Post ATLAS II Implementation - Outreach & Engagement

Actions: 

• Chair of TG1 (Leon Sanchez, Rafid Fatani, Evan Leibovitch, Adam Peake) to develop a paragraph and expand the notion of 'broader' based on the materials of the TG1; 
• 02 Sep 2015: 
  
  • Ariel Liang to ask whether the original assignees can still follow up on Rec 1
  • Leon Sanchez to touch base with whoever still available to implement Rec 1 to push for progress 
  • Assignees to contact the Next Gen program (Nora Abusitta & Lauren Allison from UPRD) and encourage the Next Gen students to engage more with ICANN community groups during ICANN meetings (e.g. invite them to ALAC sessions, showcase) 
    
• 09 Sep 2015:
  • Dev Anand Teelucksingh to relay this recommendation to the O&E SC and note whether meeting B will be a good opportunity to implement this recommendation 

Notes:

• Broader audience = underrepresented community members?
• ICANN’s efforts to bring in new people should not be limited to people in developing countries but also under-represented community members that live in developed countries. Therefore, ICANN should extend its programs in place to all underserved communities.
• 02 Sep 2015: Next Gen students are brought to ICANN Meetings but have limited exposure to ICANN community groups. To enhance this program's outreach effect, Next Gen students should participate more in community sessions during ICANN Meetings. 
• 09 Sep 2015: 
  • This recommendation is linked to Recommendation #21: https://community.icann.org/x/TZZCAw
  • B meeting will be an opportunity to implement Recommendation #1 (more than recommendation #21?), as it is the only meeting that ICANN communities will have a specific day dedicated to outreach and it may be easier for the community to make specific request to conduct those activities.
• 18 Oct 2015 (update from the GSE, slides) 
  • Note on Slide: The regional engagement strategies describe how outreach activities reinforce participation across all stakeholder groups.
  • Pierre Dandijnou on the 2nd version of the Africa outreach strategy: 
    • It has 2 objectives: 1) to increase participation from Africa, 2) to support the DNS market and contribute to the digital economy in Africa. 
    • There are a host of projects around, and the flagship projects are the DNSSEC, for instance, for the security issues. GSE is also working on the DNS entrepreneurship and startups will be launched. GSE is expecting quick results to increase participation within ICANN, but also make sure that ICANN is better known in Africa. 
  • Rodrigo De la Parra on Latin American and Caribbean Strategy: 
    • There is a renewed strategy goes from 2016 to 2020 (presentation on Jan 28, 2016) 
    • The new objectives for the Latin American plan are now aligned to the new ICANN Strategy
    • One of the main concerns in the Latin America and Caribbean community is to have more participation of Latin American and Caribbean participants in ICANN, especially in terms of occupying leadership positions within the community.
    • Capacity building has also been one of the main issues and main focuses in our strategy.
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Is there good coordination between the different VPs? It looks at the moment that some regions have made more progress than other regions. 
  • Sally Costerton: 
    • Between the GSE Teams and the evenness of the programs, the ones that are community-led are community-led. So the evenness is what it is. It depends very much on what the community team wants to do. They are only facilitated by the VPs. That is a characteristic of the region and the particular priorities that that region has. 
      
    • Are we exchanging best practice at a staff level? The answer is yes, we are. We had a full day here actually with the entire GSE Team. We also had some other staff with us from other teams on Wednesday this week, to do exactly that. That was the theme of the day – to exchange best practice. So the teams are increasingly sharing information and knowledge. We’re starting to move programs, such as the policy read-out. 
  • Fatima Cambronero: Argentina was excluded from the countries that can apply as Fellows, according to the World Bank list. In Argentina there are many leaders who have been in the Fellowship Program who are currently engaged, and many activities are being organized. 
    
  • Alberto Soto: Haiti needs participation in the Fellowship program the most, because it is the country with the least penetration of the Internet. Dominican Republic has had representatives twice, and Haiti has never been represented.
    
