ALAC-03-03-2009-Transcription.pdf
ALAC Monthly Teleconference
(Held March 3, 2009)
Legend
Name: First name of member of group
Name?: If we think we might know who's speaking but aren't 100% sure.
Male: Unsure of who's speaking, but know it's a male.
Female: Unsure of who's speaking, but know it's a female.
Name: French 00:29:52 - 0:31:06 We will identify a foreign language in square brackets with a time code for the beginning and end, so that you can quickly identify those passages. At the top of the transcript, we will advise you of the name(s) of the foreign languages you'll need to search for. For example, some transcripts may contain German, so you'll have to search for "German" instead of "[French" to find all the passages. The speaker identification is the same convention as all the others. i.e. If we know the speaker's name we'll include it, otherwise we'll put a question mark after it, or if we can't even guess, then Male, Female or SP.
Interpreter: If interpreter actually translates French or German for a participant we will note it as "Interpreter". It will normally be evident from the dialogue who the interpreter is translating for. If not, we will include a note in square brackets with respect to who they are translating for.
[cuts out: Audio cuts out for less than 2 seconds. We may have missed something. We do not put this if it's just natural silence where no-one is speaking. We only put this if we can hear that there was briefly a technical problem with the phone line and/or the recording which resulted in temporary loss of sound.
cuts out 2 secs When the audio cuts out for 2 seconds or more we'll show approximately how many seconds were missed. We will most likely have missed something if it cuts out for this long.
List of Participants
Important Note: Please note that this should not be considered to be an "official" list of the attendees. This is just a list of the participants that we were able to identify during the transcription. There may have been others present that didn't speak and some people may have participated that were not on the official list of attendees published on the internet.
Aguirre, Carlos
Aizu, Izumi
Bachollet, Sébastien
Brendler, Beau
Greenberg, Alan
Langdon-Orr, Cheryl (ALAC Chair)
Leibovitch, Evan
Muehlberg, Annette
Muthusamy, Sivasubramanian
Peake, Adam
Salgueiro, José Ovidio
Samuels, Carlton
Scartezini, Vanda
Seye Sylla, Fatimata
Shearman, Gareth
Vande Walle, Patrick
Vansnick, Rudi
Vivekanandan, Vivek
silence – 00:00 to 10:15
Cheryl: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I note that when Vanda returns, we will be quorate to begin our ALAC meeting. We do have other ALAC members who are still to join us, but as soon as we are quorate, which is the return of Vanda, we will begin. Thank you for your indulgence.
In fact, we now don’t need to wait for Vanda to return, because as Alan’s come in it makes us quorate. laughs Okay. I now see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… With Vanda’s return does make the 8. We do need to wait for Vanda.
Actually, just on a lighter note, I was thinking perhaps RFID wrist tags for my ALAC for the next meeting, and we can run on a v6 network and we can track them and call them to the various tables at the various times – I think that would be a worthwhile networking opportunity to prove the value IPv6 in the workplace. laughs
Male: inaudible 11:11 do that.
Cheryl: Well, we’re in Australia, so we don’t have to worry about privacy or anything, ’cause it’s not a problem.
Male: inaudible
Cheryl: laughs You only have to worry about privacy in a democracy, and if you look at our current filtering rules I’m not sure we live there. pause
Indeed. Okay. I now see 1, 2, 3, 4… laughs I can’t count, that’s just bad 11:38. laughs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. We are quorate. I’d like to think I had good enough inaudible the day, but I think I can probably remember what the agenda is even without being able to see it.
The first order of business first of all is in fact… Okay, I’m actually looking to see Hong and I’m looking… inaudible 12:02, is Hong or Annette behind me? Hong is here. Is Annette behind me?
Okay. I’ll just start the meeting officially then and call for Any Other Business. It’s the light agenda that we’re running in the summit, and in fact in the summit what we’re picking up from is Action Items from our last face-to-face meeting in Cairo, the ALAC Review, because we knew that we would have this minor thing called the ALAC Review to probably respond to. And while I’m talking to you on this matter, if all of you, not just the ALAC members but the regional At-Large Organization representatives and indeed the At-Large Structure representatives here just remind yourselves as you finish the end of a horrendously long day, that tomorrow morning at the bright and early mark of 0900 hours in the Sheraton is the public session and opportunity for everyone to pick and choose over the nuances in the ALAC Review. It would be my absolute wish, and I would actually suggest I would put yellow sign-on sheets out the front but I’d probably end up with 500 people signing on… laughs I really would like to see every one of you who can find it humanly possible to be there. So it’s the review about us, I’d like us to be there from 0900 in the morning. So I’d love to tell you I could remember what room it’s in, but perhaps my helpful staff will somehow come up with that magic before the end of today and we’ll remind you of that.
I’m particularly keen then to call for Any Other Business, and “Any Other Business” may for example include such resolutions as your working groups might wish to bring forward to the ALAC in a formal sense.
Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: Two resolutions. One is from the working group we just held on participation. Do you want me to say it or shall I just inaudible 14:00?
Cheryl: Sorry. Because we are using the Adigo link and we’re recording, if it’s read to the record, that would be preferable.
Adam: Okay. So this first motion would be about outreach and it is a motion to create a RALO-led committee on outreach, a committee that would probably… depending on how we wish to wordsmith this, but led by the RALO chairs and open to any ALS member. It would have the goal of, among other things, looking towards funding, to other activities to generate money – i.e., not just simply going out to ask for money but how can we generate income in some way or form that would then be used for outreach. The other functions of this committee would be the sharing of resources, outreach resources which may be papers, they may be presentation packs, or simply the sharing of meetings and experiences. And at this point, I would ask for any comments, and particularly from the RALO chairs if that is actually allowed within our Rules or Procedures – I’m rather naïve on Rules and Procedures of the ALAC.
So that is the first motion, a motion to create a RALO-led committee on outreach.
Cheryl: And it’s all at the Chair’s discretion, therefore I can make the magic happen, but I will first ask does any one of the ALAC wish to clarify, discuss, or ask further questions on that proposed motion? We’re not voting on the motion now, this is advance warning. We will come back to it in Any Other Business, but we may run short of discussion time so I’ll open the floor briefly now. I see nobody signalling… Yeah, go ahead please, Fatimata.
Fatimata: Yes. In AFRALO we raised the same issue, so I wanted to just second Adam on this issue.
Cheryl: I’ll now ask if any of the RALO leads would care to speak to this matter, make yourselves known to me know. If you’re from behind, step forward to the table. pause I see no further discussion, so we’ll take that motion and put it at the end as a resolution for vote. Thank you, Adam.
Second… Your second one?
Adam: A second motion is to thank and commend the At-Large staff for their hard work and support for the At-Large Summit, and something that needs some wordsmithing definitely, is simply to wish Nick a swift, swift recovery.
Cheryl: Would anybody like to speak to that? Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: inaudible 16:39.
Cheryl: laughs Is anybody going to argue with that one? We’re going to have a seconder over there from Alan, and I think I will put that one to the vote here and now. Would any of the ALAC members like to abstain from this vote? Would any of the ALAC members like to vote against this motion? In which case, I would like to do the following, and I’d like you to follow me.
silence – 17:07 to 17:27
Cheryl: And while I’m standing, I’m taking the privilege of the Chair to insert a very important piece of Any Other Business. And for this Any Other Business I would like to have our prior meeting outgoing ALAC members, I’d like Izumi, Hong, and Annette to step to the front of the room, thank you.
silence – 17:50 to 18:16
Cheryl: You want me on this side. But my goody 18:17, are you going to be my barrel girl? You can be my barrel girl. Alright, thank you. laughs
In Cairo, we had a very small part of a very important meeting, which in fact a follow-on from our Cairo… it’s an action item that’s still upon us. You all officially left us back then. I’m not going to take the time to go through the words and how much these people have done, how important their contribution has been – again, we’ve done that already. But the gifts we had organized for them were stolen. So we left them thanked, but giftless, something that I want to take the chance to rectify right now. So I’m going to put the microphone down, and what I’m going to say to all of you as I give each of you – and there’s going to be photo opportunities here, we’re doing the full presentation thing here, so come on, happy steps, happy steps 19:10 – is give you a very small token of our esteem with my humblest apologies for the months of delay getting it to you. laughs inaudible.
silence – 19:23 to 19:40
Cheryl: They’re secure enough in our gender to allow the boys to go first occasionally, it’s fine. laughs Okay. So Izumi…
Izumi: Thank you.
Cheryl: And thank you greatly.
Izumi: Thank you 19:52.
Cheryl: Thank you so much. Really, thank you.
group applause
Cheryl: Oh. Thank you.
group applause
Annette: inaudible. Thank you.
Cheryl: Annette
Annette: Thank you.
Cheryl: inaudible 20:15.
Male: inaudible
Cheryl: Oh yeah, inaudible.
Annette?: inaudible
Cheryl: Don’t show them up with it 20:31, they’ll all want one. laughs Thank you. No, seriously, thank you so much. Big round of applause.
group applause
Annette: Just like to say it’s a special honour to get this gift right after the first User Summit. And so I think I can speak for the three of us in that way, that we feel much better, you know, leaving the ALAC and letting something grow that strong. inaudible 21:07.
Izumi: Thank you. I’m sorry guys, you are past my fee 10 or 100 times more than for us. So it’s a long way to go, I confess to you. And I’ll leave it here. Thank you.
Cheryl: We wouldn’t have it any other way. Thank you very much. pause
Which now brings me to call any other Any Other Business, and are there any other resolutions? Thank you, Alan.
Alan: Travel support.
Cheryl: Would you care to give us some more information? laughs
Alan: Are…
Cheryl: Oh, you just want that as an AOB discussion point?
Alan: There are a couple of things, one or two things to discuss whenever the time comes.
Cheryl: So we will simply note “travel support” as the topic, not a resolution per se. Thank you.
Any other Any Other Business from the ALAC?
In which case, we will now move on to action items arising from our last face-to-face meeting in Cairo. Oh, that’s 22:18 so much better. inaudible, much, much better.
