have time, we don't need it. But someone will write the conclusion inside each table.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Whether it's presented verbally or whether it's just passed on to us is another issue and probably time-limited. Danny, you've probably got a sense of what a table topic is. It is, quite literally, a relatively unstructured conversation on a topic of interest to ICANN. Specifically, the types that we've chosen for these Board breakfasts have been issues that we feel the Board probably doesn't understand or even recognize that we have a view on or why.
Danny Younger: Okay, can I make a suggestion for that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead.
Danny Younger: All right, look, with the GPA termination dates, and with the fact that we've got an accountability public forum going on, scheduled to wrap up pretty soon, and in view of the fact that the Board has proposed an independent review tribunal approach, I think it's appropriate to have a discussion on the general theme of accountability.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. Those could be interesting, good points.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. We'll put that in the mix, and I think that's where we'll fall. The main thing is I think it's something that everyone will have something to say about.
Vanda Scartezini: Uh-huh.
Unidentified Participant: There was a strong suggestion from the GNSO that the AXO meeting be on accountability.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Unidentified Participant: Not likely to happen, but there was really strong support interest in it, you know.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, let's make that a focus. So we'll come up with some very specific points on that then.
Unidentified Participant: Just to remind everyone – the 21st of September is when we've got the decision coming forward with regard to ICM registry, which has really got to be testing the current accountability mechanisms.
Unidentified Participant: Cheryl, can I add one more thing about the table topics?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: Just let's try and make it so that perhaps we can ensure that there is a generally equal level of Board and at-large people at each table. What I found the last time is that because of the way people just straggled in and tended to want to sit with familiar faces, found a couple of tables that were overloaded with Board people and had one or two ALAC and also vice-versa. At least I seem to find that to be the case at least in half the tables that I saw in the last meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I certainly do my best to avoid that, but people do straggle in, and by people I do mean the Board members.
Vanda Scartezini: The GNSO meeting with the Board, they just put names on the table.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, which we – if we know who is coming, we certainly can do.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes. But you can (inaudible) –
Unidentified Participant: Board members rarely skip that one.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Unidentified Participant: How good it is for breakfast, I don't know.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's a slightly different thing, but we'll see how we go, that's for certain. And we'll certainly label up the ones we do know will be coming. And, Evan, yes, I'm very aware of that, and I certainly will try harder if I fail to do it in Sydney. I thought I improve it on our previous meetings, but I'll work even harder to make sure it happens in Seoul.
Vanda Scartezini: Well, but, we've got a lot of people from the Board at the last meeting in Sydney, (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: They're getting more each time, which is a good thing.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. What have we got then now? That's it for – other than – that's it for the agenda, or what?
Heidi Ullrich: Cheryl, Thursday we have the ALAC and regional leadership wrap-up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, well, yes, the wrap-up, yes, fine.
Heidi Ullrich: And then the final meeting will be the ALAC executive committee on Friday.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, and what staff – who, if anyone, is staying for that?
Heidi Ullrich: We all are.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, okay, good. It's just when it – I forget which meeting it was. I can't, for the life of me, remember that it was just bizarre when there Sebastien, Alan, and Vanda and I having a meeting and absolutely no one else. I mean, that was just crazy. Okay, so as long as that's not an issue, we can also perhaps pick up on any of the points that need follow-up specifically as we did last time on the travel issue with any of the ICANN staff that is still around on the Friday if we want to follow up on anything.
Alan Greenberg: I would suggest that the allotted time of 2 to 3:30 is not sufficient. We always start late, and the ICANN people wander in at a random time, and you don't have a lot of control over that. I would think we allocate most of the afternoon, unless we're really sure we're going to leave, because if we –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, considering we were still sitting around the table at 7:30 in Sydney, I am all for making a larger lump of time.
Unidentified Participant: I prefer to not be that large, but –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I – well, I wasn't too (inaudible) –
Alan Greenberg: But I think to be realistic and an hour and half I don't believe is.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. Okay.
Heidi Ullrich: Shall we say 1800 then?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, let's close off there later than 1800.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, and if we leave early, fine. But –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes.
Heidi Ullrich: And so the topics there will be allocations or responsibilities for follow-up as well as travel?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that's it. And we need –
Alan Greenberg: And whatever comes up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we need to discuss specifics with various outcomes from the wrap-up meeting. We can predict what the wrap-up meeting will be, but I'll be very, very surprised if we don't have some very particular targets. There are too many important topics being discussed at Seoul for us not to have some targeted outcomes that we'll need to follow up with.
Alan Greenberg: We also need to make sure that the potential candidates for the various executive positions know about this meeting ahead of time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed.