  • Sally Costerton: Argentina is not the only country that has fallen off the radar because of this World Bank classification. We obviously have to use something to decide where we’re going to allocate the resources. It’s becoming very clear that in some parts of South America, and also in some parts of Eastern Europe, there has been very low engagement with the ICANN issues because of this. Nora Abusitta who makes the decisions about this, is in the middle of reviewing how we do this, to make sure that these countries are engaged. 
  • Vanda Scartezini: We need to focus on the B meeting and  focus everybody in that region on making it happen and getting good feedback from outreach.
  • Sally Costerton: There’s a strong, bottom-up, community request in these proposals that we focus on outreach, and part of the point of the B Meeting is to take the meeting to places where it can’t go. So we really are very committed, at a staff level, to putting time and energy behind this, as well as money and resources. 
    
    

Input from Outreach & Engagement: 

• 28 Sep 2015 
  • Staff has confirmed that Sally Costerton's team and Nora Abusitta's team (including Jeffrey Dunn & Janice Douma Lange) will be invited to the Sunday ALAC session in ICANN 54 
  • Next Gen will participate in the O&E SC meeting in Dublin 
    
    

Actions: 

• 16 Sep 2015 
  
  • During ICANN 54 in Dublin, the ALAC to meet with Xavier Calvez to discuss FY17 Special Budget Request, with a focus on core activities/programs such as the Leadership Training Program
  • During ICANN 54 in Dublin, the ALAC to meet with Nora Abusitta to discuss this recommendation and the Next Gen Program, ICANN Fellowship, and Auction Proceeds
• 28 Sep 2015 (O&E SC): 
  
  • O&E SC co-chairs to review the appropriate O&E programs and come up with key ideas for those programs. This can be a preparatory work for the conversation with Xavier. 
  • Staff to invite the O&E SC co-chairs to the RALO secretariat session that will review the FY17 special budget request (Tue 29 Sep, 18:00 UTC); to add this as an agenda item 
• 30 Sep 2015: 
  
  • During ICANN 54 in Dublin, the ALAC to meet with GSE Staff and discuss the lack of communications/collaboration/synergy between GSE and some RALOs in outreach & engagement activities (exception: AFRALO has a very good synergy with AFRICANN). 
  • Outreach & Engagement SC to review the list of programs identified and see which ones are the most beneficial with great ROIs that need to be kept
• 05 Oct 2015: 
  
  • Capacity Building WG to report on this recommendation 

Notes: 

• Define 'programmes' that brought value members to the community.
• Need to think of ways to optimize budget.
• Outreach Sub-Committee to identify the so-called programs
• Finance & Budget Sub-Committee to evaluate the resources used so far and understand whether any additional funds is needed 
• 30 Sep 2015: 
  
  • Need to identify which programs that are most relevant to this recommendation and most valuable. We need to have examples, metrics, RoIs to demonstrate their value. 
  • Re the programs/activities that don't have great ROIs, we shouldn't simply give up but should figure out ways to make them more effective. 
  • The revenue stream of ICANN is uncertain and potential hard decisions in terms of cutting programs/activities may need to be made.  
  • GSE has done events/outreach activities in North America region without contacting or informing NARALO. It would be better to form RALOs-GSE collaboration and improve communication. 
  • We should also recognize the benefits that stem from the great synergy between RALOs and ICANN departments (e.g. AFRALO - AFRICANN) 
• 05 Oct 2015: 
  
  • Dev Anand Teelucksingh has shared the outreach calendar with GSE VPs and encouraged them to include events in the calendar
  • Communications between GSE and At-Large need to be improved, and this can be a point of discussion during ALAC Meeting with the VPs 
  • FSBC may not be able to meet before Dublin, but has been looking at the questions that Carlton asked (Question: What is the real practical outcome from all the budget work?  Is the At-Large better funded?  How much of the At-Large budgetary requests are satisfied? Which ones make our priority list?) and will discuss this with ICANN Finance Dept
• 18 Oct 2015 (ALAC & Regional Leaders Work Part I) 
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Related to Rec 1, several of ALSes have admitted the concern that there might have been some programs done by the GSE, and local ALSes were not informed of the events taking place, and therefore they didn’t manage to get anything out of it. It didn’t appear to have local ALS engagement at all. 
• 30 Apr 2016
  
