Cheryl Langdon-Or: This is the At-Large Implementations Task Force Call for the 19 December. And if I could just get an attendance and apologies please?
Gisella Gruber: On today's call we have Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Tijani Ben Jemaa, Nathalie Enciso, Yrjo Lansipuro, and Dev Anand Teelucksingh. We have apologies from Danish Kumar, Sergio Salinas Porto, and absent on the call are Sara, Dave Kissoondoyal and Darlene Thompson. From Staff we have Heidi Ulrich, Silvia Vivanco, Matt Ashtiani, Seth Greene, Natalie Peregrine and myself Gisella Gruber. If I could also just remind you to state your names when speaking for transcript purposes, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you Gisella. Just a couple of questions on the attendance believe it or not, Dave Kissoondoyal isn’t, unless he has replaced Titi without me knowing it. I didn’t think he was a member of this task force. And the second question was, I believe in our last meeting Olivier approached Beau to replace [inaudible 00:01:27].
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, you are correct on both counts. One of the AFRALO members is Titi who has sent her apologies for the next week or so, she will be traveling. Dave Kissoondoyal is an observer, not a member. And yes Kinesh is also a member and Beau accepted the invitation to become - sorry Kinesh is an observer and Beau accepted the invitation to become a member.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, fine, I was just concerned we don’t mix our apples and oranges up. I am delighted to have all observers listed as attendees. But I'm particularly keen to watch the actual attendance of the members because it's a region or ALAC rep from a geographic region has not been in any number of meetings in a row then it might mean they need to ensure that their Wiki work is up to date. We just need to watch the members as well as how frequently they are able to attend calls. Let's work on other mechanisms. There are of course many mechanisms to work from and we can discuss some of those a little later. Thank you for that, with that we will now move to the exciting summary minutes which were concise to say the least, but I like concise minutes. If you follow your link to the summary minutes you will see what we discussed last week. And in fact, we've also, to some extent, got those items reviewed in the agenda today. Are there any questions on the summary minutes or modifications or changes anyone wishes to make? If not we will move on to the action items which were equally short but more importantly very few of them open and all of the ones that are in progress are in progress. There are a couple of open action items which I believe have all been closed. But perhaps Heidi you can assure me - I know the second one has been done, the Doodle. But I assume the transcript has not been put up on the 12 December yet, based on availability or has that happened since I lasted looked?
Heidi Ulrich: It is based on availability and I don’t believe they're ready. But yeah it's not on the page, it takes some time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep, now when I last looked it wasn’t. But I can't say I spend my life looking, so I just thought I would double check if it happened. That will just have to be a work in progress. But certainly the Doodle has gone out and we have that scheduled for discussion a little later. In terms of the in progress action items from the 12 December, we have issue on the calendars and we also have some draft text that I would like Dev to speak to that he did put out to the email list. I know I gave some feedback but there may be more feedback on that draft text that we can go through today before we get into the normal activities in the meeting. We will take that as a follow on action. And the others are all pending because they have January and February dates. I think with the exception of the last point we can skip over all of them except the last point which I believe Dev you’ve also started to think about a first meeting to chat with your assistants, your comrades in arms, on the collaboration tool. I keep calling it a tool kit but I'm sure you will come up with a better word. I think technology work space was the one we used in the minutes. We probably should see if you wanted to stick to that as well. Let’s take the last one first, Dev did you want to try and organize a pre-February meeting with your people or your assistants or do you just want to leave it work with you and Sylvia?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Thank you Cheryl. I was thinking perhaps once [inaudible 00:06:20] but I'm also amenable to just letting me try to work on the mailing list and just try to start writing something up because I haven’t had that much time to think what exactly is the content that should go in the technology work space. But I can tell you right now, today is not a good day for me to try to figure that out, with the georegions report coming in the next few hours. But how about is it possible?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm wondering if you're not pushing it a little too hard at this point. If you want to do some drafting and [inaudible 00:07:11] with Sylvia in terms of content and Wiki at your leisure, I think that's very good idea. But I see the distinct possible of you getting in everyone's diary between now and the return of the early new year is pretty small. Perhaps you should cut yourself a little bit of slack.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Very well, I can work on it over the holiday and yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What an excellent suggestion, I wholeheartedly support that.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Okay, not a problem.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I suspect all those who are going to help you support it as well. Does anyone object to this staying on the ‘to-do’ list until early in 2012, and I do mean early in 2012.