Alan Greenberg: Because there's not a lot of point in just having the outgoing people discuss what's going to happen next.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, I don't know.
Alan Greenberg: Well, there may be a lot of – some benefit to it, but only for the outgoing people.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good point, Alan. Thank you for dotting the i's and crossing the t's. That's good. Heidi, there are some – on the (inaudible) check, will all table topics be on various issues of accountability. What do you think about that, gang? Yes or no?
Alan Greenberg: Say that again? Or maybe I should read it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Will all table topics be on various issues of accountability?
Alan Greenberg: Ah.
Heidi Ullrich: Or a theme – will the whole meeting with the Board be on the theme of accountability?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And Vanda has dropped off the call.
Alan Greenberg: I don't think we should lock that in at this point.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, we say that we will decide those topic on the Sunday meeting, and to say today that it will be just link with accountability.
Alan Greenberg: Well, it's surely difficult post – pre-end of JPA to decide what the exact details of the accountability talk will be.
Heidi Ullrich: Exactly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So let's leave it slightly open for now, but we won't be short of things to talk about, that's for certain.
Okay, one of the other possibilities would, of course, be anything to do with something in the trademarks, and we just don't know what it's going to say about the IRT recommendations, but that would be another issue that we might find makes the short list for the table topics, because I'm assuming it will be a hot topic.
Alan Greenberg: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Have we finished Seoul agenda?
Alan Greenberg: We had to tantamount firm meetings with Jack and with Rod Bextrom.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I'm hoping that the one with Rod gets to be a concerned one, and let me check my mail – I have been very doubtful about the GAC meeting, and I don't believe he's – Jean has got back to me yet. And the whole concept is that we don't always have to have bilaterals, but we have bilaterals when they are required.
Nick Ashton-Hart: We are working on the Rod question. As you know, Cheryl, we have inquired as to whether the GAC could have lunch with you all on Sunday, because it does (inaudible) they have a lunch engagement, so we see –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So and when I write to –
Vanda Scartezini: Okay, I'm back.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – I did mention that that was a possibility. But that's just up in the air at the moment.
Sebastien Bachollet: You want me to try to call him at his embassy in Paris?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yannis?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'll be meeting with him on Friday, so – I mean, I'm quite – he has a very busy time at the moment with the GAC, so if you want to follow up privately, then feel free, Sebastien, but I'm sure it's not that he is not wanting to get back to me. I think he just hasn't had time to get back to me. And I also believe that, based on the ICSO chair discussions that we've had at various of our post-AXO meetings, that he will be on the same assumption that I was working under, and that is in the absence of a need for a bilateral, we won't be having them just for the sake of it. But, yes, if you'd like to do that, that's fine.
And the Rod one is looking like what and when? Any feedback at all, Nick?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Not yet.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. All right, now, the only other thing is I have to have my fireside chat with the chairman of the Board. Heidi, with the general stuff up of when, where, and how that that occurred last time, can I get you just to maybe watch fairly carefully if that gets shifted that it doesn't get shifted to be in the middle of one of these rather important meetings? Because it rankles me to be pulled out of an important policy development meeting to go and do whatever it is that the outcome is supposed to be with these little fireside chats that the chairs have with the chairman of the Board. So if we can pause – I mean, I'd rather do that, you know, on the Sunday or something – certainly not in the working week. It's already fairly full. So I've written to Peter and asked that we organize our schedule sooner rather than later but, again, I haven't heard back.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I will write a note to Dyenne (ph) about that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, of course, Dyenne, then, will need to talk to his PA, but, yes, I'd just like a little pressure from both ends, would be nice. Because as it was, last time I traveled to Sydney for a meeting that didn't happen. Okay.
Sebastien Bachollet: Fortunately, you will not travel from Sydney this time to (inaudible) will to meet him just for that. We need you for other things.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You do see my point, however, when we –
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – scheduled meetings, and the chairman of the Board doesn't feel it's worthy so much as a phone call to his PA to let not just me, but a couple of other people know, that he's decided not to come in that day or the next. I find that the height of rudeness and certainly not (inaudible) I want to repeat in Seoul.
Okay, on to item 5 – we have finished item 4, haven't we? Excellent.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, thank you, and if you – if those who are able to see the agenda, if you refresh, you will see the update.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks, Heidi. Okay, review for post process for election of at-large voting Board members. Nick, you sent out a note?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Let me open up that. Has everyone got that?
Alan Greenberg: If you tell us when you sent it, we may be able to find it.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I'm not sure – it's been, like, I don't know, a handful of days maybe – it was last week. It's just a revision of the one that was sent around to all of the ALAC onto the – or decision.