  • The Proposal for Multi-Year Planning of At-Large RALO Face-to-Face Meetings has been submitted to the ICANN public comment on the Draft ICANN FY17 Operating Plan & Budget and Five-Year Operating Plan Update; the Proposal has been reviewed by ICANN Finance. 
    

Input from Outreach & Engagement Sub-committee: 

• Define 'programmes' that brought valuable members to the community.
  • Leadership Training
  • Next Gen
  • Fellowship
  • CROPP
  • Regional Strategic Plans
  • Language Services
  • Online courses
  • ATLAS
  • RALO Face-to-Face General Assembly
  • Synergy between certain RALOs and GSE (e.g. AFRALO - AFRICANN) 
• Continue & increase support for the aforementioned programs 
• Identify the appropriate staff members as recipients
• Continue to provide support for people to follow ICANN activities remotely:
  • Cameras (more rooms, not just the ALAC ones)
  • Remote Hubs
• 28 Sep 2015 (O&E SC): 
  
  • EURALO will organize a networking and outreach event after the GA (coordinated with Jean-Jacques Sahel); it is an open event and is also an opportunity for other RALO members to participate. The event will invite ISOC Europe that will circulate a special invitation to encourage European chapters to participate.  
  • Re support issues for the outreach & engagement programs – if specific programs are identified, they can be submitted as part of the budget request for FY17. O&E SC can help identify appropriate programs. O&E SC with discuss with Xavier Calvez in ICANN 54 to understand how this can be done. 

Actions: 

• 16 Sep 2015: 
  • During ICANN 54 in Dublin, the ALAC to meet with GSE Staff and Regional VPs and raise their awareness of this recommendation and what they have been doing to address this recommendation. 
• 05 Oct 2015:
  
  • Capacity Building WG to review the ATLAS II recommendations in their upcoming call(s)

Notes: 

• Capacity Building WG / Outreach SC to develop a proposal in coordination with the GSE staff and then send the proposal for Board review.
• The proposal can be expanded on the relevant items listed in the appendix of the ATLAS II Declaration.
• 18 Oct 2015 (update from the GSE, slides)
  • Note on Slide: Examples from Asia-Pacific (policy read-outs, etc), LAC, Africa & Middle East (underserved regions project).
  • Yu-Chang Kuek on the GSE engagement efforts in the APAC region: 
    • Institutionalizing the collaboration through a framework under an APRALO and ICANN/APAC hub structure with the guidance from APRALO and Policy team. 
      