Heidi Ulrich: Cheryl can I just read the action item as I captured it. Dev to draft some text on the contents on the technology work space and distribute it on the task force mailing list for review over the holidays. Is that okay?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Sounds like a plan.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And very good. If anyone has any holiday, it's very unlikely of course. But we will see how we go on that. Dev while you’ve got yourself reorganizing your life, you’ve put some text out and I've made a couple of suggestions for the calendar text, do you wish to discuss this now or do you also want to try and leave a little bit more time for people to give feedback on the mailing list?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Regarding the calendar text which I've posted in the link in the chat, I see your comments and I also see Tijani has also made some comments on it. [Inaudible 00:09:11] to analyze it to any great extent, I'm sorry to say. I will look at it during the week and produce a second version to try and take your comments into account.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent, okay is there any discussion on any of the action items from 12 December, which is what we’re discussing now. We haven’t managed to close any of other than the Doodle but there is nothing wrong with that. Not seeing any requests for discussion so let's move on to the next part of the agenda which is getting into the next stage of our ALAC 4.2 and 4.2.1 and 3and 6. It's a little bit of a mixed bag with this recommendation 4, so in my notes to the agenda, I tended to refer to line items. We will be continuing our discussion on assignment of status. But we will be doing this from what is effectively the part of the 4.2.3. Now if we have a look in the Adobe Connect it's the one that starts with “Make available to each ALS a Confluence page for two-way communication.” And you will notice next to it is completed as is the one below completed which is “Make available to each ALS, for the use of each ALS, an Adobe Connect room for meetings, etc.” And there are two examples there for each of those line items both from the AFRALO region. And whilst they're listed as completed, I think we might need to spend a moment or two thinking and talking about them because I would like to ask Tijani how much use have you seen in your region being made of these tools? I think they're important tools but I suspect they're underutilized. So the task force may need to consider some implementables to try and encourage use. It might need training, it might need in servicing, it might need all those things. If I could call on Tijani to give us a little bit of feedback on that, thank you.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you, so the use is very low. There is not a real use of those tools. Except for the AFRALO activities [inaudible 00:12:04] when we did the [inaudible 00:12:09] we set up a working group and we did a lot of [inaudible 00:12:14] and we used the Adobe Connect that is [inaudible 00:12:18]. Also for the confluence page on each ALS I don’t that it is used at all. I think it is a little bit too involvement of the ALSs in the ICANN work. I am hoping that in the future after Dakar there will be more of those [inaudible 00:12:44] and we are already [inaudible 00:12:45] for the last call we had more attendees. [Inaudible 00:12:52] last call I used. [Inaudible 00:12:56] but we hope that people can grow and use it. I am preparing an election plan for the next year in which I will include all activities that make people more involved. For example, [inaudible 00:13:13] in Dakar.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay thank you Tijani. I have returned. I trust that Tijani was able to be heard and I think when I left that he was indicating that there was a rather low usage of both the ALS Confluence pages and the Adobe Connect room, is that the case?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: That’s the case, you are right.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay so how do we fix this team, a perfectly good tool and people are not using them, why?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I told you that it is related to the involvement of the ALSs in the ICANN work. And I told you that after Dakar we noticed a little bit of improvement in involvement but I am preparing for next year a lot of programs of capacity building, online [inaudible 00:14:21] and [inaudible 00:14:22] to make the material given in Dakar better [inaudible 00:14:32] and better understood. And I think that when people understand better with that they will be more involved and then they will use those tools to be involved and work in the ICANN.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, alright, Dev I'm remembering discussions that some of the work teams had about the need for both push and pull of information and of course it was the intention that an ALS-dedicated Confluence page may aid in this. Is there any feeling from you? I know you're quite speciferous on this or from LACRALO?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Yes, thanks Cheryl. I guess the question that comes to mind is that I believe although it was formally made available perhaps most ALSs are not clear with what - were not clear as to how they could use the Confluence page. And I guess this raises the key question, the question being when we say we make available - sorry not just Confluence but to the Adobe Connect room, sorry. The question I want to ask is does the use of the Adobe Connect room include the Adigo bridge for calling out to have the meeting? I don’t know if At-Large staff can confirm this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well Cheryl can interact into that just before staff does. At the time when this was being discussed by the work teams we had not had particular experience which we have now of using the Adobe Connect room as a phone bridge. That's worked very successfully in a number of other work groups, the BSSA Cross Community Working Group and the CCNSO and GAC SOI Working Groups, now use that as a matter of normalcy. And you would get not only the preventer but also usually between three and five participants not using a phone bridge at all but exclusively using the Adobe Connect by computer.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: When we put this forward, no it wasn’t although we knew theoretically it could be, but now it has been tested and Natalia has all the skill sets to do this, perhaps we could make that more of a valuated proposition, but I will let Heidi respond if there is an issue I'm unaware of there.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Great, that will have a follow up.