Unidentified Participant: Did it go to the ExCom list?
Nick Ashton-Hart: I think it went to you individually because the question was did you think it was completely off and needed totally to be revised or was it pretty close or what have you?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And Vanda raised the question of getting John Jefferies' advice.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Yes, and I responded saying that I had checked with everyone internally here, and the Board and the SIC, in particular, are happy to receive ALAC's view on how the Board members should be elected – at-large's view on how the Board members should be appointed rather than them coming up with something and you commenting on their proposal.
Alan Greenberg: I would suggest that it's hard to comment on our current one given that we haven't seen it through yet.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Well, it's not the current one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No.
Nick Ashton-Hart: It's not the current one, Alan, it's a revision of that. It's not the same to elect laison, obviously, as it is to elect a Board member.
Alan Greenberg: No, no, I understand. From my brief review of what you sent, it was a version of that. Did I misread it completely?
Nick Ashton-Hart: No, it's quite different.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, then I need to find it, I guess.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, the other proposal would be –
Sebastien Bachollet: But one point we –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, Alan, I was just going to say the other proposal would be to have a single-purpose call to discuss this and then, as a response of that, get the regional leads to reach out into the community and start working on feedback between now and Seoul. So the regional leads come to Seoul with – as well as they possibly can – genuinely formed communities' concensus on concepts and processes.
Sebastien Bachollet: At the same time, we discuss and we try to set up one thought of the designation of the current – of the liaison, broad liaison, as a matter to see how it would work for the election of at-large voting Board member. And we need at least to wait to the end of this process to see how it was working, not working, what was good, and what was not good in this part of the process. I know that the other part, we can discuss it, but at least we have to see that happen.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Well, just so you all know, there's multiple stages in this process. You all would have to come up with a proposal. The Board would then have to review the proposal, by-laws would then have to be drafted, those would have to be put out for public comment, comments would have to be taken, and then the Board would have to decide. So all of this won't even start until all of you have something that you wish someone to comment on, whether that's your larger community first or whatever that is. So –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think it will be easier for the ALAC to put out a draft to get the communities – the regions and the ALSs juices going. I think it's much harder to get debate and discussions happening without at least a thumbnail draft for people to react to. So good oriole (ph) doesn't really matter.
Alan Greenberg: I agree.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So I think the concept of a single-purpose call – a briefing call with a discussion point rather than a briefing call, sorry – with as many of the regional leaders as possible and any of the ALS people and any of the vested interests on it might be a good way to produce at least a draft document (inaudible) –
Evan Leibovitch: Is there not an existing ALAC working group that could not be tasked with this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, there isn't.
Evan Leibovitch: So none of the existing ones could be adapted to this question?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The closest thing would be the working group looking at the Rules of Procedure. And seeing as the Rules of Procedure is in review or otherwise, have never looked at now to elect or appoint a voting Board member, nor do I think it would be something that the wider community shouldn't be very, very involved with because you're going to get enormous diversity of view between the regions.
Danny Younger: Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Danny.
Danny Younger: Let me make a suggestion. Go ahead and launch a working group and ask Izumi (ph) to chair it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Why? Do you think he'll turn up to any of the meetings?
Danny Younger: Well, I think Izumi is going to be turning up because he has got a vested interest in his current TLD project. So he'll most likely attend that particular plenary, anyway. But more importantly –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) involved at IPRALO at the moment.
Danny Younger: Izumi was pretty much the lead on the original at-large study independent work that got done dealing with the last set of at-large elections. So he's got a wealth of knowledge that he can bring to the table in this discussion.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, he certainly needs to be part of it, but I'm unsure that I put the Seoul leadership in someone whose performance abilities within the region has been highly criticized. So I'll certainly – would expect him to be part of the working group, but whether or not I put the responsibilities of a lead on it is another question, I think. But let's get a call going and a working group formed, because we really should have stuff fairly well discussed and be able to be put together when we are talking to the Structure Improvements Committee at our meeting with him in Seoul.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Cheryl, maybe one thing you could think about is at the beginning of the call when candidates of Board liaison are interviewed by the community, walk through the sort of process of what happens next with the director, since there is some – there is some confusion in the community about what happens next. And that could then introduce the subject.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Or (inaudible) recall. The other thing I would say is, you could make the secretariats collectively be the working group that looks at this question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Without (inaudible) is that the secretariats probably don't have the diversity of views that the community is going to want to have represented, but –
Sebastien Bachollet: And you already make an assumption on the decision (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – I'm happy – well, just for example, you know, I mean, Wendy is not a secretariat. Wendy has very particular views. I don't know, I mean, Evan, you're still on the call. Would you believe you and Darlene would be able to bring the diversity of view that you know exists within North American region to the table and have those disparate views, the people who hold those disparate views feel that they have been equitably represented? Or would you prefer to have a system that allows the direct import more as a mechanism to protect yourselves rather than them?