    • Under the framework, a regularly timed webinar has been co-organized by APRALO and the ICANN/APAC hub. It’s to make sure that information pertaining to the DNS, and information pertaining to ICANN affairs are shared with a broader, regional community, and that the content being put up for discussion is jointly curated by both APRALO as well as staff, based out in the region. 
    • Another item under the framework is language customization in a very diverse region. ICANN has signed an MOU with Thailand to help them and help us translate materials into Thai. With many partners in APAC region, GSE has taken the outcomes of ICANN Meetings and has read-out sessions in country as well. 
  • Baher Esmat on the GSE engagement efforts in the Middle East: 
    • There are two main programs that GSE embarked upon a year or so ago, one in relation to development of the DNS industry in the region. ICANN had an agreement with the Egyptian Regulatory Authority, NTRA, to establish a DNS entrepreneurship center to serve Africa and the Middle East. The objective is to not only develop capacities but also to further develop the ecosystem across both regions. In the past six months ICANN has run five workshops in four different countries. There was a two-day workshop with registries and registrars in Tunis, focusing particularly on the local market in Tunis – what the strengths are, what the weaknesses are, and so on. 
    • The other program is a School on Internet Governance. This is not an ICANN invention. There have been programs on Internet governance all over the world in the past ten years. GSE partnered with a number of community leaders in this field, and started this program last year in the Middle East. This year, and upon the request from the local community in Pakistan, the ISOC Chapter in Islamabad, which is one of the ALSes, led an effort to have a National School on Internet Governance as well. 
  • Maureen Hilyard: In Oceania, ICANN does not seem to have done enough outreach in the 22 countries and territories other than Australia and New Zealand. There’s a big black hole when it comes to ICANN activities in the Pacific. 
  • Save Vocea:
    • In 2014, ICANN started this stakeholder group bottom-up engagement where we brought participants from Oceania who’ve been involved in ICANN to be part of a Working Group to put together a strategy for the region. One of the things the group did was highlight some of the main activities that could be important for the region. Some of it was on capacity building for the region and how we could also assist in the stability of the DNS for the region. 
    • Never before in the past, you’ve never seen Pacific Islanders being here. In this meeting, we have about nine countries from the Pacific through participating on Fellowships. There has been more coordination with the regional organizations, particularly with PIC ISOC, as they’re the regional body for the ALS. Then there are other bodies outside, like the APNIC in the industry. 
    • One success is that those countries and territories are receptive to ICANN coming in. In the past six months ICANN covered about eight countries, working with the stakeholders within the countries. 
      
    • It's good to work in partnerships, but it’s not concrete in terms of how ICANN could set MOUs with Pacific island countries and territories. 
    • The challenge is still on communications. Even though we provide a webinar for the whole Asia Pacific region, in coordination with APRALO, the challenge is how do Pacific community members get access to online meetings? How do they pay for this access? Who will pay for this access. That’s been one of the major problems, and ICANN should work on that. 
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond: GSE has provided a good deal of information on that. I think that’s also pretty much complete. 
  • Tijani Ben Jemaa: I proposed a program for capacity building to undertake some activities in the small islands in the Caribbean, and small countries in Africa where ICAN never go. I proposed to Jean-Jacques Sahel to collaborate on this, since he’s in charge of the civil society. 
    

Input from Outreach & Engagement Sub-committee: 

• Capacity Building WG / Outreach SC to develop a proposal in coordination with the GSE staff and then send the proposal for Board review.
• The proposal can be expanded on the relevant items listed in the appendix of the ATLAS II Declaration.
• Africa Engagement Strategy has been successful
• Not sure whether the engagement strategy in other regions are as good as the Africa engagement strategy
  • Indigenous population
  • Find out what regions don't have any ICANN presence (e.g. Dev's spreadsheet for LAC region)
• Stakeholder map across all the SOs/ACs/SGs is needed (key rec)
• Stakeholder engagement strategy has been successful
• Examples of effective campaigns:
  • LAC Road Show

Actions: 

05 Oct 2015:

• Capacity Building WG and Technology Taskforce to work with ICANN IT to make the webinar recordings easy to replay and share 

Notes: 

30 Sep 2015: 

• There are a number of existing capacity building webinars, both At-Large wide and RALO specific 
• Outreach & Engagement SC has been looking into such activities and efforts for engagement; Ideas for Engagement Strategies wiki page has been set up; the SC will discuss this issue in ICANN 54 
• Capacity building should be more than online webinars. We should access RALOs and human capital for doing policy work and outreach. We should have some tools to engage membership and help them get involved. Staff should help hold more sessions to get more information about the inactive ALSes and learn about their interests. We need to adopt a gradual and systematic approach to engage the new and inactive ALSes. 
• Judith Hellerstein and Glenn McKnight have identified a large group of ALSes who haven't attended any NARALO calls. They will reach out to them and conduct easy-flowing sessions to find out why they are inactive and give them an opportunity to ask questions. 
• ALSes are often overwhelmed by emails and don't understand how to navigate the information and ways to get involved. To help ALSes understand ways to navigate through the overwhelming amount of information in At-Large can be one of the capacity building topics. 

