Summit Working Group Teleconference
17th December 2007
Summary Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 22:07 by the Chair of ALAC, C Langdon-Orr
Agenda Item 1: Review of Previous Activities
E Leibovitch began with a summary of the current state of work. Things began with work internally in the NARALO. Part of the rationale for setting up the summit was that an effort to give new ALSes an orientation / education in what it means to be an ALS was needed. This grew into a bigger idea to have a summit of all ALSes, one representative per ALS.
D Thompson added that part of the appeal of an all-ALS meeting would be the ability of all ALSes in the same place to be able to share cross-regional experiences and needs.
S Bachollet noted that the idea of an all-ALS summit was first discussed at the Lisbon ICANN meeting. It seemed sensible to have all ALSes get together since the RALOs had all formed to help all the regions work together and learn from each other. Originally the idea was to have this meeting in LA, but that was felt to be too soon, so now Paris was proposed.
As a point of order S Bachollet asked that the Skype chat not go on simultaneously to the teleconference as it was too difficult to follow two simultaneous sets of English-language conversations at the same time.
S Bachollet noted that the work on the project was migrating to the ICANN-provided tools and environment. He further noted that an initial rough budget had been put forward which provided for all ALSes to be able to participate. He noted that there had been considerable discussion on the public list as a consequence and he reiterated the need to discuss things in the group before distributing things more widely to avoid unpleasant public debates when matters were not mature yet.
E Leibovitch noted that the numbers that S Bachollet put forward seemed reasonable. He had exchanges with staff which were helpful in understanding how to make the project more palatable to the rest of ICANN and in particular how to deal with the objection which could be raised that the summit was not simply a nice holiday, but a substantial and valuable effort. In particular the importance of ensuring that there was some commitment of those who would ask for travel support to be engaged in policy work was highlighted.
The Chair asked if anyone had further comments.
V Scartezini noted that with the Fellowship programme there had been some qualification of the participants, including a requirement for a declaration by each participant related to their level of knowledge of ICANN. Perhaps we could make use of these concepts. Perhaps a dialogue with the fellowship committee would provide value – perhaps some of the fellows could themselves participate in the summit. Knowing the details of the budget for the current year, she does not see much availability of funding in the present budget for such a large expense. Funding from other sources may well be essential and to continue to work on the project for this fiscal year in advance of determining if there are other sponsors who can help to fund the exercise may be problematic. ICANN may be able to provide some funding of course but likely not the whole amount.
E Leibovitch noted that ‘feature creep’ and managing expectations are very important.
The Chair proposed moving forward to specific outcomes.
Agenda Item 2: Specific Outcomes of the Summit
E Leibovitch noted that policy work was important but others working on the planning felt it was very important to have a component of ALS education to increase capacity for participation. It was also important to discuss amongst the community what issues were really important. To date, At-Large is often responding to issues reactively; perhaps there are issues which At-Large wants to originate. The specific formulations of all three components still need to be fleshed out.
Another outcome discussed could be a part leading to an end-user or registrants ‘Bill of Rights’. This could be quite high-visibility.
D Thompson noted that specific outcomes and deliverables were in the original proposal.
R Guerra noted that the Bill of Rights as an objective was a good one. This could even be a primary goal. There’s a concern that there’s not much time for such a complex undertaking. Perhaps realistically we might wish to be flexible and have a backup time later in mind.
S Bachollet noted that the timeframe in San Juan was felt to be too short to do the meeting in LA; now we were in a similar situation. If we continued to defer we might endlessly defer the meeting. He viewed Paris as an appropriate time to hold the meeting on several grounds.
E Leibovitch noted that the this is where “scope creep” became an issue – the addition of an Internet User Bill of Rights would complicate the Summit. He noted the governance mailing list discussion of the Summit and that some of those discussions were the source of adding this additional idea. Perhaps a more modest first summit would be a better idea to keep the project and the expectations for it manageable.
V Scartezini asked about the timing for the Summit.
E Leibovitch noted that this was not set in stone but the original idea was to have it at the same time as an ICANN meeting, either before or after, for anywhere from 2-4 days.
V Scartezini noted she was asking in order to determine if the Fellowship programme could be incorporated somehow. We will need people from the other constituencies and parts of ICANN to talk at the summit so the scheduling were very important. Some of the educational elements were already a part of the main ICANN meeting. Perhaps we could have a one-day meeting at the beginning, and another at the end. Allowing the participants in the summit full access to the main meeting was important. The longer the summit is the more expensive it is of course too. A balance must be struck.
