John Laprise

(Eligible for re-appointment)

John Laprise

Two years ago, you elected me as ALAC representative and I’m honored to have your trust. Since then, I’ve tried to live up to your expectations and those of end users in North America.  Much of my work on the ALAC these days is diplomatic. I listen a lot to other constituencies but mostly I listen to you. I try to reflect your interests and concerns in online and face to face discussions and impact the direction of ALAC decisions so that they reflect all of us in North America. My peers on the ALAC seem to think I’ve been doing a very good job. Since you elected me, the ALAC has handed me increasingly more demanding responsibilities. At the last ICANN meeting, I was vice chair for policy. Working together with Jonathan Zuck, we implemented several things that made At Large sessions more accessible and policy focused including dispensing with generic session names and adopting more detailed descriptions so participants can more easily find sessions in which they’re interested. We also issued public statements on behalf of At Large in the open forum sessions to communicate to the Board, ICANN, and other SOs and ACs what At Large was concerned with. Another part of my work as vice chair is diplomacy. Our chair, Maureen Hilliard is very busy. As vice chair I found that my breaks between meetings (and increasingly my email box) filled with people wanting to communicate and build relationships with the ALAC and At Large including NPOC, NCUC, GNSO, and all manner of subgroups. This often gives me the opportunity to provide NARALO and the NARALO secretariat with the best information about what is going on in the community.

The ALAC learning curve is steep but I have surmounted it and hit my stride. I am honored to have your trust and confidence. Please vote to re-elect me so that I can continue the work I have started making ALAC more transparent and accessible to NARALO and At Large while representing your interests faithfully and with distinction.

Sincerely,

John Laprise

Glenn McKnight

(Eligible for re-appointment)

I am excited and welcome the opportunity to work collaboratively with the NARALO Chair and community to serve and support as the NARALO Secretary. As a first timer in this position, I believe that I bring a fresh valuable perspective to the team.  Additionally, my experience as an active NARALO Primary Chapter (SFBay Area ISOC) representative provides a strong foundation and knowledge to help enhance the organization’s focus on policy development, outreach and growing the effectiveness of this community.

It has been a great honor to be the representative for NARALO & ALAC North America on the 2018-2019 ICANN Nominating Committee (NomCom).  Serving on the NomCom as the ALAC North America delegate has continued to expand my involvement in the ICANN community that will support NARALO’s cross-community endeavors.  I have taken the opportunity while on the NomCom to serve on several sub-committees and Co-Chair of the Outreach Sub-Committee with the goal of supporting NomCom’s efforts.  It is this professionalism, team-work and commitment that I bring to the NARALO Secretary position if elected. 

My NomCom commitment ends in September after the ICANN AGM opening time for me to serve effectively in this position.

I thank you for your consideration.

My decision to run for the Secretariat Position again is to continue the work that I had started in in my previous term where I grew attendance at RALO meetings from 15-30 people. I had a very close working relationship with the current NARALO Chair and the past one when I was Secretariat and if elected, I am sure this will continue to be the case. I have worked closely with Eduardo, the NARALO Chair at NASIG, and at ATLAS 2 and other committees. I would like to continue to engage with the ALSes and to get many more people within each ALS to be active either on policy issues, contribute to working groups or other means of remaining active. I would like to reach out to each of the ALS representatives and see how I can get them involved with NARALO besides just coming to NARALO Meetings. I plan on reaching out to the ALS and individual members and finding out from them what they would like to work on or what the NARALO Leadership can help with. This would expand on the smaller working groups that Eduardo created and work to get each of the ALSes engaged. In this vein, I have been working with Glenn McKnight and Alfredo Calderon in the Outreach and Engagement working group to both figure out how to increase the knowledge of NARALO Members but also to help design a policy workshop showing others how to write and develop policy, whether it is governance policy or development policy. If we can get more people to help write either ALAC advice, provide community input, advice or comments, we can show how easy it is to write and tor contribute to policy statements. This should get more people engaged and contributing to policy advice. In the past year, I have been the pen holder for several ALAC Policy statements and have also submitted several individual statements. I have worked hard to build consensus among At Large Members on certain issues so that we could speak with one voice in the ALAC policy comments.  

NARALO has its challenges and under my past leadership we developed a clear vision and strategy to mobilize our membership to get involved with NARALO activities. We also cleaned up the bylaws and worked to makes them more flexible. Also, under my past leadership, we redesigned our outreach material and created a simple catchy mail card instead of a detailed brochure, as these are more effective in catching people’s attention. We were the only RALO to do this. We seek to engage people and promote ICANN and NARALO to areas of the country where we have no ALSes and to communities that are not aware of At Large, such as rural and remote communities, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, non-profits working on consumers issues. We have created intake forms so we can follow up on leads and we are working hard on planning the next NASIG which will be in Montreal in late October, early November. We are always looking to help expand the knowledge and engagement of all NARALO Members not just on NARALO calls but also on other At Large working groups, Cross Community groups, Workstreams, and GNSO PDPs.

I am passionate about working and engaging all end users specifically those from unrepresentative areas of North America. I believe strongly in having an open and transparent process that respects the opinions of all our members. It is only by having an open process that people can have trust that their representative will work for them and for what they believe. In this vein, I would like to resume the process of having all NARALO Members view and comment on new member applications.  I find that helps others get to know who the new members are and make them feel part of the decision making process. I will seek consensus opinion and get more of our ALSes involved in different working groups.

In closing, I believe I provide leadership, organizational skills, attention to detail and experience that is an essential combination for the Secretariat position. I ask for your vote so that I can bring my expertise to the NARALO leadership team. Here is the link to my SOI Judith Hellerstein SOI, which lists the number of working groups committees, Cross Community Groups that I am active on and was appointed to by ALAC during my time at ICANN. I hope you will support my candidacy and look forward to your support.