05 Oct 2015:

• It has been recognized that mentorship of new ALS representatives and the development of short tutorials (e.g. How to use Adobe Connect) can help dress he on-boarding challenges
• Capacity building webinars can be leveraged to develop those tutorial/mentoring initiatives and educate newcomers and inactive At-Large members 
• Pre-training of ALSes is important, including how to use Adobe Connect, etc., and they need to know that participate in teleconferences and webinars via AC is part of the ALS participation expectation 

18 Oct 2015 ( update from the GSE, slides) 

• Note on Slide: The work of the Stakeholder Journey sub team within the CEP team can help address this recommendation.
• Chris Mondini on the Stakeholder Journey program: 
  • It looks at the challenge of getting more volunteers, but also more active volunteers 
  • At a very high-level, GSE has looked at some data, to look at where people come from, where they may get stuck, what some of their challenges are. They looked at the structures across ICANN, because each structure approaches this question slightly differently, and each structure and constituency has slightly different needs. They have made some high-level observations about how we might attract people, by looking first at what their question areas are, what their issue areas are. 
  • They have looked at some tools that they can provide to help community volunteers be partners in doing that outreach. GSE will solicit feedback from the community, especially the volunteers who have a passion for bringing on the next generation to having a succession plan, so that the sustainability of ICANN in this community is assured. 
• Sally Costerton on the work of Community Engagement:
  • There has been coordination team inside the ICANN, co-chaired by Sally Costerton and David Olive, composed of senior staff that face the ICANN community. The team includes the Policy Team, the Engagement Team, the Communications Team, which is led by Duncan Burns, the Digital Engagement Team, led by Chris Gift, and the Meetings Team, led by Nick Tomasso. There are two frequent guests, which is DPRD, led by Nora Abusitta, and she has the Fellows Program under her remit in DPRD, which is a very important element of the Stakeholder Journey Program. Another guest is Cyrus Namazi, who leads engagement for the GDD Team. The goal is to try to make sure we have a much more holistic view about how ICANN, as a staffing organization, can maximize the resources at our disposal. 
  • This team is to tackle some of these difficult challenges that the community faces as it matures and grows, such as the great deal of exhaustion in the volunteer community. You see a lot of the same faces popping up in different Working Groups, and while that’s great in some ways, but it’s also not sustainable. 
  • It is also about providing people with tools, it’s translations – it’s access questions, generally, whether that be money to get on a plane, or stay in a hotel, whether it’s language tools that allow you to participate in an even way, whether it’s improving the search on the website so that it’s a more friendly environment. 
  • how do we take a holistic look, as staff, at all of the money that ICANN spends on volunteer support, community participation? Whichever word you want to use. Because we tend to view it in quite narrow pockets. There are particulate processes to apply for travel funding or special support work and so forth. 
  • but we will be able to do so in due course – it’s getting a real sense of, “How much in total, out of the overall ICANN Budget, do we have at our disposal? And how can we make sure that we match that, as effectively as possible, to this goal?”
  •  we’re trying to take what you’re talking about, as a more strategic view of it, to say, “Are there other ways we could do things differently that would make it easier for unpaid participants in the community to have a more equal participation?” 
• Siranush Vardanyan: GSE team should be connected to the Outreach calendars used in RALOs to see At-Large activities and explore collaboration opportunities.
• Rafid Fatani: How do we maintain the old, but also bring in the new and keep them in? One of that is actually maintaining and allowing them to grow within various leadership positions. I, in the ALAC, think personally that we have a problem with this. 
• Sebastien Bachollet: I think it’s good to have new people come in, but they need to be received, they need to be accompanied, they need to be sustained, supported, received in good conditions. Because if that’s not the case, they are going to leave and go somewhere else.
  
• Sally Costerton: GSE will have regular calls with the ALAC Outreach & Engagement Sub-Committee.  I’d be very happy to make myself and some of my team available, once, or regularly, to join that call. This may give us more time to get into more detail about some of the tactical things we need to do. 

