AT-LARGE GATEWAY
At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)
At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development
Page History
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Matthias Langenegger: Wolf this is Matthias. I've just seen a message from Rudi saying that he may be a couple of minutes late.
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Matthias Langenegger: Okay, thank you.
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Wolf Ludwig: I guess the dial out to you worked.
Annetta Muehlberg: Yes, thank you very much.
Annetta Muehlberg: Yes, thank you very much.
Wolf Ludwig: And we have started today's program agenda already and we are now on this action item from the last call. and as far as I can see it staff has sent the links to the proposed bylaw modification and comments and share EURALO lists and ask EURALO members to read the documents prior to the call and Wiki Markup
And I've seen there have been some comments to the proposals already by - I have seen a comment form Rudi. I have seen two comments from Christopher, from one of our German ALSs. But we will come to this agenda item later. Are there any questions, any comments? If this is not the case then I would like to continue with open public consultations. As you may have seen there was an interim report on geographic regions by the review working group and we are asked for comments or input from EURALO. Let me suggest that we postpone this item at the end of today's agenda because it has an old point.
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Wolf Ludwig: Thanks a lot for the confirmation Heidi.
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Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And in fact if anyone wants to see what was presented at the time, there is also a Confluence page which points to the presentation which was given to us at the time explaining to us how the process was changing. A new draft strategic plan was published on the 27{^}th^ of November and I m doing this from memory but I think it's the correct date. And of course we then had the Cartagena meeting taking place right after that where we all met with \ And in fact if anyone wants to see what was presented at the time, there is also a Confluence page which points to the presentation which was given to us at the time explaining to us how the process was changing. A new draft strategic plan was published on the 27th of November and I m doing this from memory but I think it's the correct date. And of course we then had the Cartagena meeting taking place right after that where we all met with [inaudible00:10:51\] and his team. \\
And then we were given an amount of time until early January to make our comments. And unfortunately it's the time when most people are away on holiday. So one of the comments we have submitted specifically and it was submitted from the EURALO region was the fact that most people are on holiday around those times and so we definitely have to think or ICANN has to think carefully about when the comments period needs to take place.
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Wolf Ludwig: Okay thanks a lot for your elaborations Olivier. Are there any questions regarding the two points? I hear no questions therefore I guess that you are explications were sufficient and most of you, I think, got a copy of the final report which was sent out I think 10 days or a forte night ago. And my personal comment, my personal opinion, I think the ALAC statement on the strategic plan is quite a good one.
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Let me continue with our next and one of the main agenda items of today's call, it's Point 4, discussion on possible bylaw modifications. As you know, this is long story already. We started with this discussion months ago. It was a main part of our last general assembly in September in \ [Williams\] where we found some principle agreement on the necessity to modify our bylaws in some parts. \\
One of the essential parts was to include individual members into EURALO and there were two scenarios, two options worked out of the [Williams] meeting and you can see the link on the EURALO workspace explaining the options to include individual members in EURALO structure. There is an Option A formally created a new membership category for unaffiliated members. And there is a second Option B creates a new ALS within the current structure that serves as a home for unaffiliated members. Wiki Markup
And as I could see prior to the call there were comments left before already by Olivier who expressed his preference for Option B. A second one was expressed by Sebastian also favoring Option B. And the third one was my comment supporting the present comments on Option B.
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Uri: I think I agree with Christopher. It's not ideal but it's probably the easiest alternative at this stage.
Annetta Muehlberg: Yeah easier but doesn’t the NARALO work? I didn’t hear that they had any problems.
easiest alternative at this stage.
Annetta Muehlberg: Yeah easier but doesn’t the NARALO work? I didn’t hear that they had any problems.
Wolf Ludwig: Well one of the main reasons for what I understood why quite a majority of us is preferring Option B is for reasons of practicality. And as it has passed already in real news the impact of Option A would be a subsequent modification of the memorandum of understanding between ICANN and EURALO. And as we discussed in [Williams] already, to my memory Option A would be a kind of a more wishful ideal option but would incline a lot of additional extra work not only at submission to the general assembly and some [inaudible00:19:53] of two set majority vote. Wiki Markup
At the same moment we need to start the modification process of our MOO and there is quite a lot of work involved with what needs to be done in that case. And Option B is a more pragmatic approach but it's not an ideal solution for the moment but it could be an essential step forward already and it would be much more practical for us. And also it wouldn’t have all the workload involved what I mentioned before. So for a rather pragmatic reasons what I heard from most of you so far, the preference for the moment is on Option B.