Heidi Ulrich: Great, thank you, no the Adobe Connect room doesn’t include the Adigo Bridge but as Cheryl mentioned it could of course always include the communication that the Adobe Connect has.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Okay so once - sorry thanks Heidi. So if I understand what Cheryl and Heidi are saying one person has the mic like I can speak and everybody in the Adobe Connect room can hear them through their regular computer speakers.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I tell you what we will do, let's set up our next call to run this way.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Alright.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We as a group, will experiment with this facility until the next call. Some of you can still choose to use a telephone bridge if you want to. I've been known to use both in one call. But in advance of the next call, we will send out instructions to the mailing list and we can all experience this. The reason I found it particularly exciting and why I think it would be useful for some of the regions and certainly some of the ALSs is that it seems to be working quite robustly with people's iPads, so they're quite literally in their office running off their iPad without interfering with their normal business telecommunication requirements. And we've also found that it's working quite successfully in a number of countries which have had notoriously bad telephone connections. Some of the very difficult places to get in and out of in Europe we've had better success with people dialing in using the computer rather than the phone bridge. It might be worthwhile doing an experiment if that’s everyone's wish? Would you like us to do that?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Well I wouldn’t mind trying that yes and seeing how it worked, I am up for that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alright that’s how we will set it up for the next time. What that still leaves us with is I think some apparent need that whilst we've made these two things available, the Confluence page and the ALSs, I suspect there is both an awareness and usage training requirement. There may be a number of ALSs, in fact, I would suggest in some regions there may be many ALSs who don’t even know they have their own confluence page, let alone what they can do with it. And of course the use of the Adobe Connect would be another level up again. I cannot see your hand up, I apologize, go ahead Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay thank you. I would like to say that in Dakar we [inaudible 00:20:49] and the Adobe Connect and we [inaudible 00:20:59] the facility is not [inaudible 00:21:01] and that we are not sure we can use it. If now the facility has improved, and we can use it please advise us because it is the best way [inaudible 00:21:13] because [inaudible 00:21:15] the communication network is not the best. They are usually no good and if we can make use of this with the phone bridge it would be perfect. We would have perfect [inaudible 00:21:30] and for our own [inaudible 00:21:33] a part of the monthly teleconference we can decide on any [inaudible 00:21:39] because we are not related [inaudible 00:21:43], so please if it is available now, or if it will be available please tell us.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well I believe that is the case and let's run the experiment with our own meeting next time we gather. And we will also need to work with them here, I think it will be a job for Heidi and Olivier and perhaps myself at this stage to set some working requirements ground rules who has log ins and how the sessions are set up. And I think Heidi if it's possible for Natalie to be in the planning meetings of the task force this week, that would be most useful.