The substantive discussions we had on our session of the 4th of November left us with the following Action Items, and I will read them to the record. They are, first, KPIs. Secondly, job description. Thirdly, new rules, a key performance indicator. Our very lengthy discussion, to refresh all of those who preferred to forget about the Cairo meeting as soon as they escaped the country, what we had done – laughs thank you, Alan – what we had done was had a very full and frank discussion which looked at… We have a set of measurables but they are simply quantitative measurables – meetings attended, reports files, working groups gone to. These are not true measures and they can be very easily turned into artificially mooning 23:22, and we wanted to get a set of qualitative objectives so that people who were going to join us from the next round of Nominating Committee people who are joining us, our liaisons for example, we have not only job descriptions – in other words what we expect of each of us and each other – but also some alternates. So if you happen to live in an area where the telecommunications is so bad that you are forced by technical difficulties to miss more than the tiny number of meetings we’re allowed to under our current rules, but there may be some qualitative measure that comes in with the quantitative.
Alan, as this sits firmly under your job description as part of the elected officer group, which is the Chair, the two Vice-Chairs, and the Rapporteur, that it really is something I’m going to toss to you. But before I do toss to you, I want to give everyone the idea of what we need to do now.
There was a committee formed in Cairo – I’m on it, Alan’s on it, Carlos, who’s not at my table… Why is Carlos not at my table? Is Carlos in the room and just not at my table?
Male: He’s there 24:33.
Cheryl: Carlos, inaudible. José. Where’s José? He’s where? Here? Good, okay. So I literally couldn’t see you down there. You should be up here, near me.
Carlos is on it, I am on it, Alan is on it, Fatimata is on it. From memory, that’s probably about it. Have we met? No. Whose fault is it? Mine. Do you want to shoot me? Take a number, stand in line. We didn’t do it, we haven’t done it, we need to reconvene a new committee and I would suggest that as it is Alan’s baby, it sits in his job description, he ran on an election platform talking about this, I’m going to ask him to create a regionally-balanced working group. Unless you object, Alan.
Alan: I should point out I had no opposition.
group laughs
Cheryl: Oh, come on. It sounded so good when I had you running on an election platform. laughs Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: I would like to suggest that we go away from this meeting not forgetting it and that we set a target of when to have the first draft for the rest of the committee to look at and the rest of the world to look at for that matter. And do we have any suggestions for when we can do it? Notice I’m asking for the suggestions of what the target is before looking at who’s on the group. And I think that’s only fair.
Cheryl: Fine. Well, there’s a proposal on the table. Would any of the ALAC like to speak to that matter? If you want to speak, you’ve got to… He’s very good at it, he can signal me very effectively. Thank you, Adam, go ahead.
Adam: I was going to say I think it’s too late for this year’s NomCom, so we’re not that urgent in that sense. But the next meeting, which is Sydney, as a target date for completion.
Cheryl: Yes. I’d hate to think we were starting again in Sydney. That would make me very nervous. Anyone else? Go ahead.
Alan: Sydney for the ALAC approving the final result perhaps, although I’d like to think we could do it quicker than that. I was looking for a target for a first draft.
Cheryl: Okay, l-…
Alan: I would suggest, if no one else wants to, that we look at something pretty aggressive, and I would say the end of March is probably too soon but the end of April is too late. So something like the middle of April as a target – that’s six weeks, that’s an awful lot of time to do this kind of thing, and I would put that as the absolute latest target and aim earlier than that.
Cheryl: Okay. I’m very comfortable with that. Can I get a measure of the temperature of the ALAC in this room? Are we all comfortable with that? We want to process this. We know… We’ve got transcripts, we’ve got everything we’ve said. You know, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We’ve had the discussion, but we actually need to get the policy written now, make the adjustments to the existing rules of procedure, and have that come to the June meeting of the ALAC for a final approval – so we’ve got a lot to do between now and then.
I see you. Go ahead, Carlos.
Carlos: Spanish – 27:49
Interpreter: I would like to say that I prepared a document on Article 31 which I did in Spanish and Matthias helped me transcribe and translate it into English. This was never discussed. It’s done, we can study it if you’d like at any point.
Cheryl: cuts out …coming through my headset…
Interpreter: Probably it’s her headset. Somebody…
inaudible voices – 28:22 to 28:44
Cheryl: No problem. We note my second vice-chair has entered, which brings us I think to full complement for those of us that are physically in the meeting, physically here in Mexico. Thank you, gracias 28:56.
Once more with feeling. Thank you, Carlos.
Carlos: Spanish – 29:04
Interpreter: Simply I had worked on a document to reform Article 21 which regards the obligations of the members of ALAC, and I submitted in Spanish obviously because it’s a lot easier for me and Matthias helped me translate it, and it was never discussed and it’s available for us to study.
Cheryl: Thank you, Carlos, and indeed as the major action item from you as a member of that previous working group, I will now make sure that it goes in the record that you were the sole member of the working group who did anything on the topic. Thank you so much. I will also excuse any number of the other members of the working group because they were busy doing something… Now what did we do here? There was something planned for Mexico. Oh yes, it was an At-Large Summit. Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: As the person who you’ve asked to lead this new effort, any input from people, including what Carlos has already done, is certainly welcome. I actually remember receiving the Spanish document. I don’t remember seeing the translation because I do remember translating it with Google.
Cheryl: Yes. And can I just…
Alan: But we will dredge it out and…
Cheryl: Yeah. Can I just ask if anyone has remembered to see the English version of the Spanish document, put your hand up now. If not, we will assume this needs to be done fresh and it’s an action item of staff out of this meeting to do so. Thank you.
Alan: It sounds like some people have it and they can send it again if we don’t.
Cheryl: Go ahead, Carlos.
Interpreter: Matthias did the translation and sent it to all of us. I saw it in one of the normal reports or regular reports that Matthias sends us of updates.
Cheryl: Thank you very much, Carlos. I really have no file, because we’ve spent a good proportion of this afternoon looking through… Of which, I have literally read the transcript of the Cairo meetings to dredge everything we can up as support material. So that has slipped through some of our nets and I can only apologize if it’s affected some of us and not others. Alan’s frowning at me. Go ahead.
Alan: No, I was going to ask Carlos. My recollection is it came before Cairo, in the discussion we had prior to Cairo, not afterwards.
Cheryl: Yes, that one I do remember. Yeah. But that…
Interpreter: Yes, indeed. But after Cairo is when Matthias translated it.
Cheryl: Well, that’s a resource, we need to pull it up and use 31:34.
Alan, you had a very important question to table which was timelining. You were proposing mid-April-ish. I’d really like to see a first first draft on April Fool’s Day, on the 1st of April, just because I’m like that. laughs Let’s make realistic numbers. 15 April?
Alan: As I said, my suggestion is no later than 15 April. I have a propensity for coming back from ICANN meetings and getting sick for the next two weeks and I’m assuming I’m not the only one, so I’d like to see it earlier also, and the first of April would be a good date. But I think we’ll set a reasonable deadline and aim earlier.
Cheryl: Okay. Is there any discussion from the ALAC on that proposal? If not, I will put that proposal… Go ahead, Sébastien.
Sébastien: Just to tell you what is written in English, it’s a funny word in French, it’s “rapportuer,” it’s “report to kill.” It’s what is written, “ExCom report to kill.”
group laughs
Sébastien: You make the change, yeah?
Male: inaudible 32:41
Sébastien: Yeah, yeah. I know, but it’s quite funny with the discussion we have. Sorry. I was… I could have tell you.
Cheryl: Who says we don’t have fun at the ALAC?
Alan: Hopefully that will encourage the other people to work.
group laughs
Cheryl: laughs Oh dear, that’s fine. I’m now going to put the proposal that the… under the leadership of Alan Greenberg. I’m trying not to giggle. This is going to make another one of those outtakes. I can just tell it’s going to get another one of those outtakes.
Alan: The expression “the leadership of Alan Greenberg” does make people laugh.
Cheryl: laughs With a final deadline for first draft, note a time of April 15, with earlier draft more warmly welcomed than we can possibly name here. Preferably the 1st of April because it suits my bizarre sense of humour. Is any of the ALAC going to object to this as a pathway forward? If so, raise you hands now and I’ll recognize you. Does anyone wish to abstain from this vote? In which case, I take that as unanimous on the record of those members who are present.
I’d now think we need to look towards the ALAC Review. Does anyone want to say anything at all to do with job descriptions, KPIs? I thought you did. Yeah, go ahead, Alan.
Alan: Well, just following on that motion, I will be putting out a formal call. If anyone would like to volunteer, come see me and you can volunteer before you have to hear the call for volunteers.
Cheryl: And actually I know Alan has a thumbnail list and I saw your name on it, Adam, so I don’t think you’re going to escape. Go ahead, Beau.
Beau: What’s a KPI?
Cheryl: A key performance indicator. The key performance indicators that we have currently in our rules are number of meetings attended, working groups, and a few other measurables. Okay?
Sébastien: Public infrastructure 34:43.
Cheryl: That had to be a working group reference. I’m sure I… Okay.
Okay. I’m delighted now and I’m even keener to know when your food is going to come in. Anyone who hasn’t ordered food, perhaps you should see Alex because we did arrange for menus to be available for people in this hotel to pre-purchase… oh, sorry, to post-purchase their meal or put it on their existing account, just so you have something, be it a bowl of soup if you’re going out to dinner later, but something to keep you going. It’s been a horrendously long day and we really appreciate you all being here.
The next point is the ALAC Review, and we’ve had one. You might have noticed. We’ve had a forum held I reckon that went pretty darn well. We’re not actually discussing the matters of, the nuances of whether the forum went too long in explanation and whether Tricia should have read her slides or not. What we are going to discuss is two things: where… who and how is going to formulate an ALAC response to the ALAC Review?
That question’s on the table. Who would like to speak to the matter?
Adam, I’m sure I saw you wanting to speak to the matter of how the ALAC… I mean, we’ve got till a certain deadline. Perhaps 36:12 we can do a full vote system between now and our next ALAC meeting. The closing date for comment is three days after our next ALAC meeting, but someone needs to own this, someone needs to drive this, someone needs to do this, or we just need to decide it’s a committee of the whole or a committee of the few.
Adam: Yeah, taking the last point first, I say it should be a committee of the whole, but my initial sort of reaction was that I’d like to actually attend the workshop on the – hang on, that’s tomorrow, isn’t it? – the workshop on the ALAC Review, and then to discuss what we’re going to do about this. So I’d take this to e-mail or even a call or something in reaction to tomorrow morning.
Cheryl: Understood. Anyone else?
Alan: Do you remember roughly what the date is for the closing comments?
Cheryl: 17th of March.