23 May 2016:

• There have been efforts to make conference recordings more accessible, such as MP4 conversion of meeting recordings to be uploaded to YouTube 
• There has been significant progress in this recommendation, such as the revamp of At-Large website, implementation of captioning services, additional interpretation, LACRALO mailing lists, etc. 

Actions: 

• Social Media WG to clarify the recommendations with TG3 leaders (Jean-Jacques Subrenat, Fatima Cambronero, Wolf Ludwig, Gunela Astbrink, Glenn McKnight, Judith Hellerstein) 
• Leon Sanchez, Murray McKercher to contact GSE staff and learn about their past public campaign efforts 
• Leon Sanchez to attend the GSE meeting in Singapore on Sunday 8 Feb 2015 
• 09 Sep 2015: Dev Anand Teelucksingh to relay this recommendation to the O&E SC and note whether B meeting will be a good opportunity to encourage public campaigns

Notes: 

• 09 Sep 2015: 
  • ICANN Staff-organized fellowship and next gen programs can be considered part of this effort. 
  • B meeting may be a good opportunity to encourage public campaigns on those topics, as it is the only meeting that ICANN communities will have a specific day dedicated to outreach and it may be easier for the community to make specific request to conduct those activities.  Hence, this recommendation is linked to Recommendation #1: https://community.icann.org/x/JJZCAw
  • At-Large Ad-Hoc New Meeting Strategy Working Group has been looking into regional strategy for outreach activities in B meeting. 
  • ALSes should have a large role to play in education, information, creativity, and empowerment related to Internet Governance and ICT issues. They should share their own public campaigns via various communication platforms (e.g. wiki, social media) with the wider At-Large community. 
  • At-Large needs to provide a platform that serves as an one-stop shop for showcasing the ALS efforts in public campaigns and helping RALOs exchange information.  
  • A shared calendar can be such one-stop shop (both NARALO and LACRALO strongly supports this). RALOs, GSE, and even NomCom can use the calendar to coordinate the events in the region in order to do outreach and encourage participation. Users can view the events and subscribe to the calendar. Admins can include their own event entries but won't be able to override other people's entries. If successful, this calendar can be expanded to allow other stakeholder groups to update their events. 
  • Outreach & Engagement SC has found a shared calendar solution (i.e. team-up: http://teamup.com/ks9df2f9bc986a0d72/) and presented it during the Aug 17 call (https://community.icann.org/x/OJNCAw). It has already been set up and rolled out for the RALOs to update their events. 
    
  • It's the responsibility of RALO Chairs and Secretariats to do ALS management and make communication/publicity tools aware to the ALSes and encourage them to share their efforts across the community (e.g. monthly ALS spotlight is not enough). 
  • It is recognized that there is challenge for RALOs to obtain fundings to send members to attend regional events. Applicants need to submit application well in advance (usually in Jan or Feb) in order to have a chance to pursue those travel opportunities. 
  • The CROPP funding has limitations, as it allows people to travel to attend organized events but not for organizing new events locally. Hence, this recommendation also links to Recommendation #40 (https://community.icann.org/x/dJZCAw): ICANN should offer process similar to the CROPP, but not related to travel
  • In line with the public campaign topics, there may be room for collaboration between At-Large, NCSG, NCUC, and NPOC to do public campaigns focusing on civil society engagement. 
  • No need to add additional request re this recommendation, just to report on the progress. 
• 05 Oct 2015: 
  • ICANN can share existing resources and/or resources from I* organizations, RIRs to develop public campaigns. At-Large community should not spearhead those types of campaigns. 
  • Some ALSes may be monitoring social media tools/platforms that are blocked in certain regions, and it would be worthwhile to get more information from them 
  • Public campaign is outside the remit of ICANN. 
• 18 Oct 2015 (update from the GSE, slides)
  • Note on slide:  It would be helpful to hear from At-Large on how they see this within ICANN’s remit. This recommendation is being addressed by other groups outside ICANN.
    