Heidi Ulrich: Okay, so noted.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because she has been running these setups for the DSSA call and I believe the FOI work group calls as well. That’s something we will all do. And what we will do in advance is send out the very brief and simple instructions on how one joins and what protocols are required. For example, it is possible to have a little bit of feedback if you don’t mute your speakers when you are not speaking and things like that. But they should be easy enough to set up for people and perhaps AFRALO could be the first region to test it for their regional meeting. Whilst they are listed as completed here in the ‘Make Available’ category, I believe where we are headed in this conversation so far and I haven’t heard Olivier join the call but I have seen him include himself in the Adobe Connect room -
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: I am here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, welcome.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Sorry for the late arrival.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We will forgive you. I think what we might do is do some follow up work on this because this is a very important part of enabling the ALSs to be better engaged in the policy development program. Whilst those are completed as such, we've now got a little subsection and this needs to be an AI on us all then to ensure that the outreach to the regions and ALSs undoubtedly working with Silvia and the regional leads needs to be done. And we probably need to create a little bit of package and training material here that we can test it out and develop it at our next call. Moving on then to the next item for our review which is request that selected At-Large members be funded to attend non ICANN meetings, gee fancy that, what an amazing idea that would be. The list here include IGS consumer electronics show, etc. here is says that the ALAC has made its request for FY ’11 and ’12 and every other time it's had the opportunity I would suggest Olivier. this is one that I'm not sure how we can shift from in progress until we have a very different attitude and change from how things are budgeted for. But we do have to progress it so how shall we try and progress it I wonder. Let's open this one up for conversation. I suspect Tijani who has fought this argument long and hard for over several years now would like to speak to this, go ahead Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, Cheryl, [inaudible 00:25:52] I feel the [inaudible 00:25:57] because the next IGS [inaudible 00:26:03] the request. I think it's very important for ALAC or At-Large to be present in those forums. It is very good for ICANN because it shows that ICANN is not [inaudible 00:26:19] the community and users and they are [inaudible 00:26:29] activity and very important activity and [inaudible 00:26:34]. I think it is a very important thing and we need to be to [inaudible 00:26:38] for it and to have to - I think it is very good for us and for ICANN.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, indeed I think most of us would agree with that. I just want to ask both Yrjo and Natalia to think about their regional approaches. Certainly there is going to be more and more within country or within regional local internet governance forums. But there are many opportunities and activities and gatherings of ideal groups for At-Large and indeed ICANN through At-Large to be promoting itself in our regions and I know that happens extensively in Europe but also in Latin America. Are there any additional things either of you want to bring to the table, for example, how we might be able to work smarter in doing this so we’re not competing one region against another?
Yrjo Lansipuro: Yes, of course there is for instance EuroDIG in Europe which is becoming pretty important regionally, but I think that generally I understood that when Tijani was saying that it would be good for ICANN to have more people who care about ICANN at these meetings in general where it's idea or Adigo or whatever because I think that it is ICANN’s benefit to strengthen the role of these [inaudible 00:28:41] as opposed to all those suggestions that the intergovernmental organization should take over internet governance.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed, Natalia any comments from the Latin American and Caribbean perspective?
Nathalie Enciso: Hello thank you. Yes sorry but I am a little lost because I can rarely hear you. But I think you're talking about the participation in the ICANN meeting. well I want to share with you last year Fatimata and I were selected for [inaudible 00:29:40] regional IGS meeting and Fatimata has asked ICANN for a [inaudible 00:29:47] not for the travel but for putting something like a booth in the meeting to promote LACRALO and ICANN and we didn’t get the funds, so that would be useful for future meetings.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. How do we progress this when there is clearly a very difficult hurdle which is, we are the rather unique part of ICANN which is not self- funding our activities, because there is no commercial or in otherwise required, as we would if we were government representatives to be in these meetings. How do we progress this to the next step? Olivier, have you any thoughts on this? Magically as you raise your hand, go ahead sir.