Alan: Okay. So 17th of March is 14 days from now. We can’t afford to talk over e-mail for a few days and then have a 7-day vote to decide who the people are. We have to be able to start working real soon, so whatever comes out of this meeting, we need to be off running.
Cheryl: Vanda, go ahead.
Vanda: Yeah, I believe that we could use some time in our face-to-face to review at least the main points. I believe we’re going to have a meeting on Friday.
Cheryl: Not everyone. Only…
Vanda: Not everybody, but at least who’s going to be there, we should start to review the main points on that because we need some time. It’s the end of the next week.
Alan: Yeah, that’s right. We need something. If the ALAC is going to formally vote before submitting it, it has to be done pretty much by the end of next week.
Cheryl: Yeah. Just following this topic, the room for the ALAC Review Workshop, which starts at 0900 hours at the Sheraton, is in Don Diego 2. That’s Don Diego 2 at the Sheraton, meeting room for the ALAC Review, 0900 in the morning.
If I can take Adam’s proposal on notice, could I… I will get to you. Thank you, Carlos. Could I suggest that the ALAC at least gather over coffee and perhaps start to make first steps on this once we’ve had this input?
Go ahead, Carlos.
Interpreter: Yes. Before we do the report on the review, or the ALAC Review, I want to say that I’ve read the entire report. Generally speaking, I think it’s very good, especially point 3.2.2.6 which talks about translation and where the review committee sets forth the need to continue progressing with this, because this is something that we’ve been asking for and that thank God we’ve been listened to by this committee, because I really think the committee worked really well on that.
Cheryl: Is there anyone else? Alan, go ahead.
Alan: You know, I guess I’d just like to ask Adam what he thinks is going to be different tomorrow at the end of the workshop than now. I’m not quite sure I see really what changes from the point of view us formulating a response which may be as short as “Thank you.” But…
Adam: I suppose it was to listen to other people rather than ourselves, to listen to the people in the room who are commenting on the ALAC Review itself. Don’t know. That was just where I was thinking – let’s just hear what people have to say and then start formulating what we think as a committee.
Alan: I agree we should wait to hear what people say before formulating the response, but deciding on exactly how the response will be written or who’s going to write it…
Adam: Oh, right. Well, I said a committee…
Alan: …I don’t think we need to wait.
Adam: …I said a committee of the whole. I don’t think it’s… As you said, it’s too short notice, we haven’t really got time for it. This is something we should all focus on and have our input on now and not bother splitting off into subgroups and all the rest of it.
Alan: Doesn’t someone still have to take the lead on it?
Adam: Umm…
Alan: Nothing’s going to get drafted in a week unless someone takes responsibility, I would think.
Adam: Well, I’m purposely avoiding taking responsibility for that, but apart from that, yeah.
Cheryl: Okay. I see a way forward which from the discussions I’ve heard I believe may satisfy most parties. The proposal from the Chair is as follows: That the response to the ALAC Review by the ALAC is done by a committee of the whole. Okay? That the drafting of the initial draft responses is prepared by your elected officers plus the regional balance addition of someone from Africa – and that at the moment has been forward for those jobs by AFRALO is Fatimata. That that comes to the rest of the ALAC by the Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then we should be able to… It will be done live in-wiki, so you can comment, you know, during, so we can get active comments with an active document. Will that work in a pathway that allows us to have…?
Now I have no problem, I never have a problem sending a formal review response through saying, “And it is now in vote.” Alright? It’d be nice to have the vote over, but I really don’t have a problem saying, “Here is the ALAC’s response and it becomes formal when it has voted.” But if we can get the vote done in advance, that would be wonderful, of course 42:26.
Alan: Didn’t you say we have an ALAC teleconference three days before the deadline? So we don’t need a seven-day vote. We can vote at the conference. No? Am I missing something?
Cheryl: You’re not missing anything at all. Every time we’ve voted to date, every time we voted at anything in a quorate conference, then we’ve had issues of “Where was the online vote and the accountability and transparency?” However, I’m more than happy with you all sitting here to state that we will be voting at the next ALAC meeting.
Can I have a show of hands? All those in favour of voting on the final documentation of the ALAC response to the ALAC Review happens at the ALAC meeting, raise your hands now. That looks unanimous to me, excepting Sébastien. You are abstaining or objecting? Ah, thank you very much. That’s right. That gives us two weeks. That’s still only two weeks. Fine.
Any more discussion on this matter? Fantastic.
This brings us to… Go ahead, Sébastien.
Sébastien: French – 43:26
Interpreter: It’s not because I don’t want to deal with this issue, but after the summit I would like to take a week’s vacation so I will be very difficult to reach, so I will allow my elected colleagues from the committee to take care of that issue. And thank you.
Cheryl: That is for the record.
Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: I’m quite happy to help with this, I just didn’t want to take the lead on it. So if Sébastien’s role needs to be replaced, I’m quite happy to do that. I just didn’t want to… I also am getting back late and have work to catch up on.
Cheryl: Consider yourself seconded.
Any objections to my unilateral action? Fine.
Let’s go ahead then. Leading to Any Other Business, we have several very important… Oh, sorry, now one, because we did one by acclamation. We’ve had read into the record… Can I see where it’s transcribed? It’s not. Darn. You’re going to have to get some… We need to see it or you need to read it to us again. This time we will pay very, very careful attention. ALAC, we are now about to listen to the resolution that Adam read earlier on, and this time we are going to be voting on it. Go ahead.
Adam: Let’s just think that there might be some wordsmithing after it, but anyway, this is a motion to create a RALO-led committee on outreach. The committee will be lead by RALO chairs and open to any ALS – including ALAC members of course, but open to any ALS. It has the goal of looking to funding, including activities that generate money and income which will be then used for outreach. It will also have, I suppose we’d say “inter alia,” the goal of sharing of resources about outreach activities, such as information packs, slide packs and so on. And that is simply the end of, I’m sorry, the end of the motion to create an outreach committee led by RALOs.
Cheryl: Okay. Well, let’s make it clear what we’re asking for. We’re asking for the ALAC to formally approve… to formally resolve that an outreach committee which is representative of… “Which is representative of the RALOs,” Adam?
Adam: Yeah. 46:11
Cheryl: So it’s “representative of the RALOs” or “includes RALO leadership”? Is the RALOs putting anyone up or only their chairs?
Adam: I said the RALO chairs.
Cheryl: Okay. So I just want to be clear that I’m getting the right resolution here. That we are resolving to form an outreach committee which includes all RALO chairs – correct? Then there is additional wording on support and mechanisms, etc., etc. What I’m going to call for is an in principle… a vote on the in principle support for or against on this in a minute. Then we’ll get the words up there and we can make sure we’ve all read them.
Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: Just for clarity, are we talking about… are we saying a committee? In ICANN terminology a “working group” might be the right words. Are we looking for a group to formulate a plan or to actually carry it out?
Adam: Carry it out.
Cheryl: Go ahead, Vanda.
Vanda: Just to remember that there is a committee from the five regions talking about, you know, leading 47:22 about this fellowship program. We should… we make in our working group one, a proposal to work more closely with that. So this is in my opinion something that we need to think about because there is ICANN outreach committee and this could be added in some way to that. We need to formulate something more clear about that before we launch this.
Cheryl: I see José, I see Alan. Go ahead.
Interpreter: José: I have two points. One, I get Vanda’s point, and in any case this committee which would be established obviously would have to work in coordination with the outreach people who ICANN have already working. That’s what they’re there for and I understand that there are staff dedicated to outreach.
Interpreter: Unknown: No, I am sorry, we are people who represent the five regions.
Interpreter: José: Okay, I understand. In any case the work would have to be coordinated because that’s what’s logical, and – as we say in Venezuela – so that we don’t step on each other’s toes. Or rather… On the other hand, I’d like to ask Alan because it’s not clear to me if this proposal was the one that emerged out of the working group and that was doing outreach.
Adam: Direct output from the working group that just occurred.
Cheryl: Carlos… Uh, José? Alan, you had your hand…
Alan: I just have a little bit of concern about chartering a committee which will then solicit money from people, and I’m not sure on whose behalf they’re asking for the money. It certainly can’t be on ICANN and I’m not sure it can be on ALAC. So I’m just not sure of both the optics of how it looks and there may be some real financial issues involved in it.
Cheryl: Do you want to reply?
Adam: Yes.
Cheryl: And then I see Fatimata, then I see Sébastien.
Adam: I think it’s a matter of how I’m explaining it. It’s all inter alia. What it should be doing is all things to do with outreach, including funding, including looking at other mechanisms of generating money, not just asking people for money but what type of activities can be done that might generate funds, such as revisiting the idea that ALSes might provide cheap translation services or whatever. So it’s a committee that looks to outreach very broadly from funding to the creation and sharing of resources, to the creation and sharing of ideas and experiences, etc., etc.
Cheryl: Go ahead, Fati-… Sorry, I had Fatimata, then… I had Carlos, Fatimata… Sorry, Carlos. I’m inaudible 50:54 only been in afternoon and I’ve been reading my novel all day. Forgive me. Go ahead, Carlos.
Interpreter: The question was precisely if Adam could clarify a bit how it would work and how this committee had been envisioned, where the financing, the functioning, where would it meet, who’s going to make it up, and what were going to be its functions. It was a bit unclear of everything about this committee because I think there are still things we don’t understand or know.
Cheryl: cuts out …ahead, Adam.
Adam: As we said, it would be formed by the RALO chairs and open to any ALS. The purpose is simply outreach and the coordination of outreach, the expansion of outreach. And by “outreach,” what we were talking about was everything, as I said, ranging from funding to income-generating activities if that’s another way of putting it, to coordinating – what we were talking about – resources that can be shared amongst regions, whether that would be already-translated materials and so on and so forth. So it would be created by and organized by RALO chairs and any ALS would be able to join it, and its function would be outreach broadly.
And one thing I did mention in the initial sort of suggestion was that can we have the RALO chairs and secretariat actually comment on this, because they’re the ones that the working group we’re suggesting should run it? It wouldn’t be a committee of the ALAC per se.
Cheryl: That’s very much why we’re having this discussion. And I have got in queue… This is just… At an ALAC meeting, I take ALAC speakers, then I take speakers at my pleasure – and I don’t mean “take them out and shoot them,” I just mean “take them in order.”
Fatimata, go ahead.