Evan Leibovitch: Personally, I could go either way. We have had very good fortune within the North American region of being able to do a lot of things by consensus. So while we do have a diversity of input, we have had a good track record of being able to accommodate diverse viewpoints and coming out with what we do.
Obviously, in a contentious issue like this, things could be, shall we say, a bit more diverse than usual. But, having said that, I could go either way. If you want direct input, fine. If you want to entrust the leadership of the RALO to try and bring that forward, I'm okay with that, too. I could go either way.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I certainly want the leadership of the RALO to be able to come to Seoul with a consensus built outcome from their regions. So –
Evan Leibovitch: We're the only region that doesn't have a meeting in Seoul because we came to the conclusion internally that our conference call, which happens not long before Seoul would be adequate. So we are actually the only region that doesn't have a regional meeting at Seoul.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But I wouldn't be talking about it being as a regional meeting, though. I mean, arriving in Seoul for discussion on the Sunday or whenever, but certainly in advance of our meeting with the Structural Improvements Committee to come already with established views. And I'd like to think that we should be able to also have some inter-regional discussions before than as well.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, you have my word that we will thoroughly hash this out, both on the e-mail lists and in the meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. All right. Well, what I'm hearing then is we'll stop brokering the topic by going through at the beginning of the current electoral process in terms of the interview with the candidate lists for the liaison role, going through the electoral process for that and raise the matter of our single-purpose call and development of a working group. And I assume it will lead it's own little wiki space under which piece of the wiki. Have we got a natural fit for it?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Well, there is also the working group on at-large engagement in ICANN.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would fit, okay. But I don't want it limited to that.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: In those working groups for the summit were wonderful, but we did basically just allocated a whole bunch of people to them, and many people would like to have been in groups that they weren't allocated to. So I think we just need to be – you know, put a call out and –
Sebastien Bachollet: I would like to – I agree with you but, at the same time, we need to have flexible working groups. And I would put that into this working group – (inaudible) that we have it, that do we have the right shares, the right people inside the group today. But we will have to face that in our next meeting, anyway. But it could be inside this working group and open to everybody who wants to participate and become a member of this working group.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I'm happy to go with it as a subset, Sebastien. I think that's what we're always asking, you know, where can we house it? Because, remember, I don't want to just create working groups of working groups of working groups for the sheer hell of it. I think it can sit as a subset of that working group 1.
Sebastien Bachollet: That's why I made this proposal under (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: (inaudible) subset, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Say again.
Alan Greenberg: Do you mean subset?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, I don't.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don't mean subset, I mean sub – a group working underneath that –
Alan Greenberg: It's organizational home is there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, it's organizational home will be in that space.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Danny Younger: Cheryl, a quick question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Danny.
Danny Younger: What happens – Evan pointed to the fact that people are going to be at separate set of opinions. What happens if the working group comes up with a set of opinions, a process, that the ALAC doesn't endorse? What happens at that point?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, then, one wonders why, if two-thirds of the ALAC is made up of regional representation, that would be the case.
Danny Younger: No, it could simply be that the ALSs as whole, wind up with a different point of view and then the ALAC is a subset of those ALSs.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But the ALAC is made up of two-third direct representation from the regions. If the regions have built their consensus then, depending on the Rules of Procedure within each of those regions, some of those region representations are limited to only operators their regions demand them to. So I don't think that's likely to be an outcome. And if it is, I'd be very keen to work out how the hell that happened. You may have differences between regions, but you shouldn't have a misfit between the regional representation from the ALAC and the consensus view of the region.
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, I think what Danny is suggesting is more likely than you do.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: You've got a bunch of people in a room, if you mean they are logically in a room, with different ideas. If they can come to closure on anything, it's almost surely to be something that none of them are totally happy with.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, yes. Almost a definition of consensus.
Alan Greenberg: Without trying to inflame anything, you know, you could look at the IRT like that. But none of the people in the group were totally happy, but they could all live with it. The rest of the world hates it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, and that could very well be the outcome (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: And I would suggest when we're talking about what's the composition of the working group, there is a relatively small number of people who are very opinionated on this, and I think it's important for the group to be sufficiently self-selecting; that the people who are going to critique it after the fact have an opportunity to be involved in the process.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely.
