Present: C Samuels, A Piazza, R Medina, S Herlein Leite, J-L Barzallo, C Aguirre, M Altamira, A Basilio, D Juggernauth, W Davalos, S Salinas Porto
Apologies: V Scartezini
Staff: N Ashton-Hart, M Langenegger, P Hinojosa
At 1325 UTC the Secretariat called the meeting to order. The Secretariat took the chair.
The agenda was adopted without objection.
Item 1 – General Assembly
The Chair noted that there was a difference between the adopted official Rules of Procedure from the 2007 General Assembly and the draft articles discussed in San Juan. The official document did not end up containing specific language about the timing or the form of the GA, or indeed an obligation to have a GA each year. In the discussions that followed within LACRALO, it was then assumed that there would be a GA. This is not what the official Rules of Procedure state. However, there does not have to be a contradiction and the fact that the official document does not contain specific language does not mean that there cannot be a LACRALO GA.
C Aguirre noted that holding a face-to-face GA was essential. An electronic GA is impossible in his view. Every effort should be made to have a face-to-face GA.
The Chair noted the clear view of the region related to this question. The Chair takes C Aguirre’s intervention as a motion to hold a Face-to-Face GA for LACRALO at some time in 2008 in the region. This motion was carried unanimously.
The Chair noted that on the discussion list the balance of views was to have a GA before the end of June. Panama received the greatest support. A Piazza moved this formally. The motion was accepted without any objection and with one abstention.
C Aguirre moved that the meeting should take place before the ICANN meeting in Paris.
The Chair proposed a Friday and Saturday meeting, 13-14 June. A Piazza proposed alternatively 6-7 June. It was unanimously decided that the GA would be held on 6-7 June in Panama.
The Staff then noted that there would not be funding for the At-Large regional Meeting by ICANN this year. This does not mean that there should not be a meeting in Panama. However, the practice up until this year was that ICANN funds one person from each ALS to attend the regional meeting that takes place at the ICANN international meeting held in that region in that year and there is not meeting in Latin America in this fiscal year. Furthermore, the staff pointed out that there was a consultation currently going on with regards to creating a travel funding policy for all ICANN volunteers from all constituencies with the view to have equal treatment for all constituencies. The LACRALO was very strongly advised that it should provide input into the budgeting process as other RALOs were doing so. The Staff also noted that it had frequently asked for input from the region in relation to the budget, and also the priorities and objectives of the region and had yet to receive any budget input from LACRALO for any financial year. The Staff also noted that it was due to the staff that the current provision for 35 members of the At-Large community to attend each ICANN meeting had been included in the budget.
A draft response from the ALAC Budget Committee related to the consultation is being prepared in the next couple of weeks. The consultation will end on the 24th of April and is very important because it affects travel support for all ICANN volunteers. Staff therefore encouraged LACRALO to provide inputs from the region with regards to the activities that are planned. These inputs would then be included in the draft response from the ALAC Budget Committee.
S Salinas Porto asked why the GA was not a part of the budget and noted that Face-to-Face meetings were very important for the region.
The Staff noted that the budgeting for ALS travel has been a consistent model for some years now. It reiterated that it had asked for the region to provide input – including at the last LACRALO GA in San Juan as well as by email. The Chair noted that this was the case.
P Hinojosa noted that he would like to find a solution so that LACRALO could have a regional meeting. He pointed out that ICANN did not have an infinite budget. The budget is allocated with the help of a bottom-up consensus process. He expressed his disappointment with the fact that he has not yet seen any input from the Latin American region and noted that it is not the result of negligence on the part of ICANN staff that no budget has been allocated for this purpose.
JL Barzallo noted that the At-Large members were not sufficiently involved in the ICANN structure to be aware of the internal budget debates and that the understanding was that ICANN would fund such regional meetings. He mentioned that he thought the regional meeting was important and pointed out that LACRALO would come up with inputs to the ALAC Budget Committee.
The Secretariat C Samuels, A Piazza, C Aguirre, S Herlein Leite will explore the possibilities to find funding for a conference in June and will communicate to the list by the end of next week.
All LACRALO members should set up Skype accounts to facilitate communication during teleconferences.
Item 2 (Global At-Large Summit), *item 3 * (ALAC Work Plan) and *item 4 * (Any other business) will be carried over to the next teleconference.
The meeting was adjourned at 15:37 UTC.
—
Great Summary, Matthias.
I would like to add:
"There was a consensus in order to consider that ICANN dind´t honour it´s committement of supporting 1 GA meeting of each calendar year".
Also would like to name Wladimir Davalos as one another member of the group which will be exploring funding possibilities.
Regards,
Andrés
contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2008-03-25 16:34:10 GMT