S Bachollet noted it is important to go into detail about what we want to do, then to decide how long it would take to do it. On the Friday 20th June, one day is dedicated to EGENI’ sixth meeting, organised by ISOC France, and part of this meeting would be devoted to the subject of what the Internet end-user wants and he would forward details about this. Perhaps the Saturday and Sunday could be devoted to education. If we talk about 3 days for the summit he hopes we can split it in half as V Scartezini suggested as the main ICANN meetings would have important meetings and discussions which Summit participants should participate in. Perhaps Friday or Saturday could be devoted to finalising the work of the Summit; perhaps not even the whole of the ALS community would be needed. Perhaps Tuesday, normally constituency day, could be used to hold the Summit whilst the other communities were all meeting.
The Chair noted that ALAC should devote time to the Summit and not to its own meetings since ALAC’s role is to facilitate the communities’ interests and activities.
E Leibovitch suggested he could send an outline of time and scheduling to the list as a draft and his view of what meeting time needs to be available for the Summit. S Bachollet offered to help with this effort.
V Scartezini noted that perhaps the ICANN meeting sponsors could be persuaded to help finance the Summit. S Bachollet noted that he could not get involved in this as he had to concentrate on doing this kind of effort for the host committee.
E Leibovitch suggested we could ask ICANN in the first instance for its support on the understanding that other sponsors would be sought. V Scartezini offered to help with this, if the group wished. S Bachollet noted that some members of the ALS community had opportunities to receive travel support from other sources. We should investigate how many possible participants would be able to receive such support to reduce the overall cost of the summit. V Scartezini suggested that we need to show all this to ICANN and a complete proposal was essential, laying out exactly what we were asking ICANN for and making clear that other support was forthcoming. This would make it more attractive to ICANN.
The Chair noted that Google Australia was a great supporter of ISOC AU, which is of course an ALS. We need to know who in each region is able to go so we can see what the total number of participants would actually be. We should look for sponsors who can webcast the proceedings with whiteboard sharing and the like to allow rich remote participation.
V Scartezini noted she’d speak to T Swinehart of ICANN about the fellowship aspects.
It was asked if further work had been done on the draft budget.
S Bachollet said that none had been done as he’d received no specific feedback. Perhaps American Express could be asked for better estimates but this was a lot of work. The Chair noted that first we should find out who would actually come. V Scartezini noted that this was essential information. The Chair said that this should be done ASAP and it should be a simple matter to get replies in good time.
S Bachollet said he believes in the end the figures will not differ much from what is presently budgeted.
D Thompson suggested that she didn’t think more than 80% would attend – perhaps as low as 60%. S Bachollet said that we should aim to have everyone attend. The educational and other components were important enough that everyone should be allowed to attend, not just a subset who worked in advance on other things.
The Chair said we should move along to Next Steps as time was moving along
Agenda Item 4: Next Steps
The Chair noted the various action items undertaken above by various participants. Were there any items related to partnerships which should be brought up.
E Leibovitch noted that any criteria related to commitment in order to receive travel support would need to be carefully crafted and a member of this group should give careful thought to this, taking into account S Bachollet’s previous comments about inclusiveness. S Bachollet said he’d like to work with Evan on this subject.
The Chair noted that this was important for everyone to consider and work on before sending it to the list for review.
H Diakite had earlier suggested that each RALO should have a session at the Summit. This was especially useful for newer ALSes, especially those who have joined subsequent to the RALOs being formed.
E Leibovitch reinforced that there should be at least one opportunity for each region’s participants to meet together informally with one another and with their ALAC representatives. S Bachollet suggested other breakout sessions based perhaps on language would be useful too.
The Chair noted we had now run slightly over time and that we should continue to discuss on Skype; perhaps some parts of the Skype chat should be published in due course.
The Chair also noted that the Staff had announced that the Summary Minutes of the call would be available immediately after the call concluded. D Thompson noted she was also keeping notes and would send those out.
It was decided that the next teleconference would be discussed by email and set in due course in the New Year at a similar time of day. Sometime between the 3rd and 8th January would be chosen.
The Chair thanked the participants for all the work done to date which was all very valuable. It was a monumental undertaking which could be done for Paris and in any case should definitely be done sooner rather than later.
The meeting was adjourned at 23:20 UTC.