Fatimata: French – 53:08
Interpreter: Thank you, Cheryl. I seconded Adam’s proposal because at the level of AFRALO, we had proposed a problem of being able to find resources outside of ICANN in order to get to or outreach the other users in the region. And so what we need to know is whether legally do we have the right to do it? Are we entitled to do it? So I did second Adam’s idea because I thought it was just so that we could think about the possibility, what we can do, what are the options, what are our options, and what is permitted by ICANN, which goes back a bit to Alan’s question. Can we, for example, find sponsors? Can we do or carry out activities that would generate revenue? Can we have other sponsors that are besides ICANN to do ICANN activities? So that’s really my question in other words, and that’s really AFRALO’s question and which we’re trying to debate right now and discuss. And obviously the input from the other RALOs would be very welcomed because the problem is one that we all have.
Cheryl: Fatimata, I’m not sure that means you want a reply rather than to be listened to and heard by us all.
Go ahead, Sébastien.
Sébastien: cuts out …we maybe not put chair but leadership of the RALO, to leave the RALO to decide who will be the one who will work on that working group, because as ALAC I don’t see why we will decide that it’s the chair who will take that.
The second point is I think we need to charter this group if we decide to create it, to make a proposal, and then we need to come back here and to decide if those proposals have to be put in place and how and by whom. I don’t want to be differentialized 55:30 by any working group to the responsibilities that ALAC must have.
And my third point, and I will struggle for that quite heavily, ICANN has plenty of money. I don’t think that we have time and resources today to try to find money outside. I think if we have to do something, it’s a struggle within ICANN that the budget is used for the purpose we want to have it used, and for example for outreach. When you discuss the budget of ICANN and when you think the money they want to have with the new gTLD process, or when you think they are looking for other source of finance, and when you see the presentation we get this morning about compliance where they have already decided expand 30% their budget, I think – and just one example amongst… – I think the budget of At-Large needs to be expanded and could be expanded and allow us to do meetings when we need and outreach when we need. Thank you very much.
Cheryl: José?
Interpreter: I think that what Sébastien says is very good, but besides that, there is something that isn’t clear to me and which I wanted to see if somebody can clear this up. It was specifically asked if the mission of this group was to design the policies or execute them, and clearly it was said “execute them.” But what’s not clear to me is execute what and designed by whom. So I would please like for someone to clear this up for me.
And another point is that I understand that there is a lot to be discussed regarding this point, but nonetheless I also see that Cheryl’s proposal was to vote on this if we want to and then we discuss it, but what I think is that if… because if we start discussing until we’re all satisfied, more than dinner, they’re going to have to bring breakfast too.
Adam: I should have answered José with “both” rather than “execute” – i.e., the purpose of the RALO committee is to first plan what it’s going to do and then execute it. We are giving, we are trying to… What the idea is is to create a committee which will focus on outreach. We are giving it to the role of the RALOs rather than the ALAC itself as a committee. All we are doing is, in effect 58:29, blessing a committee and giving it some simple resources such as an ICANN resource mailing list and perhaps a wiki page, and then saying, “RALOs, go off and outreach.”
Cheryl: Go ahead.
José: Spanish – 58:42
Interpreter: I get that, I understand that. Now is outreach an ICANN function? Can we delegate it in a committee? I have that doubt. I’m not sure because I don’t know. Perhaps the policy should be designed by us together with them, and this way these policies that would have been established together formally come from ALAC to be delegated to this committee, because otherwise – and that’s my lawyer’s mind talking – we’re going to have problems.
Male: French – 59:27
Interpreter: I’m going to talk in French and take advantage of the interpreters. Yes, in effect I also wonder… on the potential consequences of the action that could be found within ICANN’s legal framework, because there’s several risks in fact. When we accept the sponsorship, certain obligations are accepted to the sponsor, we can 1:00:12 engaged from the legal point of view.
Finally, which would be the consequences of certain actions that are done outside the legal framework of ICANN? Would it be the responsibility of inaudible 1:00:29 that is organizing particular actions if it prepared to assume the consequences? Is the partly consequences of their actions? Those are the questions we have to approach. I’ve no problem if the possibilities are under study 1:00:58. With regard to future actions, we need an agreement with ICANN on the one hand. And I would ask Sébastien, when you say that to go ask for money outside is paragogical 1:01:18. When we see ICANN’s budget, it would be like being linked. You don’t always receive money, and if you’re going to seek sources outside, then you get a commitment outside and there’s a danger of losing part of our independence.
Alan: I almost feel guilty about being the first one to mention the issues related to raising money on who’s behalf. We have a proposal on the table which essentially says the five RALOs should work together, involve other people, and try to think of useful things that we can do. I would hate to squash this and not see something come out of this meeting. May I suggest that since this group is not likely to come up with marvellous ideas and implement them in the next three weeks, that we separate the planning from the execution and heartily approve that this group go off and start talking and come up with some good ideas, and we can in parallel investigate the implications of funding? I suspect 90% of the activities or 95 that Adam mentioned have nothing to do with liabilities and worry and in whose name, and most of them I think can be done with our blessing or without it. But we’re talking about setting up, getting some ideas and best practices, and we’ve got some volunteers, we have people who want to work who were here this week. Let’s let them.
Cheryl: Evan, go ahead, please.
Evan: Before Alan spoke, I was going to ask Adam as the person who put forward this motion on behalf of the thematic session to withdraw it. This really seems to come under the idea of “No good deed goes unpunished.” You have a bunch of volunteers who come forward, who are looking for ways to expand the outreach of At-Large, who are simply asking for a forum in which to talk, and I just can’t believe what we have to go through just to do that. If this is going to cause such a problem, then withdraw the motion, Adam. We’ll have to find another channel to do this and just do it anyway.
Cheryl: Thank you so much for those comments. You’ll notice I have this up, and that’s a way of me indicating, as opposed to my Chair role, I would now like to speak to the matter. And what I was trying to do is while I’ve been listening to you formulate some way that we can give an in principle support to continue the enthusiasm and energy that the working group has clearly come up with and yet not… And we have to as an Advisory Committee with particular needs and requirements, this is exactly the… this is not a problem to discuss, this is exactly why we are a committee. Now otherwise it would be three people making a decision somewhere. The interchange and discussion that you’ve seen us have on this very important resolution is exactly why are a committee of 15 regionally-balanced people, to do this sort of discussion, because very good ideas can in fact have unintentioned consequences, but we want the good ideas to continue on.
Therefore I was going to propose the following for consideration: I mentioned earlier that there should be an in principle support to the design and programming and outreach mechanisms being explored by this inter-RALO group. I was also going to suggest we actually have a subcommittee – so we got this working group, fine – we have a subcommittee which is the budget and finance subcommittee. The budget and finance subcommittee is an ALAC subcommittee, and if there’s any reason why we can’t make that subcommittee open to work with the results of this utterly independent inter-RALO group, would that be a way forward, ladies and gentlemen?
Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: Maybe I’m missing something, but most of what I heard Adam talking about is not necessarily financial, and I’m not sure what gets done with some of the results, but I’d like to see the thinking, talking, and cooperation between RALOs start.
Cheryl: That’s exactly what I was hoping to do. Let me point our what I mean. I ho-… With the budget and finance subcommittee already in this year’s At-Large budget, if specifically… and I do not know the amounts because we don’t get to know those sorts of things at this stage, but there is an amount of money that is being allocated for certain types of outreach and translation. It would be very… So the budget and finance subcommittee knows about that. I’m saying that if there is a source, a resource that the inter-RALO group might just… they might have a very good use for this money. So I want to see some sort of nexus between these two things. That’s what I’m talking about.
Now I’m going to ask Adam… Adam, Evan has his hand up. Do you want to cede to Evan? Go ahead, Evan.
Evan: I just want to offer a little bit more detail of the specific kinds of things we were talking about. Issues were raised, not… Going out and fundraising in the way that you’re thinking was far from the primary thing that we were talking about. If anything, this was a matter of trying to figure out ways to deal with ICANN, to save ICANN money on its outreach programs by working with At-Large rather than perhaps throwing staff or other resources at it. The idea was to come up with creative ideas that would be a win-win – they’d help At-Large expand while at the same time reducing ICANN’s cost to do it. We noted, for instance, that the number of ALSes in the former Soviet Union is absolutely zero. The answer to that is not to throw staff at it but to engage the existing community to do that. And so the purpose behind this committee was to explore those ideas, was to let them flourish, engage. When resources were required from ICANN, essentially to make reasonable, balanced proposals, possibly through At-Large, possibly through the public participation component of ICANN, because we should and could be going through both those routes.
These were just all the ideas that were being bandied back and forth. I didn’t think there was anything, you know, potentially risk-… I didn’t see any risk in this, to be blunt with you. And so I just wanted to expand on some of the stuff that was in the thematic session that Adam and I were a part of, just to give you some concrete ideas of what is intended to be done in this committee.
Cheryl: Thank you very much. Adam… Basically he said what you were going to say? Fantastic.
I put this up just then – hello, Evan? – specifically referring back to your last statement. But thank you for taking a note of Action Items already under way in the Asia Pacific Regional At-Large Organization, whose job it is to do that outreach, because we are very specifically interested in Russia and Central Asia. And indeed, that is why I know it is important that these RALO-led ideas get support from whatever resources are required, including any ICANN activities that are going on in the area. We don’t need to be tripping over each other, we don’t need to be duplicating. We need to make sure there is some nexus between all these activities. And at this point, I think it’s the right time to move and in principle support motion. I think what we can do as the ALAC is give our unbridled in principle support for inter-RALO activity as outlined in the original resolution. Okay?
Then there is a second resolution I am going to provide, and that is that the existing At-Large Advisory Committee Budget and Finance Committee make itself available to this group so that duplication of effort and availability of resources can be properly explored. End of resolution.
Two points. Do I have anyone who wishes to speak on those separately or jointly?
In which case, I will put the first… I am putting a resolution of the At-Large Advisory Committee in principle support of the inter-RALO activities, insert everything Adam read to the record. Does anyone wish to… Yeah.
Vanda: I second.
Cheryl: Okay. Seconded by Vanda. Thank you. Does anyone wish to object to this motion? Does anyone wish to abstain from this motion? You have the unbridled, unfettered, and absolute support of the ALAC in your activities.
Resolution 2. laughs That the ALAC make as a point of connection with this group, this working group, inter-RALO working group, the existing At-Large Advisory Committee Budget and Finance Subcommittee, so that there is minimization of duplication of effort and maximization of knowledge of resources and resource allocation.
