EURALO General Assembly
Summary Notes Wednesday 13 2012
Wolf Open the GA in the eve of Eurodig in Stockholm. We hoped that for next meeting EURALO would count with institutional funding.
Roll call
We have a guest Constantine from Moldavia, and hoping to have the first application from Moldavia.
Wolf mentioned the people participating in the GA.
Rudi had to cancel the Stockholm participation in person but we have him in the AC.
Apologies from Christopher. His ALS is present remotely through Erick.
Adoption of the Proposed Agenda
Adopted.
Adoption of Minutes from last 29 May GA.
It should be accepted, as they are very complete. Adopted.
Part B
Proposed Agenda Items
6. Discussions and Adoption of EURALO Board Report June 2011-2012
Wolf gave a short summary, asked all to take a look at the monthly updates in English and even in Russian.
ALAC Representation - Recap
We will know by the end of August who will be the newly At-Large selected representative.
3 EURALO Representatives in At - Large.
3. Initiatives: Highlights. Sandra came up with ICANN Academy proposal.
Having the curriculum. In 2 weeks there will be a discussion in Prague.
Recently selected ALAC members from our region, Yulia.
EURALO was one of the founding members of the EURODIG.
Board Report: Representation of EURALO in Eurodig was increased in the past few years.
Discussion should focus on point 4.
There are new ALS joining EURALO.
2 from Ukraine
One application from France, Austria, which makes a total of 31 ALS.
Regarding decertification, we should do something about this. In case of any by-law modification that we have at least 2 members.
We have a common goal: To have one ALS per country. It is challenging in Europe, Asia and Africa. This is a long-term goal.
Finding new members is a question of outreach, keeping them is a question of in reach.
In reach you cannot simply count on online participation, we have instruments at our disposal such as conference calls. We have to think and reflect on opportunities.
There is a gap between at large members level and ordinary members. The ordinary ALS.
These are the points I stressed in the Board Report.
Yrjo: We should make an effort to make institutions more interested in becoming ALS.
We have two main channels in EURALO. In Germany more of the ALS involved are mobilized in Internet issues.
There are options to reach out WIKI media chapters.
Wolf mentioned that Intellectual property would be one of the hot issues in the next years.
There are lots of barriers from the Private sector to abuse intellectual property to impede open access.
This is one of the hot topics in the next 2-3 years; this may mobilize new people from the younger generation. For example ACTA, which was not known a year ago, it came up, we had huge demonstrations in countries. These are the new social movements of the digital age. When we say we represent Internet users in the broader sense, we need to take into account. We do not need convincing the convinced.
This should be part of the game but it is not sufficient.
Being open includes including individuals, Wolf prepared the draft of the by - laws. This issue needs to be resolved.
EURALO Officers and Board - See report.
Approved funding for the GA 2013.
We are in the lucky position to prepare for next year, to have a face-to-face GA. We will do it as we did it last year.
Veronica from Moldova: Some questions:
1.- Long-term vision of EURALO in terms of quality/quantity
2.- Euralo should position itself as an entity.
3.-How often do we ask for feedback from ALS?
4.-How often ALS report to EURALO?
There should be a strategy, for those who are in place for EURALO can be even more valuable.
Wolf: How to attract new ones and keep the ones involved.
Wolf recalled the ALS Survey 2010.
Wolf: Design of the last survey was the wrong one.
Wolf asked to be smarter on the design of the survey. Any journalist learns this in the first 2 years.
Main problem is the lack of responsiveness.
We must extract from our priorities. Eurodig is not a priority in the daily lives of our members.
Problem with mailing list is that it is dated.
OCL: Problem faced by all regions. It is hard to keep up with all that is going on. Especially with regards to technical issues. It is important to promote the idea of the Working Groups, members do not need to read everything that has taken place.
OCL: There are beginners guides which have been written. He has a concern that even the first message will not go through.
The input has been very little as to what the ALS wish to know.
OCL: We have had 2 chances to see if face to face meetings have generated more involvement. This is something that its being understood by ICANN. It is a long process. The demands and requests for funding have to be made.
Avri: There is no need to meet face to face.
Without the bottom up interest nothing is going to happen.
Yro: There are too many issues in ICANN, we are trying to do too much.
Let's invent a mechanism for remote participation. Remote conferencing.
There are other types of communities: Wikipedia, Wikimedia, they are different in socialization. You have the immigrants and native, and native are more used to online.
OCL: People having a similar view on things. The problem we are faced with is one when we encourage diversity it is hard to integrate people with different background, they are not all techs, or not lawyers. Problem: Communications. Speaking on the phone is difficult. Interaction outside the meeting space is highly beneficial. OCL hopes that the slope will not be a deep one. OCL suggested smaller working groups face to face.
ICANN meetings help people understand the meetings and what goes on, the effect of people going to ICANN meetings makes them believe they can make a difference.
ERIC TOMSON: Official statement from my ALS : in general, everyone's participation in EURALO has not been passive ; with ISOC-ECC, EURID, etc. it is sometimes difficult to make additional time ; within the limits of At Large influence over ICANN, EURALO and ALAC seem to be doing the best job available. So we support Olivier, Wolf, Oksana, et al.
ERIC TOMSON: Personal statement : nothing replaces face-to-face meetings. I wouldn't imagine a world where people NEVER meet personally.
Veronica: Working Groups: Diversity comes with a set of different values which makes things complicated but also very interesting.
There will be more opportunities for remote participation.
Briefing on 10 year ALAC Anniversary.
OCL briefly mentioned the Anniversary event.
AI : Next GA will be organized in a different way.
AI: Start discussion on possibility to create Working groups.
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