((Draft))
EURALO Board report
for the period October 2010 to May 2011
1. Regular activities
Since our last General Assembly (GA) in September 2010 in Vilnius/Lithuania the records of our regular activities on the basis of our monthly calls can be seen on EURALO’s Workspace
EURALO Secretariat Monthly Report
Therefore, we would like to concentrate this Board report on some highlights and special achievements during the reporting period.
2. ALAC voting Board Director
It was a historical moment for ICANN’s At-Large community when the ICANN Board decided in September 2009 to create a voting Board Seat (15) for the representation of the user community. In the following months, a thorough selection process and procedure was started for this voting. EURALO decided from the very beginning to conduct a consultation among its members to allow the Chair, who was part of the electorate, a directed vote based on the majority will of his community. This EURALO consultation process took place in the month of October to November 2010 and we needed two voting rounds to come up with conflicting preferences on the final candidates. This bottom-up consultation was not only marked by considerable time pressure but proofed an impressive mobilisation of our community – when finally 24 out of 27 member ALSes participated in the 2nd round. EURALO showed an outstanding capacity for its In-reach at particular moments when it is needed. And at the final ALAC voting round, it was the candidate from our region, Sébastien Bachollet, who was elected as the first ICANN voting Board Director from the At-Large Community.
3. ALAC representation
By the end of last year, EURALO had to nominate and elect some new ALAC representatives. Sandra Hoferichter, representing Medienstadt Leipzig, was nominated and elected at our last GA in Vilnius. Our acting member Patrick Vande Walle had to step down during his term for professional reasons. At this opportunity, the Board would like to thank Patrick for the excellent work he provided during his ALAC tenure. To finalise Patrick’s term, the Board decided to nominate Olivier Crepin-Leblond as the second (community selected) regional ALAC representative who was approved in line with the ICANN meeting in December in Cartagena. And at the end of this meeting, Olivier was elected as the new ALAC Chair replacing Cheryl Langdon-Orr at the end of her tenure. In Cartagena, the NomCom selected Jean-Jacques Subrenat, an out-going ICANN Board Director, as successor for Adam Peake who became the new Chair of the NomCom (following Wolfgang Kleinwächter in this function). Yrjö Länsipuro from ISOC Finland is representing EURALO in the NomCom.
The Board would like to express its gratitude to Sébastien and Adam, the out-going ALAC members. as well. With Lutz Donnerhacke and Rudi Vansnick EURALO was well represented in topical WGs and Liaison positions. At this point, we can state without exaggeration that our region is strongly represented in the A-Large community and at ICANN as well and EURALO gained more reputation over the last years.
4. EURALO at EuroDIG
EURALO members were among the founding members of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) and contributed considerably to the first events (Strasbourg 2008, Geneva 2009 and Madrid 2010) and to the success of this project. Sandra Hoferichter, who is assuming the Secretariat function at EuroDIG, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Annette Mühlberg, Olivier Crepin-Leblond and Wolf Ludwig are among the regular Core team members and are closely involved in the preparation of the upcoming 4th EuroDIG end of May in Belgrade. To consolidate the organisation structure and functioning of EuroDIG, EURALO was suggested to become one of the “carrier organisations” of this project, representing European civil society besides the other stakeholders. The concept of this enhanced EURALO involvement at EuroDIG will be discussed and has to be approved at the GA in Belgrade.
5. Out-reach and In-reach
Our activities around the EuroDIG were among the best opportunities to constantly improve our outreach in the European region. And several EURALO members were present at national IGFs, the ICANN Studienkreis meetings (the last one end of April in Budapest), CoE conferences and other relevant or related events.
Up to now, we are still far away from achieving our ambitious goal to have “one ALS / member organisation per European country” and it’s still difficult to attract and encourage civil society organisations to become members. Over the last months, we had the pleasure to get two new applications from the Ukrainian Internet Association and the European Media Platform/Ukraine what improves our representation in the Eastern part. The two applications have been submitted for regional advice to the EURALO list and no objections were raised. We believe that the two new members can be approved and certified at the upcoming ALAC meeting to welcome them at our GA in Belgrade.
To improve our regional outreach and inreach – the communication, participation and involvement with/of our members – is a continuing major challenge for EURALO. And we would like to invite our members for any support in this direction because this is not a sole task of the Board.
6. Bylaw modifications
Since the early days of EURALO, we discussed the inclusion and participation of individual members at our RALO. Individual members actively participated at the EURALO Board over the last years but had no voting rights so far. At our last GAs (Paris 2008, Mexico-City 2009 and Vilnius 2010) there was a strong general approval for respective Bylaw modifications and the EURALO Board was commissioned to suggest and prepare adequate modalities for it. Since last autumn in Vilnius, we discussed several options at our monthly calls and found support for a pragmatic approach which is feasible via Option B. At EURALO’s monthly call from January 2011 it was decided to prefer Option B and to submit this as a „starting solution“ to our GA in May 2011 in Belgrade.
When our Bylaws were designed for the start of EURALO, we had good reasons to limit the tenure of the EURALO leadership on two consecutive terms. As our personnel capacities are still rather limited – and the acting Chair will conclude his second term – some members suggested a prolongation option as an interim solution (third term or exception regulation for four years only). In principle, there should be certain limits to the tenure of Board members and Officers as long as they do not restrain the functioning of EURALO.
According to our Bylaws, we need a majority of two-third of our membership for Bylaw modifications (para 11.18). To achieve this quorum, a Online voting tool was circulated on the mailing list to obtain a broad approval for the suggested modifications. At the moments when this report was drafted, the final results of this voting was not confirmed (needs to be up-dated).
7. EURALO officers and Board
As stated before (point 6, para 2), the acting Chair will conclude his second term at the Belgrade GA. A continuation of his mandate / prolongation of his term is due to the approval of the respective (interim) Bylaw modification what is merely based on considerations to provide a frictionless functioning of the association.
When Dessie Greve stepped down from her Secretariat function for family reasons, Olivier Crepin-Leblond took over the mandate until the end of term (Belgrade GA). Over the last months and since Olivier was elected to the ALAC Chair, he assumed this function in an outstanding double burden to his best as well. The Board would like to express his gratitude and appreciation for the excellent work and services Olivier has provided during his Secretariat term. In Belgrade, we need to elect a succession for this important function.
A call for nominations for EURALO Officers and Board members was started prior to the Belgrade GA and – reflecting the voting results of the Bylaw modifications – these functions will be re-elected at the upcoming GA.
We all hope that the subsequent EURALO GA can be organised in a really inclusive way as a all community F2F meeting in line with the next ICANN meeting 2012 in Europe.
Neuchâtel, May 2011.
For the EURALO Board