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thanks very much Cheryl. It is interesting because this is a case of ICAAN often wanting to have its cake and eating it at the same time. For example, at the new gTLD, launch process, there have been many different events taking place around the world and only members of ICANN staff and members of the board, select board members actually, have been funded and invited to go over to these meetings, whether they were actually organized by ICANN or whether they were organized by a third party or organization. There have been some cases where some of our at large structures have held some local meetings regarding the new gTLD launch, for example, recently, and Tijani can vouch for this, having organized such an event over in Tunisia. But, it has been always a case of maybe selective bad hearing, shall we say, or selective, well, anyway, it has been a case that we have never been able to have our members funded to go to a third party meeting, and certainly many of our regional at-large organizations feel very strongly that this would be very beneficial, not only to at-large, but to ICANN as a whole. Frankly, I think it might take awhile to change the notions of the fact that we are an asset, we as in the at-large community, is an asset to ICANN. I don’t have an answer like this, a magical answer for this, unfortunately. But, we are trying our best and perhaps by repeating the same message again and again, at some point it will come through. It will be interesting to see once the new gTLD’s are launched, whether there will be more funding possible of such activities, and I do note that the last round of funding, when we asked in financial year 12, the answer was not a case of “no, we don’t fund this sort of thing.” The answer was “at this moment, we are not able to fund it,” so it is something which is likely to be looked at in the future again by the ICANN finance themselves. That is my believe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. This one ties very closely with the following one which of course is the specific item about the [inaudible 33.43] program and outreach approach which you just mentioned Olivier. I wonder if the task force sees that while these are in progress and long-term energy programs, perhaps this is one that we really should just leave to the finance and budget sub-committee of the ALAC, that it is going to be almost the very reason to be in for the foreseeable future, to include this in part of their annual and regular pleadings with ICANN. What is your reaction to that group?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Cheryl, my hand is still up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thank you.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: I think that would probably be the right action to pursue. This group could write a formal email so as to put it on record, to the finance and budget sub-committee, the at-large finance and budget sub-committee, so as for that sub-committee to be able to take this up and then transmit it in the next round of budget proposals and to make our point that this is something that is actually part of our at-large improvements, and it actually is inscribed in our DNA and not just a wish that individual members might wish to pursue. Certainly, request that the ALAC be invited and funded to participate in all outreach programs launched by ICANN. Well, the ALAC was invited to participate using their members own money, and I certainly do not think that it is right for ICANN to benefit from volunteers funding their way for the soul reason of actually participating in the outreach program. It is my personal feeling, but I have a feeling that it might be echoed by others in our community. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I suspect that [inaudible 36.06] Olivier, that it would be something that most people may feel uncomfortable with, that if there is any form of benefit for the at large community, most of us will do a great deal to make sure that that happens even if it is in a totally volunteer capacity. When we are talking specifically with things like the new gTLD program which is a business case by we might have very, very different views as you outlined.
So with these two particular points, the requirement is going to be for us to look to creating some texts between now and the next meeting. I would suggest that this text be organized by just two or three others and that we then take that back to the wider group for some word-snipping between now and the next meeting, but certainly to be discussed more fully at the next meeting, and this would be specific advice on implementation activities that the ALAC needs to take via its standing sub-committees, which of course as a result of the improvements and review that we have done, has already changed its make up of it as the budget and finance committee, which was up until late last year, always just five original reps from the ALAC. It is now five original reps from the ALAC and the original representatives directly from the regions. So, I think we have got that change in place, we may as well give them some specific tasks. I would think Olivier, that you would be an essential part of that drafting team because it has to be palatable to your ALAC of course. I’d be happy to also speak to you, but we do have other members of the budget and finance committee in this particular task force. Would anyone like to volunteer to assist on the drafting of this particular part of our work? I have to scan up and down to see if anyone is putting their hands up, and nobody is jumping forward, saying, “me, me, me.” Nathalie, I would think that it would be an ideal opportunity for you to flex your [inaudible 38.57, wounds?] nd start engaging in some drafting with us, so I am going to talk you into that group from Latin American. So we have Europe, Asia, Latin America, who would you suggest from an African perspective? Olivier, do you want to ask [inaudible 39.23, CT, TT???] to do it because she hasn’t been able to come to the meetings, perhaps she can collaborate via a list or on the Wiki with the text.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl. Unfortunately, I have received a standing apology from [inaudible, 39.44 same name as above] until the end of the month, so I am not quite sure how soon this letter is to be drafted, but if we want to have things moving before the end of the month, [inaudible 39.53, same name as above] will unfortunately be unavailable due to traveling in the Hinterland of Nigeria, where there is very little connectivity whether it is by email or by mobile phone.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, Olivier, when are you having your finance and budget sub- committee time for putting in their next slot of planning? That is a critical time for this, not necessarily next month. When is that happening?