[council] Draft minutes of the GNSO Council teleconference 21 December 2006

Mon Jan 8 21:53:16 UTC 2007

[council[at]gnso.icann.org]

Dear Council Members,

Please find the draft minutes of the GNSO Council teleconference held on 
21 December  2006.

Please let me know if you would like any changes made.

Thank you very much.

Kind regards,
Glen
...............................................................................
21 December 2006

Proposed agenda and related documents

List of attendees:
Philip Sheppard - Commercial & Business Users C. - absent - apologies
Marilyn Cade - Commercial & Business Users C.
Alistair Dixon - Commercial & Business Users C
Greg Ruth - ISCPC - absent
Antonio Harris - ISCPC - absent
Tony Holmes - ISCPC - absent
Thomas Keller- Registrars
Ross Rader - Registrars - absent - apologies
Bruce Tonkin - Registrars
Chuck Gomes - gTLD registries
Edmon Chung - gTLD registries
Cary Karp - gTLD registries
Kristina Rosette - Intellectual Property Interests C
Ute Decker - Intellectual Property Interests C
Kiyoshi Tsuru - Intellectual Property Interests C - absent
Robin Gross - NCUC. - absent
Norbert Klein - NCUC. - absent
Mawaki Chango - NCUC - absent - apologies
Sophia Bekele - Nominating Committee appointee
Jon Bing - Nominating Committee appointee
Avri Doria - Nominating Committee appointee

13 Council Members
(18 Votes - quorum)

ICANN Staff
Dan Halloran - Deputy General Counsel
Denise Michel - Vice President, Policy Development
Olof Nordling - Manager, Policy Development Coordination
Maria Farrell - GNSO Policy Officer
Glen de Saint Géry - GNSO Secretariat

GNSO Council Liaisons
Suzanne Sene - GAC Liaison - absent - apologies
Alan Greenberg - ALAC Liaison

Quorum present at 19:05 UTC.

MP3 Recording

Bruce Tonkin chaired this meeting

Approval of the agenda

Avri Doria requested discussing interim meetings on the new gTLD PDP and 
PDPFeb06 under Item 7: Any Other Business

Item 1: Update any statements of interest
Bruce Tonkin reminded new Council members that statements of interest 
were voluntary and referred to the statement of interest Chuck Gomes 
provided.

Item 2: Approval of the GNSO Council minutes of 6 December 2006

This item was deferred to the next GNSO Council meeting on 18 January 2007

Item 3: Correspondence

No correspondence received

Item 4: Election of GNSO Council chair

Bruce Tonkin commented that it has been the recent practice of the GNSO 
Council to use the past chair, (Philip Sheppard) to chair the discussion 
for the election of the GNSO Chair, but in Philip's absence Bruce 
requested Council if Glen de Saint Géry as the secretariat for the 
election could conduct that part of the meeting.

Council approved.

Glen de Saint Géry stated that a formal nomination period was open for 
two weeks from Monday 27 November to Monday 11 December 2006.

Bruce Tonkin, nominated by Mawaki Chango, a NCUC Council representative, 
seconded Ken Stubbs, a gTLD Registries constituency Council 
representative, and the only nominee at close of nominations on Monday 
11 December 2006 accepted his nomination for GNSO Council chair.

As Council agreed at the GNSO Council meeting in Sao Paulo on 6 December 
2006, if there were only one nomination, then the voting and 
confirmation of the election would take place at the scheduled GNSO 
Council meeting on 21 December 2006.

The Secretariat proposed a roll call vote of affirmation to elect Bruce 
Tonkin as GNSO Council Chair for the period 21 December 2006 until the 
end of the ICANN Annual General Meeting in 2007.

The motion carried.
16 votes in favour, one abstention Bruce Tonkin (2 votes)
Absent: Philip Sheppard (CBUC), Kiyoshi Tsuru (IPC), Tony Holmes, Greg 
Ruth (ISPCPC), Robin Gross, Norbert Klein, Mawaki Chango (NCUC) Ross 
Rader (Registrars constituency)

Decision 1: Bruce Tonkin elected as GNSO Council Chair for the period 21 
December 2006 until the end of the ICANN Annual General Meeting in 2007.

The Secretariat handed the chair back to Bruce Tonkin.

Item 5: Proposal to elect a GNSO Council vice-chair

Bruce Tonkin called for discussion on whether the Council was interested 
in formally appointing a deputy chair and added that due to business 
commitments he would be unavailable for the ICANN Lisbon meetings. In 
addition, Bruce's term on the GNSO Council finishes at the 2007 Annual 
General Meeting (currently scheduled around early November 2007).

It was noted that if a chair of the Council or a committee/task force 
was absent for a particular meeting, that the relevant group could 
appoint a chair for that particular meeting.

Marilyn Cade expressed support for a leadership continuity process for 
the Council that should be considered together with the job description 
and functions to be fulfilled by both a chair and a vice chair; how 
management of the GNSO relates to the Council's policy work, and 
documenting and stabilizing procedures and processes.
There should be clarity on the roles when electing someone on an interim 
basis as chair.
Sophia Bekele mentioned the idea of mentoring a new chair with a period 
of overlap to ensure continuity.
Cary Karp commented that there was no crucial reason to institute a 
position because of an anticipated absence at one meeting.
Given the ICANN Board was considering the LSE review it was perhaps 
judicious to wait for the outcome before making a structural change.
Avri Doria supported the idea in all organisations to back up work and 
commented that the Council workload had been growing steadily. The ICANN 
bylaws mention a GNSO chair but no mention is made that a vice chair is 
prohibited.
Tom Keller supported the concept in general but added that consideration 
should be given to when both the chair and the deputy chair were absent 
and it should not be a foregone conclusion that the vice chair would 
become the next Council chair.
Alistair Dixon also supported the principle but added that the chairs' 
workload could be shared by other members of council.

