June 2011

This month's EURALO conference call and activities focused on the following subjects:

April 2011

EURALO activities during the last month were determined by:

EURALO San Francisco Report March 2011

Below please find the points EURALO has worked on since the Cartagena meeting:

February 2011

- Policy

The Board - GAC meeting is fast approaching at the end of the month, and several EURALO members will be physically present in Brussels as observers. It is the aim for those members to speak to both Board and GAC members, and comment on the process taking place, bringing direct input from At-Large and from EURALO to the meeting participants.

An open Skype Chat has been set-up to bring direct input from RALOs to the ALAC Chair, who also only has observer status. This will also allow for a discussion among At-Large members to take place simultaneously, with online remote listening facilities being supplied by ICANN. All ALS members wishing to be part of the Skype Chat should email the EURALO Chair, Wolf Ludwig, or Olivier Crépin-Leblond, EURALO Secretariat, in order to be "invited" into the Skype Chat.

In February, EURALO Board members were involved in outreach activities such as:

- Rudi Vansnick (ISOC Belgium) participated in an ICANN-related Internet Governance conference in Tirana/Albania using the opportunity to encourage ALS applications from the country;

- the ALAC Chair and current EURALO secretariat, * *Olivier Crepin-Leblond, participated in an IG-related conference in Kiev/Ukraine and encouraged local groups to apply for a EURALO membership - with a prompt submission;

- the EURALO Chair intended to participate in the annual DomainPulse conference (comprising Austria, Germany and Switzerland) hold in Vienna for outreach initiatives. Due to the fact that EURALO has no earmarked travel funds for such events (if we are not invited by the organizers), we had to cancel our participation.

EURALO members (Bill Drake, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Sandra Hoferichter and Wolf Ludwig) will participate in the next IGF Consultations end of February in Geneva what will be combined with the next preparation meeting (core team) for the EuroDIG 2011 end of May in Belgrade -- where the next EURALO GA will be held at the same time.

- Process

This month has seen EURALO input in the ALAC Budget planning process for the FY12 Budget which was then passed on to ICANN Finance.

EURALO's input into the process can be found on:https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+FY12+Budget+Development+Workspace+-+2011

It consisted primarily of proposals for two projects:

EURALO is eagerly awaiting feedback from ICANN finance on the outcome of its input.

- WT-C SWOT / At-Large Improvements process

Several EURALO members have studied the current SWOT tables which EURALO was asked to comment on; most were satisfied that no further information needed to be entered and that the information contained was already very comprehensive.

- Finance & Budget sub-committee

Rudi Vansnick was appointed as the second EURALO representative on the ALAC Finance and Budget sub-committee. He will bring a regional, non-ALAC point of view to the work performed by this committee.

January 2011

- Process

This month, EURALO returned to pursuing its internal process and structural improvements which it had suspended prior to the Cartagena meeting due to more prioritised issues such as the selection process for an At-Large Selected ICANN Board Director.

EURALO's conference call agendas for December 2010 and January 2011 were set-up to follow-up on the main items of discussion which had been suspended, namely:

It was decided that these issues will be given final approval by the EURALO Board at the General Assembly (GA) taking place in Belgrade, Serbia. It is worth noting that on the subject of individual membership in EURALO, Option B was favoured by call.

- Policy

EURALO's input was welcomed by the ALAC for its drafting of its statement on ICANN's Draft Strategic Plan. It re-iterated its support for:

- Cartagena Meeting

In December, the EURALO Chair and Secretary, as well as members of ALAC from the EURALO region attended the ICANN annual general meeting in Cartagena. It is both the Chair's and Secretary's view that this was possibly one of the most successful meetings we have had so far.

Sébastien Bachollet was selected as the Board Director for seat 15. Since he had been previously nominated to be an ALAC representative, by  the Nominating Committee, and in the view of not collecting several seats (maximising the participation by Europeans), he stood down from this post.

An alternative candidate, Jean-Jacques Subrenat, was presented by NomCom and he has accepted the position.

Finally, Olivier Crépin-Leblond, currently assuming EURALO's Secretariat, was selected at ALAC's new Chair for this year.

November 2010

This month's EURALO conference call focused specifically on the the following subjects:

All European At Large Structures will need to vote before 18:00 UTC on Thursday 25 November 2010, in time for Wolf Ludwig to cast his vote before the 23:59 UTC deadline in the voting process. All At Large Structures were urged to review the candidate community forum pages on the confluence WIKI to aid them in their choice of vote.

It is worth noting that the new voting schedule was agreed after a EURALO email to ALAC (see previous monthly report) to ask for a less tight schedule in order to allow enough time for ALSes to study the candidate's profiles and make their choice. ALAC convened and extraordinary meeting of the At Large Board Selection Design Team (ABSdt) which agreed by consensus to extend the originally scheduled deadlines. This successful textbook bottom-up process was triggered by the concern voiced by some ALSes in the October 2010 EURALO monthly conference call, and the new schedule is therefore seen to be an improvement on the original.

October 2010

EURALO's monthly conference call agenda was set-up to follow-up on the main items decided at the General Assembly in September, namely:

But a more pressing subject was first Review mechanism for ALS involvement in the upcoming At-Large Board Director selection.