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you Cheryl. Actually, we are going to have a first call later on this week, but we will then also have a call in early January. That said, I would like to get things done, or get things moving as soon as possible because I think, and I am just doing this from memory, I have not managed to refresh my memory the past few days on budget and finance, but we have until the end of January, early February to complete the process of placing or pushing forward with out of budget additional items, which we usually have. So, it is an early process and we would need to have this letter as a result as soon as possible. Hopefully, by the beginning of January.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Olivier, the deadline is 20 of January, so you need to work very fast.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you Tijani for this precision. 20th, yes. So, it is an early process, so we would need to receive that letter way before that time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Without wishing to thin populate the [inaudible 41.52] by already existing members of the budget and finance sub-committee, it does look like that might be the case. Tijani, would you be willing, with all the words you have written on this anyway as of the last couple of years, could you assist with the drafting?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I must apologize, sorry, I have a lot of things to do and I don’t want to be, how do you say, [inaudible 42.24] and don’t do the job.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s not a problem. Okay. Well, it is going to be a very small group unless Olivier decides to call up someone else and I will leave that up to him. Alright, let’s move on then to the next. Scrolling down now to our next item which again is going to be one that has some financial or resource manifestations, and that is the following: To invite potential at- large members from countries currently without an ALAC, to a series of outreach teleconferences, aimed at reaching the goal of having at least one alias in every country. Now, Silvia I have seen your ears perked up at that point because it sounds very much like it is exactly what you’ve got control of in terms of your regional work with us all. So perhaps before we start chilling on this, I would like to ask Silvia do you have some planning with Heidi that might be of particular interest here? Anything that we need to know about before we start reinventing the wheel?
Silvia Vivanco: I will have to talk to Heidi and come up with a strategy to accomplish this task and then report to everyone about it. So, at this point I don’t have any strategy, but technically we are going to start talking about it in the next call.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Olivier, are you aware of any activities in any of your regions now which are already happening on this outreach to new potential alias member countries?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Well, the area behind this point was that it is about [*inaudible 44.58, ]*and not RALO’ed it is about aiding countries still without any at large structures. So, my thinking for this was to try to look at each country, identify, you know, persons within those countries, and then invite them to probably a series of teleconferences, because I know I have been talking with a person from Haiti, for example, who has been a fellow and he is trying to get an ALS structure off the ground in Haiti, so I thought that you know, well, it would be very good, especially to have a series of teleconferences to make those persons aware of what ICANN is, because, you know, persons involved in the Internet still don’t know, who or what, ICANN does.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. Would anyone else like to raise any points on this particular issue before I ask Heidi a particular question on this? I am not seeing anyone. Yes, Olivier, go ahead.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you Cheryl, and you are correct, this is Olivier here, I was muted earlier. I am not aware of any specific item at the moment or initiatives taking place to be able to go and meet or have outreach teleconferences aimed at reaching potential ALS’s in countries. It is something which I think, I totally agree with actually, we should do it. It doesn’t seem to be costing that much, and so, I would be pretty happy to see this happen.
Unknown: I think that teleconferences might not be the optimal, ideal, at least at the initial phase. I think that you have to talk to people face to face, at [inaudible 47.35] at ICANN meetings, at IGF, and so on and so forth. You have to find a few people who could take initiative in those countries, and then of course you employ teleconferences and so on and so forth. I think that teleconferences, they still don’t work well as the initial contact point if you want to get something done.
Unknown: I see Nathalie agreeing with that and I also put my agreement up there as well. There is certainly a place for teleconferences, although I would see some, rather more webinars, but we probably need to have some sort of first base information which is quite literally come out of your pocket and hand on. Nathalie, did you have your hand up or were you agreeing with the final point stated?
Nathalie Enciso: I agree with you and I also want to suggest that webinars could be a good idea to make a clear interaction of what ICANN is, how to participate in the at-large and everything, previous to the teleconference.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Heidi, this is the question I was going to ask you and your staff. I have put what we were having out of our DECA planning was an aggregation point of useful outreach tools. You did mention the beginner’s guide and those sorts of things in the chat. It is not the intention to have a single portal or a repository that they will all be meeting someway too, including the resources that Scott put together, on ICANN 101 type things?