Alan Greenberg: So I would object –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: How does that (inaudible) –
Alan Greenberg: – to things like the secretariats go off and come to closure amongst themselves –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hm.
Alan Greenberg: – or any subset like that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Danny's (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: If we mess it up, it's going to have significant implications.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I have a question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hang on, Nick, one minute. Is it only going to have significant implications inasmuch as the first draft, which then goes through the full ICANN process, which, you know, whatever we come up with, whatever at-large, the ALAC, or the cleaners come up with and eventually get through and is set as a proposal to the Structure Improvements Committee to look at and then go through the process of public consultation and the usual Board iterations thereof, we may end up with something entirely separate to what we propose as well. That's (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: Indeed, but our credibility is at jeopardy if we come up with something, which is not really defendable at that level.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I just have a query.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead.
Nick Ashton-Hart: For what it's worth, I don't actually think this will be that difficult, but I'm – entirely possible to be proved wrong. Whatever group comes up with a draft, presumably is then going to submit it for, like, a 30-day comment period to the larger at-large community, anyway.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's correct.
Nick Ashton-Hart: So this process worked pretty well in the past. Is there some reason to believe that this will be so enormously contentious that it will be impossible for people to reconcile different views?
Alan Greenberg: That's believable.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I don't see it, but, like I said, I could be proved wrong.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, there's only one way to find out – let's do it. So – let's do it. What else do we need to discuss on that matter now?
Vanda Scartezini: What I believe it's important is to have a balance. This group should be well balanced, and this will be not easy. If they propose themselves as the members. So – most – the people that's most, you know, comfortable with talking with the others and so on, it will be more participants, and this is not a balanced situation.
What I do believe is we should have open poll, probably, after one people appointed by each RALO. So inside each RALO they could discuss everything all the time with all the people in most in their languages or similar languages or what. I can see in Latin America that people have a lot of difficulties to participate in the areas where the Spanish is not a language. So it's very difficult for them to, you know, (inaudible). I can participate in that, but I am not capable to debate publicly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. Vanda, we did have some practice at trying to do this with the at-large summit, and I think the outcomes of the summit working groups are very heartening, despite the predictable difficulties of multi-lingual world. We should be able to get beyond that. And I think one of the important things will be to set up on the wiki space a place where individual models or proposals can just be put up, and the people feel that their concept is not going to be unfairly criticized or flamed or whatever. So I think we also need to have a facilitation – the ALAC needs to have a facilitation role in the activity of this working group, and it will need to rely greatly on activities at the ALSs and within the regions.
To that end, Heidi, can we ensure that each of the regional meetings this month, at least, have something on the agenda to start getting these conversations going and perhaps each of them could be asked to come back or send their reps to the ALAC at the end of this month with some feedback from the regions as to how they believe they are going to approach building a consensus or developing concepts on this very important topic.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I'll add that to the agenda.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic. That also, then, gets onto the ALAC agenda as well.
Okay, I am very aware of the time. I am also very aware that Alan and I have been speaking about ICANN matters for an inordinate amount of our lives today. So I'd like to move forward and ask that we look at setting the agenda for the September ALAC meeting quickly with that additional point in now. It does come under, of course, the process for the next steps of the ALAC voting Board seat, but what I want to do is make sure there's specific regional input. So the reps from the regions need to either be at the ALAC meeting or send, if they're an apology, then they need to send their region's views in writing. So that agenda for the September ALAC meeting needs to have a very clear space where the proposal or proposals – there could be multiple concepts – come in from the regions to assist us with that discussion.
And the other matters that are on our agenda, the Seoul meeting agendas, we can dot the i's and cross the t's and tweak those – proceed to typesetting of guide to GTLDs. What does that mean? I under what typesetting means, but why are we printing things?
Nick Ashton-Hart: I had sent around the at-large guide to GTLDS.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, that guide to GTLDS. Sorry, sorry, Nick. For some reason I had the DAG in my head when I read that. Sorry.
Nick Ashton-Hart: No worries.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Sorry, that was me being – oh, dear, never mind. Now, Alan, under the possible items for discussion on the September meeting, the RAA related workgroups, the call for members – we also now need to call for members of the ALAC voting Board seat process workgroup as well. That needs to get out of there as an item for discussion. I will report the NCUC, NCSG follow-up if we've had any between now and then. So, yes, that can be a discussion. And the draft (inaudible) guidebook.
With the RAA-related workgroups, that's gone through the GNSO Council, correct?
Unidentified Participant: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we are now going to start a joint GNSO-ALAC workgroup as a subset of that resolution, correct?