This subject ended up taking all of the time of the entire conference call since it became immediately apparent that it was the most important issue to be addressed immediately. With the meeting seriously over-running its allocated time, it was decided that a letter be written to Cheryl Langdon-Orr, the ALAC Chair, to summarize the concerns which EURALO has with the current election schedule.

Our concerns were namely that since EURALO wished to poll its members during the election process of an At Large Elected Board Director, the proposed timing was likely to be rushed and might not allow such a EURALO process (possible candidate petition, poll, and then possibly several rounds of election polling) to take place satisfactorily. EURALO recognises that ALSes, our volunteers, need time to make decisions if they need to consult their membership, and the current election process was seen to be slightly short to allow for the leeway required in such processes. Only if enough time is given to EURALO members can EURALO's Chair vote in the election process with full conviction that he has the support of ALSes - as a matter of credibility to our members.

The letter was written and sent to the EURALO discussion list for collecting feedback. It was then amended according to the feedback received, and sent by email to Cheryl Langdon-Orr, ALAC and a copy to the At-Large Board Selection design team (ABSdt). A response was awaited at the time of writing this monthly report.

EURALO Position on Community WG Report on Implementation of GNSO New gTLD Rec6

Whilst there was no time in the monthly EURALO conference call to treat this subject, several EURALO volunteers took part in an At Large conference call, where their input was taken into account. As a reminder, the At Large position was to support the GNSO New gTLD Rec6 report.

September 2010

 A EURALO General Assembly took place at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Wednesday 15 September 2010 from 18:00 - 20:00 local time. It was attended in person by representatives from 10 ALSes, and remotely by representative from two ALSes.
 ICANN Staff attended the meeting remotely.

 The GA took place immediately after a EURODIG meeting and therefore had the pleasure of the presence of several guests, including some from potential EURALO ALS applicants: Yuliya Morenets (Together Against Cybercrime, France), Oksana Prykhodko (European Media Platform, Ukraine) and Tetiana Popova (Ukrainian Internet Association). Many other guests were present too.

 Remote participation was possible by using the Webex System used throughout the IGF. Whilst it is acknowledged that technical intricacies made remote participation challenging (the interfacing of a face to face meeting with public address microphone system, with Webex, as well as an Adigo line is technically challenging), especially due to the fact that the room's acoustics were far from adequate, eventually most technical problems were overcome.

 The following action items stemmed out of the meeting:

   - ICANN Budget

 EURALO will submit a proposal to the ICANN budget process to ask for travel funding for the next EURALO meeting which will be held in conjunction with the ICANN European meeting.

A note will be added to the EURALO budget, that printing material costs should be covered by ICANN.
 

  - Review of EURALO By-laws and needs for revision

There have recently been many enquires to members of the EURALO Board about individuals being able to join EURALO. So far, individual members do not hold voting rights, but have taken part in working groups and on the Board, on a case by case basis. A solution is sought so as to be able to grow the EURALO region membership.
 Evan Leibovitch very kindly gave a short remote presentation explaining the NARALO rules pertaining to unaffiliated members. We have named this "Option A".
 Another option is option B:

 OPTION A: Formally create a new membership category for unaffiliated members
 OPTION B: Create a new ALS within the current structure that serves as the home to unaffiliated members

The EURALO leadership will submit a proposal in writing for possible Bylaw changes to the regional members. In addition, The proposed changes will include provisions to include unaffiliated members and also review the term limits for Board members. They will also look into a possible alignment of all EURALO elections. These discussions will soon be opened within EURALO, with an outcome and decisions due to take place at the ICANN Cartagena Meeting in December 2010.
 

  - EURALO ALAC Election

 Sandra Hoferichter was unanimously endorsed by the EURALO members present in the meeting. Congratulations to Sandra!
 
 

 - EURALO Board Elections

 Yjrö Länsipuro was unanimously elected to the EURALO Board by the members of EURALO. Congratulations to Yjrö!
 

  - At Large elected Board Director Process

 In accordance with Article VI, Section 4 of the ICANN Bylaws http://www.icann.org/en/general/bylaws.htm#VI , Sébastien Bachollet asked to be replaced in all the discussion and actions taking place in the ALAC in relation to the At-Large Board Director election. Olivier Crépin-Leblond volunteered to replace Sébastien in all the discussion and actions taking place in the ALAC in relation to the At-Large Board Director election.

August 2010

ELECTIONS

Outreach Activities

July 2010

-The transition caused no monthly report to be filed in that period and the current report also catches up on news for June 2010.

March 2010

Discussed ALAC issues:

Outreach activities:

March 2010

EURALO Report Nairobi

Since the ICANN meeting in Seoul EURALO conducted its regular monthly phone conferences (November 09 – February 10) with participation of its ALAC and some Board members. At the end of January EURALO participated at the ICANN Studienkreis meeting in Barcelona. Our ALAC members were actively involved in the development of the ALAC Board member selection process.
At the beginning of the year, EURALO defined priorities for its 2010 planning and outreach activities such as: Participation at the 3rd EuroDIG in Madrid (April), regional consultation for the ALAC Board member selection process, preparation of our next GA at ICANN’s next meeting in Brussels (June), participation at the next IGF in Latvia (September). We hope that these priorities will be supported and necessary budget allocations provided by ICANN.

February 2010

Discussed ALAC issues:

Outreach activities:

December 2009

Discussed ALAC issues:

EURALO issues:

Outreach activities:

November 2009