    

Input from Outreach & Engagement Sub-committee: 

• Not in ICANN's core mission & value
• Collaborate with other I* organizations, but not to spearhead those programs
• 28 Sep 2015: 
  
  • Staff confirmed that Nora Abusitta will be joining the ALAC session and can address what her department has been doing with regard to this recommendation 

Input from Social Media Working Group: 

• Input from Murray McKercher: 
  

  • Encourage public campaigns on using the Internet for education, information, creativity and empowerment.

  • Recent discussion indicated this recommendation, while considered a worthy goal is written in too broad terms for consideration by ICANN's board.

  • While not a member of the Thematic Group 3, I believe the sentiment of this recommendation may have evolved from a need for ICANN to use the internet more wisely for its own needs for public education, and outreach for the role it plays in he Internet Ecosystem.

• 24 Sep 2015: 
  

  • ICANN has various resources that can potentially become public campaign topics: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/security-terminology-2015-09-16-en 

  • ICANN should leverage existing resources from I* organization and collaborate with them in conducting public campaigns 

Actions: 

• 30 Sep 2015: 
  • During ICANN 54, ALAC to discuss ICANN Learn online courses with Jeffery Dunn. 
• 05 Oct 2015: 
  • During ICANN 54, ALAC to discuss potential additional Beginner's Guide with Nora Abusitta (now should be Betsy Andrews), including guides about other SOs/ACs
    
    

Notes: 

• 30 Sep 2015:
  
  • Existing Beginner's Guide need to be updated 
  • The new At-Large Website should make the Beginner's Guides more accessible 
  • Some of the online courses are very uninteresting to newcomers. 
  • Someone who has read through all the Guides and taken the courses can make judgement call on how to improve the information. Jeffrey Dunn is the go-to person for creating/improving ICANN learn courses  
  • Beginner's Guide to At-Large Structure is going through an updating process. Its Redline Version - Beginner's Guide to At-Large Structures (ALSes) is open for comments 
• 05 Oct 2015: 
  
  • Challenge about the Beginner's Guide is that a reader may easily get lost due to its organization of information; the Guide should follow the style of the ICANN Strategic Plan 
• 03 Jun 2016:
  
  • Progress made on this recommendation: Beginner’s Guide for ALSes has been updated and new version will be published momentarily; icann.org has prominently featured all Beginner’s Guides, with 6 UN language versions available.
  • However, the number of print copies of Beginner's Guides have been reduced; a limited number of print copies are reserved for specific regions

Input from Outreach & Engagement Sub-committee: 

• Contact Nora Abusitta about this
• People with disability need to be able to read the beginner's guides (accessibility of documents)
• Noted the prominent location of the beginner's guides on icann.org and want to make sure that future website will still put the beginner's guides in a prominent location

Actions: 

• Finance & Budget Sub-Committee to check what would be allowed/not allowed re promotional items; if there's anything that will be refused, we will bring this up with the Board
• 09 Sep 2015: 
  • ATLAS IT and Outreach & Engagement Sub-Committee members to review the draft ICANN's Civil Society Engagement proposal (At-Large ICANN Civil Society Engagement in Fiscal Year 2016 Workspace) and to discuss whether this proposal is in line with the recommendation. The groups will report back their review in the ATLAS IT meeting on Sep. 
  • Heidi Ullrich to find out how GSE North America's team has conducted outreach activities in Toronto without notifying NARALO; communications gap like this needs to be avoided in the future. 
  • Judith Hellerstein to discuss her thoughts on the ICANN Civil Society Engagement Plan in the Outreach & Engagement SC meeting. 
  • Outreach & Engagement SC will figure out how At-Large can coordinate with the GSE on local outreach & engagement efforts and guide the creation of appropriate events
  • Finance & Budget SC will review the potential short-lead time funding requests of outreach & engagement events
• 30 Sep 2015: 
  