Alan Greenberg: Yes. Well, no – it's complex. There's a (inaudible) –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I thought it might be.
Alan Greenberg: There is a workgroup, which is going to be formed, and two sub-groups, and I'm not quite sure what the timing is. Do we form the first group and then put out a call for the sub-groups? I don't think Glenn (ph) has put out a call yet, has she? Or maybe I missed it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: My problem will be if this becomes a GNSO call for a workgroup. Because there's a vast difference between a GNSO call for a workgroup that happens to invite some ALAC people, and an ALAC-GNSO joint workgroup.
Alan Greenberg: What I'm saying is – in my fuzzy head right now, I cannot remember the exact working of whether we decided – and I know the structure is going to be one workgroup with two sub-groups. I just don't remember what the timing is of the creation.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: Whatever the call is, we should be putting out the call simultaneously or close to it.
Danny Younger: Alan, this is Danny. For starters, the next meeting is supposed to be picking a pair of coordinators – one from the at-large and one from the GNSO.
Alan Greenberg: Correct.
Danny Younger: So I think it's probably important at this meeting that you discuss which –
Alan Greenberg: Sorry, I can't hear you, Danny. There's someone else talking at the same time.
Danny Younger: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, start again.
Danny Younger: Probably a good idea to pick the at-large community coordinator because that's the next step in the process.
Alan Greenberg: You're right.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Remembering that a community coordinator has a very particular role in the new workgroup guidelines being developed by the GNSO at the moment.
Alan Greenberg: There's no question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But we'd also want to make sure that the regions, in their meetings this month, before the ALAC meeting, are also putting out calls to the ALSs to get people to offer themselves forward for the workgroup that's going to be the joint ALAC and GNSO workgroup.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, correct.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That has to be a regionally balanced setup.
Alan Greenberg: Yes. The coordinator is basically someone – if we use the model the GNSO uses, it's someone from the GNSO who acts as the interface between the groups. It's not the chair of the group or the co-chair of the group, it's the interface.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's the interface back to the ALAC (inaudible) –
Alan Greenberg: If we use the same model, it means we're looking an ALAC member.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – gets back to the GNSO, as far as I understood.
Alan Greenberg: I'm sorry, say that again?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's the interface from the workgroup back to the ALAC and back to the GNSO, as far as I understand.
Alan Greenberg: Correct, right.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Alan Greenberg: And I'm saying the GNSO rules say it must be a GNSO member. We may choose something similar.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, based on our current processes, we turn that person a lead in any workgroup, and their role is to link back to the ALAC on the activities of the workgroup.
Alan Greenberg: Indeed, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So I think that's perfectly reasonable. So we want to actually have that for decision. We want to appoint that person at our next meeting.
Alan Greenberg: Which is several days after the GNSO meeting, but I'm sure that will be acceptable.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. But in the interim, we also want to make sure that the regional meetings are looking to the ALSs and note to the ALSs, not just to the regional heads and secretariats – though they are welcome. We also need to start getting the edges more involved in these workgroup activities because this is going to be another one of those situations where we need a Board representation, and if someone can't make a meeting once or twice, we don't need to be saying that they are the only active voices in the workgroup, and that they disappear.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, sure.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Anything else that comes to mind for that agenda now?
Alan Greenberg: We should have – we will have a revised position description by then, factoring in the comments, and we will –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Do you want the decision then or discussion?
Alan Greenberg: Yes, I think discussion because I think the decision we want to do in Seoul, face-to-face.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, okay.
Alan Greenberg: Because if not, someone is going to suggest it, anyway.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: Okay?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) discussion.
Alan Greenberg: We should have a draft of performance guidelines by then. Whether we want to have a discussion or just table it and discuss it in Seoul is up to you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think table it and discuss it in Seoul because it's the sort of thing that our experience, so far, has shown we get more productivity when it's done face-to-face.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, except if the first time people come up with their ideas is at the face-to-face meeting, it's hard to get a final document draft getting approved.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, you have a point. Better to start a little bit before to get people in the same level when they go face-to-face.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, happy to send homework for Seoul. Let's put discussion – for discussion homework for Seoul.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because that's the (inaudible).
Danny Younger: Alan, just a thought.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, go ahead, Danny.
Danny Younger: I know that Carlton Samuels is a member of the RAA working group. Perhaps you might want to consider asking him to take the lead in the coordinator role.
Alan Greenberg: Which RAA working group?
Danny Younger: The RAA drafting theme.
Alan Greenberg: The previous one, you mean.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. As is Evan, as is a number of people.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, because Carlton will be an ALAC member in the future.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's right.
