Page History

At-Large should update its Rules of Procedure to include a new procedure regarding the functioning and membership of the CoE.

Status:Accept in principle??

Comment: (Nice to acknowledge those who have contributed but no current appointments. Danger of having to induct all people leaving office even if not warranted. Do we need it?) Very low priority.

==

While the ALAC recognises the usefulness and purpose of this recommendation, the ALAC believes that the constraints around the membership of this Council, especially in relation to the rigid set of rules around how long a person could serve, how often they could travel, and the presumption that they would be endlessly available regardless of these rules, is (for some of the current “elders” around At-Large) rather laughable. 

**

In the entire history of the modern ALAC (after the Interim ALAC was appointed by the Board), there have been 65 RALO and NomCom appointed ALAC members and only five of them have served for more than two consecutive terms (and two of those only exceeded the two-term point after the last AGM). 

Taking this into account, term limits would not have had much impact in the past, and it is unclear if having such limits would have fixed problems, or created them. That being said, term limits may well be reasonable, but it is less clear that two terms is optimal. One RALO currently has a shorter limit, and others may feel that in critical times, the limit should be able to be overridden. 

**

Volunteer Turnover 

The Review Team received many comments alluding to a lack of volunteer turnover, stagnant leadership, and people “clinging to power”. There is no question that such perceptions exist in the community. 

Volunteer statistics tell a quite different story. They demonstrate that over the 14 years of the ALAC history, and the 10 years since the current ALAC plus RALOs have existed, there has been very abundant turnover. 

To repeat and expand on the statistics reported earlier in this document, over the life of the ALAC,

• 126 people served on the ALAC or RALO leadership 
• 20 people in ALAC Leadership positions 
• 7 ALAC Chairs 
• 41 people in RALO Leadership positions 
• 23 RALO Chairs (or equivalent) 

Table 4 shows all ALAC Members for the period 2007-2016 who were in office for each ICANN meeting. The cell contents show who appointed the Member (the Board for early members of the Interim ALAC, the NomCom or a RALO – Empty rows are for ALAC members whose terms ended prior to RALOs being created in 2006-7) 

It is clear that there is a regular progression of new ALAC members. The only RALOs with term limits for ALAC Members are LACRALO (1 term, 2 years) and NARALO (2 terms, 4 years), but it is clear that very relatively few ALAC member exceed stay beyond two terms. 

Table 5 combines service on the ALAC, as a RALO leader (Chair, Vice-Chair or Secretariat), Liaison to another AC/SO or service as a NomCom Delegate since the start of the Interim ALAC in 2003. This chart too shows a constant stream of new people entering into these leadership positions. Many stay just for a single terms, some for a more extended period, and a few for relatively long periods. Often, a person starts in a more junior role and progresses through other roles. This is exactly what one would hope for and expect. Those who have a great interest step into advanced roles, and some people stay around to ensure continuity and experience. In some years just a few new people come on board, and in others the number is quite large – twelve new people in leadership roles in 2014. 

Table 5 shows the distribution of how long people stay. Note that the specific meetings referred to in “Number of Meetings” are not necessarily contiguous. As can be seen in Table 4, some people serve for a while then come back into another leadership position some years later. 

There is a clear peak at two years. Rather than showing that many people stay far too long, this chart shows that a real problem is that too many people leave after two years. The entry for 7-9 meetings should be much higher. This sharp drop-off is symptomatic of the difficulty in really being an effective and contributing member of the community.