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Wolf Ludwig: Okay thanks Sandra, Olivier?
Sandra, Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Wolf. Actually I [conduce] Sandra’s comment just now. If you look in the Option A, the fact that the unaffiliated individuals remain unaffiliated individuals still means that they have to select a representative for themselves. It says in there “Unaffiliated individuals will be responsible for selecting their representative to the GA. They will adopt a verifiable process to ensure that votes cast by the elected representative reflects the view held among their membership.” So it is pretty much the same sort of arrangement in fact, as having an ALS. Only that the ALS system makes sure that there are actually rules and boundaries and set rules as to how this process works. Wiki Markup
If you don’t have rules on how this process works I think the unaffiliated individuals would be even less likely to be able to coordinate their activities and select their representatives to the GA. My other concern in regards to Option A is that there - it opens the door to I'm not saying the competition but to this question as to why would an individual join an ALS to become involved in At-Large when they could actually just stay as an unaffiliated individual that might have more chance to be heard if they have a loud enough voice by being an unaffiliated individual.
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Wolf Ludwig: Okay thank you very much Olivier. If there are not additional comments at the moment let me summarize. I hear kind of an agreement on the preference of Option B and to concentrate our next efforts on improvement of the existing outline and to make presentable handout for the general assembly. Could this be the conclusion of the discussion so far?
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If I hear no objection then I take this as an agreement, as decision of today’s call for the minutes. And seeing some time I think we have to continue with the next point of agenda Item 4, review suggested modifications and it would be some modification on term limits of Board members and officers. What we also discussed in \ [Williams\] and this is quite urgent as you all know because we will have - we need to have elections on the EURALO officers in Belgrade at the end of May. \\
Does anybody have a look on this one? I still have a personal remark. As I told to Olivier and others before, I will restrict my attention on moderation role. As I will be personally concerned by bylaw modification like this I will not read any other personal opinion on this except the one I expressed so far under the comments. And I would like to hear your ideas on this. Has everybody seen the suggested options to change EURALO term limit. There is one Option A, no term limits at all.
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And we have this problem of number of seats already occupied by EURALO. At the same time I think we need some continuity and it could be interesting to have new people. But in fact we will have new people because even if at the end of the day we take this decision who will stay for set mandate is our Chair. And I think it's a very good then. Are we doing that just for Wolf? I don’t think so. I think we need to do that for all the Board members, the general and for the officer.
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And the \ [inaudible00:42:48\] will have the office for three terms, that means for Wolf a third term as a Chair. It's a good solution for now. And I think not because it is on the bylaws that we need to always have the same officer for three terms. But it will allow us to make that decision. And I will once again call this solution to have \ [inaudible00:43:23\] for both officer and that will leave open for the Board members, thank you very much.\\
Wolf Ludwig: Okay thanks Sebastian. Are there any other comments?
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Wolf Ludwig: So that means we wouldn’t do anything let's say exceptional if we would come up with this no term limit in our bylaws. It would be more or less in line with regulations of other RALOs.
with regulations of other RALOs.
Sebastian Bachollet: And if we add the question of the fact that we, as EURALO, we have not aligned mandates of Wiki Markup
Wolf Ludwig: Thank you Sebastian. I think we are more or less all aware that this is not a desirable solution if you have - if it would have capacities to easily fill leadership functions at EURALO if we would have more people on the list as they actually could use. This would be the most desirable situation I can imagine. But as a matter of fact, EURALO is still in a kind of a start up period and we still need some more consolidation.
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Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Wolf. I totally support that we would discuss this in Belgrade. One of the things of course is you're entirely right. EURALO is still in a startup mode somehow although we still have some ALSs. This whole thing of having term limits is great when you have plenty of people wishing to take the positions. But it puts a great pressure when there are not many people willing to take the positions.
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Is that temporarily the term limits get suspended and that they will revert back in the future setting a date two, three, four years or five years in the future so as to give a little bit more space until then. this is a mix between the two because then it wouldn’t need an actual vote again to revert back to having term limits because one of the concerns I always have about not having term limits is that you end up with people who will just clamp onto the seat.
