[Internal-cg] Plan for side meetings / ICANN 51

[Alissa Cooper]

Dear all,

I’d like to summarize where we are with respect to ICG side meetings with
specific communities, at ICANN 51 and beyond.

First, we have extended our open session with the community by 30 minutes,
to 120 minutes. Patrik is working on the agenda for that session. The
intent with the extra time is to provide more time for Q&A with the
community, and perhaps to address specific questions that may have come up
earlier in the ICANN 51 meeting week.

Second, there is strong support for the development of an FAQ so that we
can have a shared resource when answering questions that may arise in
various sessions and venues. I have asked Manal and Martin to develop a
first draft of the FAQ and my hope is that we can book time on our October
1 call to discuss and refine it. There is limited time between now and
ICANN 51, so I think the goal here should not be perfection, but to have
talking points that we find useful as a group. To that point, whether we
formally “publish” the FAQ on our web site or just use the draft for our
own purposes at the meeting can be decided at some future time — the goal
for now should be to have an internal resource. Also, there has been some
discussion about the inclusion of questions/answers concerning the process
to be followed after we receive proposals. I will send a separate email
about that.

Third, we have received two explicit requests for side meetings at ICANN
51 — one from ALAC, and one from the GAC. As our discussion on this topic
has evolved, I believe we have rough consensus to proceed with scheduling
these meetings, provided that certain conditions are met (most of the
discussion has focused on the GAC request, but I think some of the
arguments that have been given from a variety of people posting to the
list and on the call extend to ALAC and other groups as well). These
conditions have been mentioned (to some extent I’m paraphrasing Patrik)
and I think we should make use of them:

(a) Side meetings are public, minuted, and, to the extent possible,
translated. (These conditions will be met by the ALAC and GAC
arrangements.)

(b) We announce that we are accepting meeting invitations from interested
parties (at ICANN 51 and beyond) and that we will respond if requests seem
justified and resources permit.

(c) For the round of meetings at ICANN 51 focused on how to participate in
operational community processes, we ensure that at least one ICG member
each from protocol parameters, numbers, gTLDs, and ccTLDs are available to
join the meetings, and we welcome participation from as many other ICG
members whose schedules can accommodate the meetings. In general, we
assume for side meetings that having a small group of us represent the ICG
is fine, while having a larger subset of us participate is preferred.

My plan is to proceed with the tasks necessary to fulfill the conditions
above — responding to ALAC and GAC about scheduling, getting an
announcement posted, and figuring out who will be available to attend the
meetings. There have also been some suggestions that we should try to get
meetings scheduled with the CCWG and the ccNSO. If you are participating
in those groups, believe that a meeting would be beneficial, and can help
with scheduling, please make that known on the list and I will follow up
with you.

Thanks,
Alissa