Alan Greenberg: Probably a reasonable fit.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, let's discuss it at the ALAC. I mean, I'm not going to have that decision preempting –
Danny Younger: No, this is just a suggestion, Cheryl, that's all.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that's fine, but people should be able to put themselves forward, and someone who has had the experience and is an ALAC member would be a natural fit.
Sebastien Bachollet: We need to have a discussion on the travels of the – end of this (inaudible) we'll leave that for Seoul?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Probably leave that for Seoul. What do you think, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I think we need a few minutes discussion on what we plan to discuss in Seoul because otherwise people are going to come into cold, and we will not end up with an answer.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, I live in hope that we are going to have a meeting of a reasonable length of time just one day before I retire. (inaudible) obviously, it isn't going to be the September meeting. Okay –
Alan Greenberg: No, I don't think there needs to be a discussion, but I think we need to present – essentially, a summary that we have an amount of money. We can either bring the secretariats and chairs, or we can use the money for something else. We're going to have to decide this in Seoul. Think about it and talk to your colleagues.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, we can bring that –
Alan Greenberg: I don't think we should (inaudible) –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – the endorsement of the Seoul agenda. But we also need to look at that as part of other items in the Seoul agenda, not the least of which is the needing to have seating to the next fiscal year's budget and the strategic planning. But if I put it there as an additional agenda item, then it's going to have a length of time and – we'll pick it up as homework as well.
Okay, anything else to the September meeting?
Sebastien Bachollet: The question of – there is a document we have in front of us with all the (inaudible) –
Vanda Scartezini: (inaudible)
Sebastien Bachollet: – to do for the ALAC evolution structure.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry –
Vanda Scartezini: (inaudible) –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Vanda, could you mute, please? Now, can you just repeat that and, Sebastien, you are fairly faint. Perhaps it would be good if you yelled at me. Say again.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, I'm sorry, I can't yell – I have trouble with me teeth, and I can't open my mouth –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, that is why it's hard to hear you. Okay, we'll listen very carefully, sorry, go ahead.
Sebastien Bachollet: I am sorry, but you know we already discussed that we have – Nick sent us a four-page document to comment on when we will discuss that at the ALAC level. What is the name of the document? There is no title. It's the recommendation for the evolution of ALAC.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes?
Nick Ashton-Hart: You mean the one that's been put out for comment by the wider at-large community?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, that's already gone out to the at-large for comment on, yes. Is that what you mean?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, and – when it is and it is on our agenda or when it would be on our agenda, it was just my question, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We decided at the last meeting to put it out for comment, and it's out for comment now. Will it close for comment before the September meeting, Nick? I didn't think so.
Nick Ashton-Hart: No, it closes on the last day of September and then any comments are taken on board and incorporated, and then the version with those incorporated is voted on by all of you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. So it can basically be mentioned at the September meeting that it's closing soon, and that comments are being sought. So I guess that can go in under discussion.
Sebastien Bachollet: Just to – Nick, you need to send a reminder sometime before to have comments, because I don't see a lot of comments.
Nick Ashton-Hart: No, we will send more. We have, of course, sent the English and French reminders, and we are sending the Spanish today. When I talked to Cheryl about this, she suggests that we have a special-purpose teleconference where it could be gone over and people could talk about any thoughts they had then during the current window.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I'd still be pushing for that, Nick, because, as Vanda pointed out earlier, there are people who seem to feel more comfortable in a – particularly if we are doing it in multi-lingual channels – being able to just present their point of view rather than send it in as a comment in a written form. And we've had the call, and I think we need to make it part of our general operating procedures, that there is a huge plus certainly from the view of Africa and from parts of Asia Pacific in single-purpose calls.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I did ask Gisela – I told Gisela we would send her the text to accompany a (inaudible) request earlier today.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right, so that's going to be happening. Excellent.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Last call for September meeting – speak now or put it online – going, going, gone. Let us move, finally, to any other business – improving institutions (inaudible) the way forward. Sebastien, this is your item. The floor is yours.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you. It's just to say that if we look to the schedule, we are behind the schedule, but it was sent to the working group. I don't know if it was already sent as ALAC or at-large or – but we need to move this item forward.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Well, for what it's worth, the translations – I won't bore you with the reasons why – but the translations will shortly be available of the object of the consultation and the background documents. And once they are available, I think at-large will have to send in a note letting the Board know that, as it is usually the case, that all languages are treated equally; that at-large's comments will come in within the same period of time allowed for the non-English versions as are allowed to the English versions.
