[Alac-sc-outreach] Urgent questions about CROP guidelines for FY19

[Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond]

Dear Colleagues,

I am reading through the CROP FY19 guidelines (
https://community.icann.org/x/yicFBQ ) and as already mentioned in the
meeting we had with CROP staff, and wearing my EURALO Chair hat, I have
real problems understanding the thinking behind some of this year's
guidelines/restrictions.

- The first out of the three CROP trips needs to be used on an ICANN meeting

What is the thinking behind this? CROP is meant for Outreach. Outreach
at an ICANN meeting is already taking place through the Fellowship,
through the NextGen, through the joint NCSG-ALAC or NCUC-At-Large
sessions that we have organised. An ICANN meeting already has the
regional leadership in attendance and they are already organising
outreach there. We also make sure that we have volunteers at the booth,
and frankly our experience at the ICANN or RALO booth at an ICANN
meeting is that there are very few newcomers that are not already
participating in the various other programs. And then CROP is only for 4
days, 3 nights, so anyone attending an ICANN meeting through CROP will
only be there for an amount of time that is shorter than the shortest of
ICANN meetings. What good is one person going to do when we already have
our regular travellers there? So what we risk doing is to really waste
that slot.

- Alternatively, the first slot can be used for another type of meeting
organised by ICANN, such as GDD summits.

GDD summits are reserved solely for Contracted Parties (rather
explicitly: https://www.icann.org/gddsummit ) so this does not make
sense. Other local ICANN meetings are targeted towards a specific type
of stakeholder, like businesses or government. Any CROP traveller from
At-Large would not fit in the criteria for participants. Domains Fora
that organised by ICANN are commercial in scope, so again, this does not
correspond with the scope of the ALAC. The only meetings that would fit
the At-Large purview are meetings organised by ICANN for end users. To
my understanding, in 20 years of history, ICANN has never organised such
a meeting. I would *really* like to see such a meeting being created by
ICANN.

- Then we can use the two remaining CROP slots on an ICANN supported meeting
What does this mean?
  - does this mean a meeting that ICANN is sponsoring financially?
  - does this mean a meeting where ICANN is already organising
sessions/workshops?
  - does this mean a meeting that is not sponsored by ICANN or where
ICANN is not organising sessions/workshops, but where a member of the
ICANN Board or Staff is attending?

Given that an application needs to be made more than 6 weeks and 5
working days in advance of the date of the meeting, how is a RALO meant
to know if ICANN is supporting the above? Is a list of ICANN approved
meetings going to be published? Or does a RALO need to ask the GSE Team
each time whether ICANN is supporting this meeting?

These are my questions/concerns regarding the new CROP process.

Now onto the second part of my email and it is concerning the CROP RT/PC.

At the moment, the CROP Review Team (CROP RT) is made up of 10 people
(plus 2 observers and one Chair), two from each region, who collectively
look at each CROP application and ensure that the application follows
the program guidelines, including minimum time for an application. It
also checks any discrepancy with the application. The CROP RT members
are selected by each region, with one member coming from the Finance &
Budget Sub-Committee (FBSC) and one member coming from the Outreach &
Engagement working group. Why? It is because part of the checking of
applications is to check that they correspond with the ICANN overall
Strategy Goals (which the FBSC is involved in) and with the Outreach &
Engagement plans of the ALAC (which the Sub-Committee on Outreach &
Engagement is in charge of). I do not think that this was well
understood. There is a proposal that this committee be disbanded/ended.

The CROP Program Committee (CROP PC) is mandated by the CROP staff as
this is the Committee that interfaces the ALAC with CROP staff. This
cannot be disbanded. At present, the CROP PC is exactly the same people
as the CROP RT. But ending the CROP RT does not let you end the CROP PC
which needs to remain in operation. So my question which I asked on
yesterday's call but which I do not think I received a response for, was
that since we keep the CROP PC but not the CROP RT we effectively are
not changing the group? The only thing we are doing is to take away the
method on how we currently select the CROP PC, and also remove the need
for a CROP RT representative to check other RALO CROP applications. Thus
this checking would need to be done by CROP program staff.
So my questions here : how can a RALO change its CROP PC representatives
now? Are these people appointed by the ALAC or by the RALOs. Do these
people need to be in any other committee (like FBSC or O&E)?

I would appreciate that we work out these issues as soon as possible,
because until then, EURALO will be in the impossibility to submit a CROP
request. Our deadline for submitting a CROP request for ICANN Barcelona
(20th October 2018) is Friday 31st August.

Kindest regards,

Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
EURALO Chair
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