  • During ICANN 54, the ALAC to follow up with Fadi Chehade re the $10,000 contingency fund 
• 14 Jun 2016: 
  
  • Heidi Ullrich / Alan Greenberg / ALAC to discuss this recommendation with ICANN Finance (Xavier) in ICANN56 

Notes: 

• Communications budget is available in FY15
• ALAC/At-Large to request a fund for promotional items for engagement and outreach (could be within FY16 AC/SO Requests)
• 09 Sep 2015: 
  • There has been some degree of follow-up re this recommendation. During the ICANN 53 ALAC-Board meeting, ICANN CEO proposed a special funding (e.g. 10,000 USD) seemingly to be used to assist community members for visa related matters. While it does not seem to have explicit follow-up re this proposal, some At-Large members were provided funding to obtain visa for ICANN 54. This may indicate that the ICANN Board is receptive to short-lead funding request and the ALAC should be encouraged to advance this recommendation with the Board. 
  • This recommendation is linked to recommendation #21: https://community.icann.org/x/TZZCAw
  • Challenge for CROPP is that it is only used for community members to participate in existing events; it cannot be used to fund or organize events. The only way to fund or organize event is to apply for a special budget request and let the Finance and Budget Sub-Committee decide whether it is viable. FBSC usually reviews the event applications in Jan or Feb. The events have to be really well planned out, especially with good budget estimates, otherwise the applications will be rejected. It is very hard to plan some event that is so far out at the beginning of the year. 
  • At-Large should have the ability to apply for ICANN funding for members to organize events that will happen in a shorter period of time (e.g. 3-month time, 6-moth time). As such, the application for funding will be more well thought out. This funding should be separate from CROPP's funding. 
  • This funding should also cover community-initiated education / capacity building events/activities that are not related to travel. The funding will mainly cover venue, refreshment, and other spending to attract people to attend the events. 
  • LACRALO's proposal can serve as an example for such funding (https://community.icann.org/x/Aa7hAg; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lXtoi9VNuaR0mA2lli9IAAAMgQHa6wOGeVKbirT_-a8/edit) 
  • The draft ICANN Civil Society Engagement Plan (https://community.icann.org/x/-5FCAw) may also relate to this recommendation. It can create collaboration opportunities between local ALSes, GSE, NPOC, NCUC, and NCSG. For example, the events hosted by GSE and other constituencies may already have venue and refreshments covered, or provide the funding for workshops and panels that ALSes ask for, so that local ALSes can take advantage of the existing resources and avoid reinventing the wheel. 
  • Nonetheless, At-Large members like Sebastien Bachollet disagrees that the proposal is pointing ICANN in the right direction, as civil society is only a subset of the user community. He emphasized that ICANN is not organized via civil society and shouldn't over emphasize the civil society concept. At-Large is the voice of billions of end users, much greater than the civil society; overemphasizing this concept may make At-Large end up like ISOC chapters, etc. All ICANN Staff need to make an effort to meet local ALSes when they are traveling for outreach and engagement related work. Judith Hellerstein thinks that At-Large's work is more in line with NPOC. 
• 30 Sep 2015: 
  
  • There hasn't been much going on in FBSC. FBSC will hold call soon but schedule is unknown.  
  • Dev Anand Teelucksingh believes that ICANN should provide funding for short-lead budget requests, but Alan Greenberg disagrees with this type of funding. Alan thinks that ICANN won't be very acceptive to short-lead budget requests on unspecified items, and specific requests need to be made in order to get funding. 
  • There is a communications fund bucket for the community to use at our discretion. We need to come up with the specific requests to use that fund. 
  • During the ICANN 53 Board Meeting, Fadi Chehade proposed a $10,000 contingency fund seemingly allocated for visa related matters. Follow-up work needs to be done, as we are unaware or uncertain who have the money, whether it can only cover visa issue, etc. This proposal seems to have made an impact according to Heidi Ullrich, as some community member was able to funded by ICANN to obtain visa. Nevertheless, clarification of Fadi's proposal is needed.