I mean, you could do something else, but it seems completely unreasonable that the English speakers will have from July 29th to September, and the non-English speakers will have a week to comment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, it's actually untenable and, Nick, I know you and I have discussed this earlier, but I think we also – at that point, what I would like to pick up on here and just flag with the rest of you is we can discuss this – we probably should put it, actually, into the September ALAC meeting, now I think of it – at the point when these long-awaited other-language versions come out. I think it's time for us in – as an ALAC – to write and say, "Yet again the disequity on global public participation is linked with the way that the languages are treated differently."
We have discussed it over and over and over again, let's just remind them all once (inaudible) that these public comment periods need to start when the versions come out. And I am fairly confident to have – which of you was in the meeting with the Public Participation Committee in Sydney? I thought, and Nick and I have sort of wracked our brains, but I'm fairly confident that that was something they, at least, in principle, at that meeting agreed to.
Nick Ashton-Hart: I heard it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So I think we just need to remind the Board of that again.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastien, anything else on your any other business?
Sebastien Bachollet: No. That's okay. Just to let you know that there is a draft went to the working groups, concerned by and no – not a lot of reactions, and now it will be sent to whichever you want to send it – to the global ALAC or to the – to the ALAC or to global at-large. It's in your hands.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, I think we'll probably send it to both.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay.
Danny Younger: Sebastien, this is Danny.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Danny.
Danny Younger: I actually have not seen any response to it whatsoever. So I encourage you to proceed and to have the comments disseminated more widely. Perhaps you can actually channel it through the secretariats for discussion at the local level. It's an important piece of work, and I commend your effort to push it forward.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks, Danny. And perhaps, Sebastien, if you could let the workgroup know that specifically, because I think praise from somebody on work they do, especially when it's someone who has been involved in ICANN as long as Danny has, and his praise doesn't come lightly, I think would boost their egos quite considerably. So if you could pass that message back on to the workgroup, that would be appreciated as well.
Sebastien Bachollet: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Is there anything anyone wishes to raise before we bring this –
Sebastien Bachollet: (inaudible)?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – hardly brief meeting –
Vanda Scartezini: Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go ahead, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, just to make you all know that I have exchanged some ideas I have been discussing with the GAC in Seoul, in Sydney, and in China and other – with the China government, some of European governance (inaudible). Then I sent to Rod and to someone in the White House. So it's a suggestion how to deal in the post-GPA with the governance in general.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hm.
Vanda Scartezini: So since this is not really related to ALAC, I haven't (inaudible). That if someone wants to see it, I am glad to send.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Vanda, what I would like to is ask if, seeing as we have that topic on our Sunday at Seoul agenda, could I ask you to do a small presentation to the assembly there?
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, yes, yes, okay, I can do that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be a great opportunity, okay?
Vanda Scartezini: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right, any other business? Hang on, somebody's Skyped at me. Let me see whether or not that's something else.
Vanda Scartezini: Not from me.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. All right, we need to then wrap this up. Thank you all for what can only be described as a heroic effort, but we did need to commit the time to the matters raised as a matter of urgency via an ARALO, and I'd like to think that, with Danny and Evan's inputting to today's meeting, they are also going to leave this meeting with a little better understanding of the really excitingly boring stuff that we prattle on about when we have our mid-month meeting. But it is all about trying to keep things on track and start working to get outcomes instead of this stop-start, month-by-month, or even worse at a face-to-face meeting.
One thing, in closing, that's been crossing my mind recently is when we look at the EAD, the specific expenditure by sub-group into (inaudible), and we look at the cost of support to the Government Advisory Committee and the At-Large Advisory Committee, looking at almost identical costs to ICANN, in other words, the same amount of registrant funds as being spent on both those committees, at least by those analysis, I think it's rather interesting that we work and are now working, I think, quite productively intercessionally, and I am unsure that if one did a firm measurement between the two advisory committees that we shouldn't be rather proud of what we are now starting to do.
There is more work to happen, and in the post-ALAC review world, we've got a lot of changes to implement, but thank you all for your time today. Alan, I don't know how you feel, but I need a personal bio break before our next call. So if you want to give me five minutes before you call me on the next meeting, I'd appreciate it.
Thank you, Vanda. Thank you, Sebastien.
Vanda Scartezini: Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Heidi and Nick – Heidi, in particular, you've got a huge amount to push out to the regions and, obviously, you and I will work on the specifics of the September agenda online as we usually do. But thank you all. Good morning (inaudible) –
Vanda Scartezini: Thank you, bye-bye. Enjoy your day.
Sebastien Bachollet: We show that the (inaudible) is not useful. Take care.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Bye-bye.