Do I have a seconder for that resolution? Thank you, José. Does anyone wish to v-… You want to speak to it? Go ahead. Oh, you always want to speak to it, Alan.
Alan: I’m sorry.
Cheryl: Don’t be sorry.
Alan: For those among us who are ignorant, can you tell us who is on the finance committee? laughs
Cheryl: I certainly can. laughs It currently is Vanda, myself, Carlos… No, sorry. Carlton? Carlton. I think it’s Carlton. It’s one from each region, and we were missing Europe. So Adam, I think now you’re officially seconded into the Budget and Finance Committee. Congratulations on your uncontested election! It’s listed. It’s listed on the front. Beau, you?
Beau: Not me. Not me.
Cheryl: Well, who… There has to be… There might be a blank space which needs to be filled, but it is the subcommittee.
Male: inaudible 1:12:32
Cheryl: No, no. There’s no such thing as an innocent or not useful question. Okay. So that group is listed and we probably do need to repopulate it since our elections, but we’ve already got a EURALO vote, which is great, because we’ve got Adam into it now. So North America, put someone on board. Beau?
Male: inaudible 1:12:53
Cheryl: Okay, go for it.
Female: inaudible
Cheryl: Yeah, absolutely. Yay, and there’s North America’s representative! Yay! Well done, well done. Okay, we’re fully inaudible.
There was then…
Evan?: No, no, Gareth’s here.
Cheryl: Gareth? Gareth. Gareth! See you’re done. You’re done.
Male: inaudible 1:13:12
Cheryl: No, no, no, no, no, no.
Male: Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.
group applause
Cheryl: That’s… Can I suggest… And I’m reading to the record that Gareth did accept wholeheartedly that position, and that is why we are a working group of all the regions, so no one of us gets to deal with it. And really is very important, so thank you very much.
In terms of our next point for Any Other Business, we see the… we seem to have…
Alan: Did we have a vote?
Cheryl: For… No, we didn’t. You spoke and upset me. I was calling for the vote and you jumped in.
Male: inaudible 1:13:50 food’s here.
Cheryl: Well, the food’s arriving, gonna feed you in a minute. I did actually want to have food in most of these people’s mouths for this meeting.
group laughing
Cheryl: laughs There was an evil intent for me being nice. I was hoping to have this discussion. laughs And the sad part is that’s now in the permanent record.
Okay. While you’re getting your dinner put in front of you, before Alan gets his food because we need him to talk to this matter, under Any Other Business we have the point of travel support. It says travel support, me as speaker 1:14:26.
Alan, before your soup arrives, go ahead.
Alan: I do have one other Any Other Business. I’d like to know if any of the RALOs in their meetings today have made any interesting decisions such as change of people or anything like that. It would be nice to know. Change of people, new representatives, new chairs, new secretariats or things like that, that would be nice to have on the record before we leave. But I’ll do the travel support first, if you’d like.
Cheryl: Thank you. However, I noticed José. Go ahead, José.
José: Spanish – 1:14:56
Interpreter: In the LACRALO meeting, we elected Sylvia Leite from Brazil as a representative of ALAC to start as of 2010, and she’s to substitute me. Sergio Salinas Porto was elected as Chair and Andrés Piazza was elected as Secretary, to substitute Carlton.
Sébastien: cuts out …the EURALO level, we had a process to make the election after to allow all the ALSes to participate to the vote. But we already have… the ex-Chair is the new Chair, and Wolf was re-elected as Chair.
group applause
Sébastien: I would like to take this opportunity just to say for the record here that the EURALO was very supportive of what evolved with us 1:16:05 during the preparation of the summit. I am sure that it could be expanded to the other people who make this summit happen during this Mexican meeting. Thank you.
Cheryl: While we’re taking the regional reports, can I ask for any AFRALO changes of… Fatimata, any changes in AFRALO line-up?
Fatimata: French – 1:16:34
Interpreter: cuts out …regards AFRALO, there was no changes at all. We actually confirmed because we got organized later than the rest, I believe. So the informal bureau 1:16:51 was confirmed, the people who were in duty already were confirmed. They kept me as their Chairman and Didier as the Secretary and Hawa as Vice-President, and also reporter… rapporteur. This is with regard to AFRALO.
Cheryl: cuts out …leadership team, and I would really like to take a point here to read into the record the amazing job just in the last 12 months seeing AFRALO really grow and become more vibrant and active and to have your AFRALO ALS representatives here and so involved, so contributory, I just hope all that energy from the summit comes back and you all keep going and powering on. So great job, well done to you, AFRALO.
group applause
Alan: And next time we try for three visas.
Cheryl: laughs No, don’t even start me – because you know I’ll have it read into the public record, and I know that people listen to the things I say and there’s quite a number of people out to get me on one of those statements.
Is there any change in the line-up from NARALO?
Evan: No, same old stuff.
Cheryl: Yeah, we’ll welcome you all back to the same line-up.
Which now allows me to report… Unless you would care to. Which you could care to report on the results of APRALO. I think if we can just swing this this way. Vivek…
Male: inaudible 1:18:28
Cheryl: I can help you. laughs inaudible. pause
Vivek: Okay. Today in our APRALO meeting, Karaitiana has been again re-elected as the Chair, and we also had a solution to have two vice-chairs, which is approved by the APRALO members. Accordingly, one vice-chair is Mahmoud from IK-…
Cheryl: AKMS.
Vivek: …AKMS has been selected. And the next one’s name…
Cheryl: Les Allinson.
Vivek: Les Allinson from Pacific…
Cheryl: Island… Pacific Island Chapter…
Vivek: …Pacific Island. Sorry that I’m getting familiar with this 1:19:25.
Cheryl: laughs
Vivek: laughs These are the two vice-chairs who have been selected.
Cheryl: And Secretariat…
Vivek: Secretariat has to be inaudible and then Pavan Budhrani who is managing Hong Kong, ISOC Hong Kong, has been again retained as the Secretariat.
Cheryl: Thank you very much, and seeing as I want to be equitable to even my region, I think we give those people a great big round of applause.
group applause
Cheryl: What is important, because I can say it because I’ve got control of the microphone, on behalf of APRALO is that we were very careful to ensure… We have a huge region. We go from the Antipodes to as far west as any Arab state goes, and what we were very careful to do is bring wide geographic balance in. So we have from the Arab Knowledge states – that’s half a dozen Arab states – and the particular gentlemen, Mahmoud is from Jordan, right though to our Chair who hails from New Zealand, with a cluster in the middle around Hong Kong and the Pacific Islands. So we’re being very careful about maintaining a very wide leadership team.
Okay. Now of course with perfect timing, because I know how hungry Alan was, his dinner’s now in front of him and I’m about to ask him to speak on travel support, which makes me just feel so much like the strength physiologist 1:20:46 I once was. laughs Oh, this is gorgeous. Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: Okay. As you all know, last year ICANN started funding the supporting organizations at a level of 50%, roughly 50% of their members for travel support. And at that time they said they were going to continue funding the ALAC but not necessarily any RALOs and not any ALSes, other than the summit of course. The RALO leadership work had been funded for the last few meetings from some level of continuity and/or summit preparation. There was a Board resolution in Paris when the summit was approved – I think in Paris – that the ALAC in the future be treated like the others, which most of us believed meant at the 50% level. We don’t know what is actually going to come out in the travel support document when it comes out sometime in the near future. I think we should go on record as saying what we believe it should be.
Cheryl?: Hear, hear. 1:22:02
Male: Yes.
Alan: Now I think there’s a given that it should include the 15 ALAC members. There are very few ALAC members that I am aware of who are in a position to fund themselves and will actually come to a meeting if there is no money. There may be one or two, but probably not, and certainly not in the general case.
I would suggest that on an ongoing basis, it is pretty well essential to have the people in the RALO leadership who are doing the work and keeping the people on the ground coordinated, that at least one person from each RALO leadership I think must be funded on a regular basis. I would like to see a little bit more flexibility than that.
And in the original proposal, it said that liaisons to a group would be funded. That was switched during the implementation for liaisons from groups, which means, since we don’t have any formal bylaw-mandated liaisons to our group but we do have two going out, that I think it reasonable that we ask for them to be funded also.
So I would propose that we make a quick statement to the effect that we would like to make sure that we have funding for the 15 ALAC members, for 2 liaisons, and I would suggest a number somewhere between 5 and 10 for the ALSes. I don’t think we’ve ever had actually 10 in the… Or the RALOs, rather. I don’t think we’ve ever had 10, but we certainly always have at least 5. So I would suggest a number like 7 or 8, which says we may have to rotate around who gets the second position each meeting and maybe some meetings we won’t use them all.
But I would like to put our stake in the ground and say what it is that we would like to see. Whether we get it or not is a different matter, but I see no reason to sit back and just wait for someone to make a proposal which we then have to fight. So I think we should make the first move, and that means make in within the next couple… the next week or two. So I would like to make a motion that we tell ICANN management that our expectation is the budget will allow 15 ALAC, 2 liaison, and let us say 8 RALO leadership at each meeting.
Cheryl: Okay. That’s seconded. I see Carlos, I see Adam, and then I see Gareth, okay?
Go ahead, Carlos.
Carlos: Spanish – 1:25:00
Interpreter: To reaffirm what Alan said, I think that we immediately have to propose, make a statement refusing 1:25:15 any reduction of the support for travel. On the other hand, I recall that the Westlake report, the first report of Westlake stated that it would be good for voluntary work be paid. And then this started to get diluted, but I imagine that if I’m 1:25:42 international advisorship is devoted to this, we cannot allow a reduction of the travel contributions. I think that none of us can attend these meetings if they have to put a dollar towards going to it.
Alan: I’m not disagreeing with anything that Carlos said, but I really would like to phrase this in a positive way and not a negative one. There was the meeting on travel support yesterday? I’m not sure.
Cheryl: Correct.
Alan: And they basically at that meeting showed what was the current status quo for this fiscal year, did not put anything in for what they were planning, and said they want input from the community. I think we should do this in a very positive way, saying what we believe we need, as opposed to “Don’t you dare reduce us.”
Cheryl: We all hear that. Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: I think I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. No. I was basically going to say that the funding I would like to see is for the full ICANN meeting and not be sent home on Thursday. I believe that my role here is to try to listen to what the Board has to say on Fridays, for example, and that is part of what I volunteered to do.
