[council] Consent agenda

[Stéphane Van Gelder]

Councillors,

As indicated during our meeting last week, following its successful trial run, I'd like to hone the consent agenda to a point where we have a formal process.

During last week's meeting, we discussed and agreed on a general 3-step process for dealing with consent agenda items.

1. The Chair or meeting leader calls for any opposition to said item being in the consent agenda. If any opposition is voiced, then that item is dropped from the consent agenda (and can be re-introduced at any time in the main agenda).
2. If no opposition is voiced to the item being on the consent agenda, the Chair or meeting leader calls for any opposition to the item itself. If any opposition is voiced, then no action is taken (and the item can be re-introduced at any time in the main agenda).
3. If no opposition, the consent agenda item is deemed approved by the GNSO Council.

In order to formalize this process and with a view to including the consent agenda in our rules and procedures, I have asked the SCI Chair Wolf-Ulrich Knoben to have the SCI look at it and come up with some recommendations for the Council to approve.

The SCI will obviously need to go beyond the basic format outlined above. In particular, it may wish to look at items that may require exclusion from the consent agenda (a motion vote is an obvious example), to serve as guideline for the Council Chair and Leadership Team when a GNSO Council meeting agenda is being drafted.

I do not think a complicated process is required, and I believe that the consent agenda framework we established last week already works very well, but I still think we would all appreciate the SCI's input.

Wolf, please let us know when you have put this before the SCI and when you have an idea of the timeframe the group will need to provide the Council with a recommendation.

Thanks,

Stéphane