Heidi Ulrich: Hi Cheryl, thank you for that. Yes, it is very much the goal of Matt and myself to prepare such a landing spot if you can call it that, that would include basically the brochures of each of the RALO, which again I remind everyone that they are available in many languages for each region. They would include also the beginner’s guide to participating in at-large, the ALS starter kit, now perhaps the new RALO outreach video that is nearly finished, and also Sebastien’s PowerPoint that he actually presented to the board on at large. So, this might be a useful source for all of the ALS to go to when they are starting to reach out to new members in their region.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I see we have also been linking to the basic admin type stuff like how do you qualify to be an ALS and what are the forms you need to fill out, and all of these types of pages as well.
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, that would include a link to the how to join page that we have on our web page, yes. We can make that an action item. I don’t think that would take too long to prepare.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I wonder then would the ability for the regions themselves to put up local content in that space which might be language specific and culturally specific content as well. A number of, for example the powerpoints that - AP RALO have used over the years that might be useful for others to know about and share, but if we get this portal landing page or whatever we want to call it, done, how would you think about the following? If we were able to give a simple business card size piece of card that has the word ICANN at large on one side and the URL on the other, and enough space for someone to write their name as a local contact point and a telephone number, would that be a very basic but simple tool that people can have with them or access more readily? I don’t know about anyone else, but I very rarely carry the AP RALO brochures in my hand bag. I go to functions and that is where I tend to take an opportunity to talk about possible ALS, when I meet someone at some other event. Is it possible that we might come up with something small, concise, simple, and that you can have one or two in one’s wallet or purse, but you can hand out as required. That would still allow us to still do webinars and have teleconferences and have everything else after that.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: I actually travel with at-large brochures in my trousers, and I thought you were traveling with at-large brochures elsewhere, but I think you are not. The idea of a small card sounds quite promising.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Okay. Now, I need to draw today’s discussions to a close. All of the things we have discussed in today’s call are going to be in continued discussion at the next call, and the matter of the next call and any other business that we head into now, the at-large staff particular, but ICANN staff in general, having a well deserved break between, is it the 24th and the 3rd Heidi?
Heidi Ulrich: Correct Cheryl. We will be back on the 3rd.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Which would mean that the next appropriate time for our call will in fact be the 9th of January. Is there anyone who has a huge issue with our next call being on the 9th of January? Olivier, you’ve got your hand up still. No, he is simply agreeing. Okay, so the very next call will be on the 9th of January, but we did also have a doodle, and I’d be very keen to know whether there were alternate or varying times that were coming out as popular for future calls.
Heidi Ulrich: Cheryl, this is Heidi*.*
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go ahead Heidi*.*
Heidi Ulrich: I am just bringing your doodle up and we have Tijani, [unsure of name 54.50], Nathalie, Olivier, Dev, Darlene, and yourself preferred time is this current time slot of 1700 UTC and [unsure of names, 55.04], and Beau unfortunately did not respond; [unsure of name 55.09] not being in any connectivity area. I will follow up with sure of name, 55.14, Sala] and Beau, but for now it looks that this time is the most suitable time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, well let’s establish that the next call will be on the 9th of January, 2012, yes, next year, at the same time, and this call will be one where connectivity to the Adobe Connect room for audio bridge will be available via computer using the AC room facility. Just to reiterate what we will be doing then, we will be re-discussing and continuing our discussion on the matters we have looked into today. There will be text for us to look at sending to ALAC for consideration of instructions for ongoing requirements for the budget and finance sub-committee to look at until certain things change, the small drafting team if they put together there, and that there will be discussion on a couple of items including text for the Wiki on calendar and some concepts of what might go together in the technology area will also be going to the list. Staff can I just ask is everyone who is supposed to be on the mailing list on the mailing list now, including Beau?
Heidi Ulrich: Matt, can you answer that please.
Matt Ashtiani: Yes, everyone is subscribed to what they are supposed to be subscribed to.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I did note that the reminders that this call went out from staff or members of staff but did not include Beau and did include not one but two of Ganesh’s emails. I’d be rather keen to make sure that the official members of the task force are reminded about the calls and I am more than happy to have other people on the list, but our first priority has to be to the allocated members. With that, I would like to wish you all the very best for whatever festivities you will partaking of between now and our next meeting. I look forward to seeing you all next year. Bye for now.
Everyone: Happy Holidays, Happy Holidays, Thank you, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, take care. Happy Holidays everyone.