I would also like a travel policy that allows me to use my own resources to upgrade. I don’t expect business class but I do expect to be able to have the opportunity to use my resources to upgrade to a better class of travel so I can get off the plane and do work, and when I get back to Tokyo, usually after a long flight, I can go to work the next day, which is difficult to do if you’re stuck in economy class. And I think we need some explanation, particularly to some of the ICANN senior staff, of what it actually means to travel on least-cost economy, which is particularly uncomfortable if it’s over 12 or 20 hours. Thank you.
Cheryl: Gareth, go ahead. Oh, you want a right of rep-… Okay, sorry. Alan, inaudible 1:27:58 you, and then…
Alan: I was going to say before the second… for the first part of what Adam said, that is for the whole ICANN meeting, I consider that a friendly amendment.
Cheryl: Gareth, go ahead. And be warned that in two and a half minutes if not three minutes’ time, we lose our interpretation services, which means we are at the end of our scheduled time. I will post for a 15-minute extension if required, but we will have no interpretation at that time.
Go ahead, Gareth.
Gareth: Judging by… Following on from what S-… – clears throat pardon me – from what Sébastien said earlier and listening to what’s been said now, I feel quite strongly that I don’t want to see a reduction from what has been allowed here before 1:28:45, and so I question the idea of putting out a statement like 8 instead of the full complement of Secretariat and Chair from each of the RALOs.
Cheryl: So noted. Okay, anyone else from the ALAC wish to speak on this? Patrick, go ahead. And then Alan.
Patrick: I tend to concur with Gareth, and because I’m afraid that at one stage if we ask for the support of 8 people, we will be given 5. So maybe it’s better to ask for support for 10, so maybe we’ll be given 8.
Cheryl: And I do know of course that in Alan’s introduction he was proposing somewhere between 5 and 10. If we want to stick with 10, that’s great.
Before I go to Alan, I just want to ask any of the people who need interpretation, do they have anything to speak on this final matter that we have on our agenda?
If not, then I’d like to take this moment to put formally on the record my undying thanks to the amazing work that the translators do. You have had an incredible day.
group applause
Cheryl: Please note, ladies and gentlemen hidden away in those boxes, we appreciate everything you do. In fact, I hope you know we would not be productive without you. So I’m turning away from the microphone, I’m standing up, and I’m giving you an absolute standing ovation.
group applause
Interpreter: Thank you very much.
Interpreter: Thank you very much.
Cheryl: Thank you all.
group laughs
Cheryl: You ready Alan? Go.
Alan: I guess I have to strongly object to the last two comments. I don’t want to get into a mode where we can be seen as asking for more so when they lower it down… If that’s the mode, then we’re going to end up getting 12 ALAC people. I think we should ask for what we can reasonably defend, and I think the record for the last two years will show we have never had 10. And I think we should ask for something defendable and then take a hard line that that is what we want as opposed to playing a negotiating game.
Cheryl: Thank you, Alan. At this point, I wish to ask the ALAC membership, do you agree with a 15-minute extension on our scheduled time for this meeting? Do I have anybody who wishes to vote against that? I’m not calling for abstention.
Go ahead. We have another 15 minutes. Go ahead, Sébastien.
Sorry, Fatimata, you did object. Go ahead.
Fatimata: I’m sorry, but I have to leave.
Cheryl: Your apologies are so noted. Thank you. Go ahead, Sébastien.
Sébastien: Yeah, I understand the rationale, Alan, but for example, the EURALO never gets two people because whoever makes the decisions decides not to invite two EURALO people to any meetings, because in fact the decision was two co-chair and the co-chair was not consider… 1:32:00 was one chair and one secretariat, then just one came. We decided in our meeting today that we will have one chair and one secretariat to allow this possibility by the staff to take two people from EURALO. And I would like you to add at least one person in addition to the current situation, because we changed the situation to stick with the possibility of each ration 1:32:25. Thank you very much.
Alan: If I may have the flexibility then to check with Nick, try to get the records of what it was, and do that.
Cheryl: I think doing a bit of research on this is really very, very important because I think what we should all know is that at no time are the secretariats from the regions budgeted for specifically. Every time we are about to plan a meeting, the staff ask me as Chair whether or not I want to convene the regional members, the regional secretariats, and it has to date not been an ICANN funding matter but the pleasure of the Chair matter. And my answer each time we’ve had a meeting has been, since I’ve been Chair, anyway, “Of course we do. Can we afford it? If the answer’s yes, then it is yes.” So please be aware we’re not going to start… Sort of we’ve got the historical staff, we’ve got the stop point of the summit, where it said, “You are now going to be” – from an At-Large point of view, and the RALOs are At-Large – “self-sustaining or fit in with a model that is similar to other ACs and SOs.”
So I think Alan’s point of arguing in a positive way, especially building on the strength of what we should be showing at the result of this summit, is the way forward, and proper analysis of what’s gone to pass is essentially.
Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: I guess I really… I should have started off with not an analysis but a summary of the current situation as it is on the books today, what they say they’re going to do. They say they’re going to treat us like the other organizations. That would mean that we get funding for… based on 15 members plus 2 liaisons. That’s 17. Divided by 2, rounded up is 9. With the Chair coming off the top, 8. And 5 NomCom members, guaranteed funding. That leaves 3 out of the remaining 12 people – that is the 2 liaisons and the 10 RALO-appointed people – which I consider totally unacceptable.
But that’s what we’re starting from – that is they are going to fund 9 people. We are now asking for 15 plus 2 plus 7 or 8 – close to 3 times as many. So I don’t think we want to get too greedy, but your point is noted that we should try to make sure that it addresses the changing situation in EURALO.
Cheryl: And what I’m going to now suggest is that as this comes under the… – yes, it was in Any Other Business, but clearly written to forward planning for Sydney meeting, including travel policy and budget – that we have this initial discussion now, we finish off anything else we want to say right now, and that we have this as a major agenda item for discussion in terms of what we’re going to put in with real data that’s being prepped between now and our meeting on the 14th.
Alan’s saying no? What are you suggesting?
Alan: What I have heard at the budget meeting… not the budget meeting, the travel expense meeting, is they intend to come out with what they are proposing to fund us with within days, or a week or so. I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting three weeks.
Cheryl: Not a problem then. Well, I would s-… Was that you wanting to speak to matters? Okay, hold on a second. Anyone else from the ALAC at this point? Adam, go ahead.
Adam: cuts out…going to say is the mathematics that Alan described where we’re down to 3 non-NomCom appointees attending this meeting, attending for the ALAC, this is not a committee I wish to be part of. And that would be… something I’d probably move as a motion would be to actually… for us all to resign.
Alan: Which is why I want to get us to put in what we want before they have a chance of what they’re proposing.
Adam: Yeah, do understand that. I’m just saying that this is… you know, it reaches the point where this make a dysfunctional committee and not one that I would wish to be part of.
Alan: Do note that the arithmetic I gave you was what I calculated based on a vague Board motion a year ago. No one in ICANN has said this is actually what’s going to happen, but I think we want to take some action to reinforce that it not happen.
Cheryl: Indeed. Being proactive rather than reactive is important, but I would like to ask your permission, Adam, that we quote you in our… If you’re happy to be quoted, I think we could write this into the text that we put together that says at least one of our party, and if you feel you’re not having a problem being so named, because I think the NomCom people, the Nominating Committee people would take our point very, very seriously, particularly when it’s a Nominating Committee person who’s saying this would be a dealbreaker. And it could very well be a dealbreaker for any number of us around the table.
Go ahead.
Adam: I’m perfectly happy to be named and I hope I wouldn’t be the only one. Because I don’t like dying alone.
Cheryl: Ah, but we all die alone – we know that. Any one el-…
Male: inaudible 1:37:44
Cheryl: laughs Does that mean you’re doing palliative care for Adam or you’re supporting the motion?
group laughs
Alan: I would suggest several members, and I’m sure we can find some other volunteers.
Cheryl: laughs Okay, thank you very much.
Okay. If there’s no more discussion on this point from the ALAC members, I saw… I think in order, I saw Siva and then I saw Evan. Go ahead. And then I see Carlton and then I see Wolf. Go ahead.
Siva: This 1:38:17 inaudible… Yeah, when Alan was mentioning travel support, he was mentioning 15 ALAC members and 2 liaisons. I want to know which two liaisons and…
Cheryl: Because there is two bylaw-mandated liaisons. They are the liaison to the Board and the liaison to the GNSO, and no, you don’t make the cut.
Go ahead.
Evan: I just want to raise a couple points. Number one, in terms of the issue of making this a positive thing – and I may have missed an early part of the conversation, but this is worth noting – that both Westlake and the Board Governance Committee review of that both said that support has to increase.
Also, during a conversation after the travel meeting, it seemed clear in the conversations from both Mr. Brent and Mr. Wilson that they recognize that ALAC has a slightly elevated spot that might… I mean, we still need to make the point, but I think they’re still aware that ALAC being something of ICANN’s own creation and design has a specific purpose and a mandate that requires investment, I hope, I think it’s understood, but we need to press the issue.
And thirdly, on the specific issue of the numbers, about the number of secretariats – is it going to be 10 or 8 or whatever – I remember as we were doing the summit financial planning, we knew what the maximum number of ALSes was going… ¬-- oh, wow – we knew what the maximum number of ALSes was going to be, but the budgeting we always did was based on the knowledge that they didn’t all show up. We have historical background that says we have 8 people showing up and if for one meeting we have 9, I hope that’s not a huge impediment. So in other words say we would like to have the full compliment funded, knowing full well that based on history, they aren’t all there. Can we not state it that way?
Cheryl: I’m sure that Alan will find the metrics to give us the measures here, but go ahead, Alan.
Alan: Based on my experience with the GNSO, we’re talking about annual numbers, so whatever we’re talking about times three in any case, and they roll over from meeting to meeting. The other thing is someone accused me the other day of always being negative. I will tell you on this particular case, I’m rather optimistic. I just want to make sure we get our note on the ground before they have a chance of issuing something different, because it’s harder to change something than to get it set.
Cheryl: And just to echo the concept of the stake in the ground, but also to take the positive attitude that I believe we’re all in agreement, though I still like to have a carrot and a stick involved with animal training. You know, they won’t let me use electric conductation 1:41:14 – apparently it’s just not legal in so many countries.