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Annetta Muehlberg: I understand. Yeah Olivier, it sounds great.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, sure, sure.Wiki Markup
Wolf Ludwig: Okay so if I hear no objection, I take this as a decision of today's call also for the minutes that we will suggest this kind of a interim solution to the general assembly regarding the term limits. I just hear the clock in my back we are over time for today's call. Do we have another 10 or 15 minutes from all of you to go ahead with agenda Items 5, 6 and 7? I will try to be as precise as possible. I hear no objection. As we said in [inaudible00:52:58] already, there are some more parts in our bylaws who are not considered as being very useful. Wolf Ludwig: Okay so if I hear no objection, I take this as a decision of today's call also for the minutes that we will suggest this kind of a interim solution to the general assembly regarding the term limits. I just hear the clock in my back we are over time for today's call. Do we have another 10 or 15 minutes from all of you to go ahead with agenda Items 5, 6 and 7? I will try to be as precise as possible. I hear no objection. As we said in \[inaudible00:52:58\] already, there are some more parts in our bylaws who are not considered as being very useful. \\
Our bylaws are extremely long, they are extremely detailed, there are provisions in the bylaws who doesn’t fit to our actual practice over the last years. And therefore that was the suggestion to have an all over revision of our bylaws. This was also suggested by Sebastian, our comments were presented already by Sebastian. But my point is we are not so much in a hurry for other bylaw modifications. The most important ones we discussed today, the third one is to modify our bylaws to align them with ALAC representative elections.
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Wolf Ludwig: Okay so I take this as a mandate that we will submit this one of the next general assembly as well. That will mean we will have three main points of priority for bylaw modifications in Belgrade. These are the three points and we still have to consider modifying the rest of the bylaws. This is desirable but it is not very urgent at the moment let me say.
not very urgent at the moment let me say.
Sebastian Bachollet: I have just one point it's that I can support what you say but when you look now the Secretariat is Wiki Markup
Wolf Ludwig: Okay I take this as a motion that we have to continue with our bylaw revisions and we have to fix a kind of a timeframe that we do the rest of the modifications within one year. This would mean up to the subsequent general assembly after Belgrade. Would this be the way you are suggesting Sebastian?
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Ideally all the ALSs should be able to write their contributions directly in there but if they don’t I'd like to have one person to volunteer to be able to collect these and write those contributions inside the right boxes, thank you.
there but if they don’t I'd like to have one person to volunteer to be able to collect these and write those contributions inside the right boxes, thank you.
Wolf Ludwig: Okay thanks a lot Olivier. I think you have seen what was explained by Olivier so far and at the end of the document there is Wiki Markup
Matthias Langenegger: Yep.
Wolf Ludwig: Point 6 on today’s agenda is EURALO position on geographic region interim report. There was a working group at ICANN who was discussing over a longer period of time the rationale of ICANN’s regional model. And they came up with an interim report which was presented at the Cartagena meeting. I took part in this presentation and I think it was very interesting discussions there.
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And seen from a European point of view there are many aspects where the existing regional model doesn’t make a lot of sense to us. We had some cases where there were ALS applications from - well let's say what we may consider Eastern Europe but what is actually part of the Asia Pacific region ICANN. Countries like \ [inaudible01:08:46\]. We had another case earlier before where people from Armenia expressed interest to become a member at EURALO and where we had to say sorry it's nice that you are interested in EURALO but from a formalistic point of view in case of you would be part of the Asia Pacific region. \\
There are a lot of such curious points in the discussion and I don’t want to go into any details. If we want to formulate EURALO input we have to do this until the end of month. Therefore let me suggest that we create a task force with having a look on it and who is preparing a kind of preliminary input from our side. Is there anybody interested in assisting to formulate something?
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Sebastian Bachollet: I need to tell you that I am not really supposed to participate in those types of working groups anymore. And I was not able to be at the last one but I don’t think it's - it's not I don’t think - I am supposed not to be participating to something that maybe one day the Board will have act on. Then I would like to suggest marginally that we need some more EURALO people involved in those four working groups because it's an important part of the work of the At-Large for the future. And I really think that if we can find new people - it's a way also to find new people for future Board members of EURALO too.
too.
Wolf Ludwig: Okay thanks a lot Sebastian for his remark. I think it's a good idea to have a look at whether we can find some more people interested to join for example, Work Team B. There was a good suggestion made from the EURALO side in the Work Team B regarding empowerment and capacity building programs. And I will send around my list of EURALO list an announcement for the next capacity building programs from the Wiki Markup
But if something very specific what was suggested from our side in Work Team B so far. Are there any more questions on this point? Otherwise we will reconsider this one at our next call in February. Is there anybody from our representatives who want to say something or reason on upcoming activities of ALAC and EURALO members?
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