But we do need to have the carrot and the stick, and I think to quote that “There are several members who… This would be…” is a very viable thing. But we also need to quote the carrot stuff – what our ALAC Review has said, what… the participation bit. And trust us, we’ll be lobbying and I know many of you will be lobbying individually, and believe me some of us have spent many a long hour in conversation right here.
Carlton, go ahead.
Carlton: Thank you, Chair. Actually, I was… Evan took the point I was making because I was in that room when they had that discussion, and I made the point that, you know, it was irritating to me to be invited to participate and then you’re telling me that I am sponging. That’s inaudible 1:42:01 inside me. And the response from the Vice-President inside there I thought was quite positive. He recognized that the ALAC and the At-Large had a legitimate claim to support, and he said that.
I don’t know if you were there, Alan, but your numbers are right. The ones that… Yeah, the ones that he had on the board support the numbers that you’re talking about here. They do.
And I also want to endorse the approach you are proposing. I think if you use the historical data, because the fellow did say that at least he would expect funding at the historic levels 1:42:47. He did mention that. And to my mind, if you use the data to support the contention, it might be a good thing to do.
Cheryl: Any further discussion on this matter? Then we need to have a particular plan of action for when something gets written and by whom. Today 1:43:14 would have been fine, but… laughs
Alan: I am proposing that I write – or Cheryl write – requesting 15 plus 2, plus the RALO leadership which we will set at an average of the past history plus 1, and send it out with due haste.
Cheryl: As this is being conducted in the goldfish bowl, might I beg the indulgence of all of those who are not actually the 15 ALAC members, that what would be a very good thing to do here is say – because we need this done in the next couple of days and I don’t about anybody else, but I’ve got a fairly full dance card between now and Friday morning – that the elected representatives in the leadership of the At-Large Advisory Committee pen this document on behalf of the At-Large Advisory Committee, because I see no dissent, I see absolute agreement in where we should go and what we should do, and that with your in principle support, we can then send out a draft for your immediate “Yes, we agree” by e-mail, and then I will send it on on behalf of the ALAC.
So I’m not asking for a pre-vote, but I’m not going to be able to do a poll – we just don’t have time – and all I’ve heard from the regions is support on the way we should go forward anyway. Is there any objection amongst the ALAC members to that way forward? If anybody in the room wants to jump up and down now, do so now, not when we have the draft out.
So be it. We have got a meeting of the elected leadership of the At-Large Advisory Committee on Friday morning with staff, our staff to do a wrap-up of what needs to go next, you know, all the reporting that’s 1:45:11… You know, meetings end, you all go home, then there’s another day and a half worth of work. We’re doing that in one day because that’s all we can get funded for. We will fly out either that night or the following morning. My flight’s at like 5 AM – I just think I might sit up all Friday night, it’s probably going to be easier.
So we’ll do that, it’ll go ou-… I mean, you may be travelling. When you get back, you may see this. But it’s called trust. Do so, we’ll move forward on it, and it’ll be positive and it’ll have real numbers and real statistics.
Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: May I suggest that the kind of statement that Adam was making on the more subjective issues of – Adam, I think I said – on more subjective issues such as upgradeability where their words are so vague right now and the staff implementing them… They’re not capricious, they have some internal rules which we haven’t been made privy to, but I think ICANN management needs to understand the issues and I strongly support individuals making those comments. And copy the rest of the committee, please.
Cheryl: Just let… Yes, any individual comments that come from you, and please do put that in the process 1:46:29. I would also like to propose that was is appended to this document when it is born is a copy, another copy of our travel support statement that we made, which includes enormous details on, you know, right down to C class versus J class versus B class versus D class. I mean, let’s just… we’ve printed it, we’ve agreed to it, you know, let’s append it because I suspect whilst it was a piece of advice to the Board, there’s a number of people further down the pecking order that actually is doing the budget that never actually have seen it. laughs So let’s take the advantage to distribute what we’ve said on things like leg pitch, length of time, you know, all that sort of thing. If that’s going to suit you, Adam, I think that’s a way of getting through as well, just because it’s an already-known statement of the ALAC.
Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: My preference would be to either point to it or do it as a separate document and keep what we submit to them short enough that people will actually read it.
Cheryl: I’m happy to have it embedded as a URL to where the repository is, but I know darn well that, you know…
Alan: Under a half a page, people read. A three-page document gets filed.
Cheryl: No, it can be a URL, but I think we need to resend it because it deals with all of these other things.
Ladies and gentlemen, is there any other final points you wish to raise? Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: Didn’t we have that resolution thanking staff and then wishing Nick happy, happy…?
Cheryl: I’m about to that. Is there any other points you wish to raise in terms of forward planning for the Sydney meeting and travel policy and budget?
Yes, Sébastien.
Sébastien: Maybe you already do that before I arrived and I will apologize for that, but I think we need as ALAC to thank the overall committee to have come here and to make this summit happen successful, because I think we put a lot of effort, but the people came and work hardly on the program and I think it’s a very important issue. Thank you.
Cheryl: Indeed. And therefore we actually have now to move to two as opposed to the one. Adam had before you arrived put a formal vote of thanks to the ALAC staff, and indeed I’ll get into sort of re-read it to the record at this point in time so it is a formal vote of thanks, which Adam is going to lead and we’re going to have… And I think the formal vote to thank, which if you’re happy to put forward, Sébastien, we also should make through 1:49:08 the success of the summit has got to do with the success of the ALS representatives that are here. We just made the paddock. The fair occurred in the paddock we provided, and from what I’ve seen it’s been a tremendously productive and a very, very dynamic…
Go ahead, Alan.
Alan: I’ve had a few conversations with a number of senior ICANN people who seem to agree with you that it has been successful and good investment of money.
Cheryl: Indeed, and I think noting that so many of us have had very positive feedback is something very important.
Yes, Siva, go ahead.
Siva: Yeah, if the 1:49:49 the Board has got a mandate of an ideal liaison, is there a job description at least? I haven’t got any and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.
Cheryl: Let me make clear that we have a whole number of liaisons. We have a liaison to the ccNSO, we have a liaison to the Security and Surviv-… Security and Stability Advisory Committee. We have a bunch of liaisons which are not bylaw-mandated liaisons, but all our liaisons have a clear job description in our Rules of Procedure. So if you want a job description, doesn’t change regardless of what you’re liaising to, only the content of what you do changes. Okay? So your role, any liaison’s role is clearly outlined in the Rules of Procedure. Okay? Because we’ve got liaisons and we don’t differentiate between the Board liaison, the GNSO liaison, and our other liaisons. For the matter of travel funding, we are obviously arguing…
Siva: No, I mean…
Cheryl: …for the bylaw-mandated ones because that’s essential. Go ahead, Siva.
Siva: I’m not particularly worried about travel funding. I’m just… The point that I’ve been talking to you all day, this morning and for the last few days, is that possibly because I’m new – not because of your fault, because I’m new to ICANN – I don’t know what I’m supposed to be saying, what I’m not supposed to be saying. I don’t know who I’m supposed to meet, who I’m not supposed to meet. To carry the work of an ideal liaison forward, I have my own ideas. I want to know whether these are right ideas or wrong ideas. I want to involve people in India and other countries, and I want to write to people, I want to ask them how they feel about IDN. I want to ask their views, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing all that or… Can you tell me what I’m to do and what I’m not to do?
Cheryl: Just one moment. I mean, the overarching guidelines of what you are meant to do, which are the principles that you need to work in which apply to all liaisons, are there. I’m assuming you have read them. If you haven’t read them, please do so. You know perfectly well that I am endeavouring to ensure you have a very specific and very particular orientation, just the same as I have a placeholder to make sure that Rudi has exactly the same thing for his role. There is nothing exceptional about the fact that people just get thrown in the deep end in voluntary organizations, and there you go. Alan, please describe the handover you got as the GNSO liaison. In under 20 words, what was it?
Alan: Two or three minutes’ discussion. Not quite that much. And I was new to ALAC that meeting also. From a personal point of view, it’s hard. All you can do to begin with is be quiet and listen and start… trying not to put your foot in your mouth, trying not to embarrass anyone including yourself, and after a meeting or two you start getting a feel for what the issues are and it involves talking to people, talking to us. There’s no magic way of making you feel comfortable the first week.
Cheryl: But, but, but…
Alan: It doesn’t happen.
Cheryl: But the thi-…
Alan: Well, yeah, ask Evan how long it took him to start feeling comfortable.
Cheryl: The thing is though, it is a matter… Your primary job, and it isn’t even… you know, you’re a conduit for information to and from the two things. If you’re from for us to somewhere, you’re a conduit for us to specify – “us to specify,” not “you to do,” but “us to specify.” That’s the ALAC. Please be very, very aware that we have liaisons of the ALAC – that’s 15 people. Alright? For us to specify, you to take. And there will be a time perhaps – for example, it happens with the GNSO liaison – that there is a specific resolution that we ask him to take. That’s a very proactive role.
The main role is being there as a trusted voice. Okay? It’s more difficult in your particular role because as we said this morning over breakfast, you do not have a house 1:54:18. Okay? But really, for any liaison – I’ve got a number in the room, so I’m talking to you all – it’s a matter of building trust on behalf of the ALAC so that when we ask, when we question, when we say, “Could we know about…?” that we actually get a trusted relationship respond 1:54:41.
So it’s exactly as Alan said – tread gently in potentially troubled waters, because it is not just your reputation, it is ours, and it is our reputation, it is directly my responsibility and we’ll be having a chat.
So it’s really important that we do while we’re here get… I don’t know whether… I’ve been trying to see if Ron 1:55:02’s here. If Ron’s here, I need to lock you two in a room, you know, inaudible. It’s very hard, and I know there’s specific issues that I’m going to be dealing with you. Trust me, it’s why I get the big bucks that they pay me to be Chair of this committee, which is zero. And remember that you’ve got, Alan…
Sébastien?: That’s more than me!
Cheryl: laughs You cannot have zero minus one. You’ve got Alan, you’ve got some experienced liaisons, you’ve got Wendy, our Board liaison who can give you assistance, and we’re certainly happy to facilitate that.
I know Rudi wants to say something and I know that Sébastien wants to say something. Sébastien is timing out. And Alan wants to say something? Go ahead, Rudi.
Rudi: Yeah, very quickly, I have followed two conference calls with the ccNSO and I got some mails on the mailing list where I was wondering should I talk about in the ALAC space, yes or no? I think that’s also one of the questions Siva has – what can we say, what can we copy to the community from the side 1:56:07 if we receive it. And at the other hand, I’m sitting in and the ccNSO is a very difficult space, as the thematic session I had today was pinpointing to the problems appearing in registries and registrars in abuse of domains, and the ccTLDs are very highly concerned. So I’m sitting already on a high mountain where I’m visible for everyone, the ccNSO, to get killed. So what I want to know is…
Cheryl: I had another 1:56:44 inaudible.
Rudi: What I want is, and I sent out an e-mail two days ago to the At-Large asking all of us, please come up with points and items I have to bring to the ccNSO in order to avoid that it is my voice…
Cheryl: Let me take that. You get your instructions from the ALAC. That is 15 people sitting around this table, not negotiable. I knew you’d sent that out before I got to the list because I had complaints from ccNSO chairpeople and their executive, and it just said, “SIGH,” in capitals. Alright? I’ll deal with that, that’s my job to deal with that. But I do feel that we are, we have… This is why these descriptions are so important. Without the new bigger, better, bolder, more easy to understand, in five colours and safe for children job description, which we will have, we do have a set of rules which says exactly what liaisons do, and it’s act in the best interests of the ALAC and the At-Large community. So when there’s a policy statement that people are doing, your role is to say, “The view of ALAC and At-Large is…” when you know what the view is, or “My personal view is…” when you’re asked for it. Okay? You are a trusted voice, you are our voice, but you bring issues specifically mandated from the people who’ve elected you and that is the ALAC.
Now, that said, there is always beginning… People stub their toes in the beginning. No major disaster has occurred. These are tiny little hiccups, and a lot of it’s got to do with things like we haven’t got Ron and you locked in a room yet, we didn’t get inaudible 1:58:34 in right think, and you got a three minute conversation to begin with. The only advantage is… Clearly, the only advantage we have is with our SSAC liaison, because to be the SSAC liaison you actually have to put in a CV that is accepted and you already have to have a certain level of expertise and understanding in the field.
group applause
Cheryl: So really, you know, our SSAC liaison is the only one who gets a sweet ride on this, but when it comes to knowing what you can say, if you are… And I can quote now our dotMobi liaison. He signed a nondisclosure agreement. He’s already approached me and said how does he report what has happened, and we’ve set up a set of generalities. I’ve assured him that, you know, we will have a general discussion that reflects an issue so he does not… You know? So ask the chair of the ccNSO what they think you should be taking back. You know, SSAC will have very, very strict rules I can assure you. laughs
Go ahead, please.
Patrick?: Well, the only thing I wanted to mention is that when you’re part… when you are the liaison to another group, there are rules in this other group that you have to abide to. As an example, that was before my time, but SSAC has been discussing the Kaminsky attack well before it went public. Obviously you don’t expect the liaison to come up to the ALAC and say, “Hey, guys! Something is going to happen in seven days.”
group laughs
Cheryl: Exactly. Please realize you are trusted voices who are there to build trust, and if you just treat them like your first date, and later on, you never know how good it’ll get.
group laughs
Cheryl: laughs Well, okay. Okay. Oh, maybe, maybe I’m glad I don’t… I don’t think I want to have a Jamaican liaison. Please, mental note, do not employ a Jamaican liaison.
Sébastien, you still want 2:00:36 to say? Go ahead, Rudi.
Rudi: Yeah, just shortly, as I sent out a message and I didn’t receive any return. I want to go to the ccNSO meetings tomorrow as it is the first day that I’m going to be free somewhere. I would like that before 10 o’clock I could have some items popping up from the group.
Cheryl: I can’t help myself. I just hope you’re going to say what… Go ahead.
Alan: You hope I’m going to what you want me to say? That rarely happens.
I will volunteer if I’m awake on the plane home to put together a very short guide to liaisons, but I will give you a shorter version here. Number one, your first job is to take ALAC messages – not a message from an individual – and pass it on, should there be any, and there may not be any. You job is to report on a regular basis on what’s going on in the ccNSO. And in general I would say after every teleconference or meeting, summarize it, preferably without too much editorial comment. But their calls are posted on an mp3 within minutes or within hours. It’s public knowledge. So, you know, just don’t editorialize. If something is particularly relevant to the ALAC, that is something that you think we need to act on or prepare for – not just juicy gossip but something we need there – then you should be sending it to the ALAC list. If you think it’s particular sensitive, send it to the internal list, which isn’t archived and isn’t publically available. If it’s just a regular report, it’s a regular report.
Cheryl: Can I suggest…
Alan: And that’s about it until you get a better feel. Talk to the chair of the group you’re going to – they’re your boss when you’re there. You really want to get to the position that when you’re sitting in their organization, when you say “we,” you mean the ccNSO in your case.
Male: inaudible 2:02:37
Alan: Okay. You want to be part of that family, but that means you have to live by their rules.
Cheryl: And most importantly, caution’s always worthwhile, especially… And when we have the 2:02:47 inaudible, it takes very, very short time, send something to the internal list first and then the internal list can assure you if that’s something to go to the working list. I would not be encouraging others in calls for comment. The sort of thing this should be sending to the public list is, for example, when the geographic regional review comes up with something, then that makes sense to send… And they’ll be sending it out on announce, but you’d be able… 2:03:19 should be sending it to the At-Large list, because there are histories and there’s stuff that I don’t know who could trip over, and so caution, caution, caution, trust build, trust build, trust build, and I’m looking forward to Alan’s… What is it? We call them “thumbnails,” the little short pocket… a “Pocket Guide to Liaisons” coming out.
Alan: I already said most of it, but I will try to remember to… I’ve written it down here and I’ll try to do it.
Cheryl: Okay. Now we…
Rudi: Just the only point I have is that in fact you have to invest time to do the job, and you’re elected for only one year, so the moment you get ready for do the real job, you have to be re-elected or you’re out – one of two.
Cheryl: Well… overtalking 2:04:03
Alan: If you get unlucky, you get reappointed.
Cheryl: Yes. There’s two things – you have to have the internal fortitude to have survived, and then you might get that second year to build on your experience, and secondly with the ALAC Review, when they talk about elections, appointments, and positions going for two years, I would be strongly encouraging if I’m in the ALAC at that stage when it comes to pass that that goes to liaisons as well. It certainly is specific to the bylaw-mandated liaisons in the report, but I would like to see it go across the board because yes, it takes two years just to build trust, unless you’re a Jamaican man taking someone on a first date apparently.
group laughs
Cheryl: No, I would actually like to see your thumbnail guide for all the sorts of things you’re referring to, but not in this forum.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have two motions. We have two motions that I would very much like to call a vote for. laughs One is a formal vote of thanks to the staff for the extraordinary effort that was made… laughs Right, okay? And in future, Siva, I’m just not going to let you speak until we’ve got all our business over and done with, because look what happened – we hijacked 15 more minutes off my meeting that way. Okay.
We have a seconded proposal, right, which is for a formal vote of thanks for the heroic effort made by the staff in preparation for this summit. I think there… Is there two or three staff still standing in this room? If they are, I cannot believe there will be any objec-… cuts out 12 sec
And then written into the formal record is also our very best wishes for a complete and speedy recovery to our much-missed Mr. Nick Ashton-Hart, who is back at least in the Sheraton at this point in time. He will be seeing the doctor on Friday and hopefully will be able to return home after that. He’s still on antibiotics. They do believe it was probably salmonella – I don’t think he’d mind me telling you that. So it was food-related, but it really has knocked him around. So with all good speed, and we don’t have to minute the bug. The bug can be excised from the public record, but our thanks to go into it.
And then…
group applause
Cheryl: And then, most importantly, and involves letters in whatever colours… I think perhaps all the RALO colours – we’ll have a complete rainbow this should be done in – at the bottom of the minutes we want to record on behalf of the ALAC our incredible thanks and our great joy at seeing how much amazing work has gone on from what we knew was there – the talent in the At-Large structure. The At-Large Summit has been successful only because of the At-Large Structure representatives who have been here and have worked so hard. And so we want to have a very large, bold-cased, multicoloured “Thank you all.”
And Adam is now going to speak to the matter. So go ahead, Adam.
Adam: inaudible 2:07:22 for later.
Cheryl: Oh, for later? Okay. So there’s a few of you left in the room and those who particularly have to stamina to still be here with us after this sort of garble also deserve a standing ovation that I’m now going to suggest we give you. cuts out 8 secs
Go ahead, Sébastien.
Sébastien: Yeah, I just… I would like to extend this thanks to the people who are not represented as yet ALSes, to have them joining us as ALS – I recognize one in the room, I recognize people who participated in different RALO meeting today, and they are also to be thanked because they came by their own and they participate and they help us in the work done. Thank you very much.
Cheryl: So noted, so moved, so included into the previous resolution, and I will make a further amendment. I would actually like the record of the names of the attendees, which should include those visitors we had in our room, and if you see a name missing, have a guess – I know I saw Avri 2:08:31 and a few other people – I reckon we should actually have that listed just for the record, so 10 years down the track we see the numbers we had and how amazing this whole thing was.
So I now go to Adam. Go ahead.
Adam: This is a similar vein. It’s whether in your report or whatever it would be to the… sorry, to ICANN when you make the Chair’s report, that we thank the Board and the ICANN community for their support, their support for the budget and so on and so forth. And I’ll switch the mic off and… cuts out But apart from that, we can thank everybody who… No, I mean it’s a general vote of thanks that they have supported this. Thank you. I don’t think you need to… overtalking 2:09:13.
Cheryl: No, no. Look, we’ll so note that and we will take that as read.
Thank you all. Thank you all very much. And it’s 9 o’clock tomorrow morning in Don Diego 2, we…
Vanda?: Can’t miss it! 2:09:27
Cheryl: Do not miss it. It’s an all-singing, all-dancing event, and I’d like to see all your smiling and happy faces there. 0900, Sheraton Hotel, Don Diego 2, the ALAC Review Public Forum – I think that’s what it’s called. I probably can’t speak anymore.
Alan: And I’ll be at the GNSO meeting starting at 8. Why don’t you show up early and be there for that too?
Cheryl: Sorry. Can I have the ALAC and everyone else who’s still in this room… Ladies and gentlemen. bangs on table We have a photo request. I never give up a photo opportunity, so I want you all to join me.
End of Audio