Bruce Tonkin commented that from a succession planning point of view, 
documenting procedures was the first step.

Bruce Tonkin proposed:
- documenting current procedures with a role description of the GNSO chair
- drafting the role of deputy chair for Council's consideration
- await the ICANN Board considerations in terms of the LSE Review.

Item 6: PDP on new gTLDs work
- Update draft recommendations to separate policy from implementation 
guidance.

Staff is updating the draft recommendations to separate policy from 
implementation guidance based on the input received at the Sao Paulo 
meetings.

- Proposal to form a GNSO working group to review the creation of a 
reserved words list for the top level and update the list for the second 
level for gTLDs
(use: http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/jobs/appendix-6-05may05.htm 
as a starting point)

- Proposal to form a GNSO working group to review the sunrise processes 
used by recent gTLDs and ccTLDs (e.g .eu) and determine whether a 
standardised process that is scalable for many new gTLDs is feasible.

There was general support for the principle of creating two working 
groups to review the two topics.

The proposed structure of the group:
- would be open, similar to that of the IDN working group
- eligibility requirements for membership would be a member of a GNSO 
constituency, a member of the Council, a Nominating Committee appointee 
to Council, an Advisory Committee liaison as a non voting member
- possibility of appointing experts to the working group
- groups appoint an interim chair and then ask the group what they want 
to do in the longer term.
- there should be a council member as liaison between the council and 
the working groups.

The views of the group could be incorporated into the new gTLD report as 
guidance. However, this should not be on the critical path for new gTLDs 
process which should not be dependent on the outcome of the groups.

Chuck Gomes proposed 3 principles for the groups:

1. Keep the group to a manageable size. Representation of divergent 
views rather than constituency or geographical representation.
2. Leadership of the working group is important, not to drive the agenda 
but to drive the action.
3. New involvement, people with the right knowledge base and skill sets 
should be encouraged. Minimise the number of councillors in the groups.

Bruce Tonkin proposed:

Marilyn Cade and Chuck Gomes draft terms of reference to review the 
creation of a reserved words list for the top level and update the list 
for the second level for gTLDs.

Kristina Rosette and Ute Decker draft terms of reference to review the 
sunrise processes used by recent gTLDs and ccTLDs (e.g .eu) and 
determine whether a standardised process that is scalable for many new 
gTLDs is feasible.

Council members were invited to submit ideas.
Draft terms of reference should be submitted by 11 January, 2007, one 
week before the Council meeting on 18 January 2007

- membership structure as for the GNSO IDN working group
Chuck Gomes urged that the IDN group be spurred on because it was 
necessary to know if there were additional issues regarding the 
introduction of new TLDs that need to be added to the recommendation 
paper in the draft Final Report on the Introduction of New Top Level 
Generic Names.

Item: 7 AOB
7.1 Concept of an Interim meeting
Avri Doria proposed holding one interim meeting to cover the policy work 
on the New gTLD PDPDec05 and the GNSO Policies for contractual 
conditions, existing gTLDs PDPFeb06 in mid February 2007. The interim 
face to face meetings have proved to be a productive means of moving the 
work forward.

Tom Keller encouraged more productive use of the physical time during 
the 3 ICANN meetings.

Marilyn Cade supported the idea of the Council committees and task 
forces having two full working days before the ICANN meetings started, 
but strongly supported an intercessional meeting. However expressed the 
hope that over time as the processes evolved, staff support 
strengthened, the expertise that was planned for in the strategic and 
operational plan was added and the policy development process was 
revised and updated, the need for interim meetings would diminish.

Alistair Dixon supported an interim meeting, but supported any 
initiative to make more use of the time available at the ICANN meetings, 
for example meetings to consider input from the public forums.

Chuck Gomes, also in support of an interim meeting, suggested that the 
constituencies assign one person with adequate communication channels, 
to represent the constituency. Chuck further emphasised the importance 
of having different people in different groups so that groups could work 
productively in parallel 2 or 3 days before ICANN meetings.

Bruce Tonkin proposed taking on board the comments and encouraging each 
committee or working group to have a series of scheduled meetings that 
fit in with the flow of the ICANN meetings.

Bruce Tonkin proposed working with staff to schedule a meeting in mid 
February with similar funding arrangements as for previous meetings. 
Economy class air fare for one member of each constituency, plus the 
chair, hotel accommodation funded for the period of time to work on both 
PDPDec05 and PDPFeb06, so that the meetings could take place serially.
The proposed dates were 15, 16, 17, 18 February 2007 and expressed 
strong support for Los Angeles as a venue so as to engage the ICANN 
operational staff.

Denise Michel stated that ICANN Could commit to funding the 
intercessional meeting using the same basic guidelines as for the 
Amsterdam meeting in August 2006.

Bruce Tonkin formally closed the meeting and thanked everybody for 
participating.

The meeting ended: 20:15 UTC

Next GNSO Council teleconference will be on 18 January 2007 at 19:00 UTC.
see: Calendar

Summary of Work Items arising from the minutes:

1. Arising from Item 5 Proposal to elect a GNSO Council vice-chair

Bruce Tonkin proposed:
- documenting procedures with a role description of the GNSO chair
- drafting the role of deputy chair for Council's consideration

2. Arising from Item 6: PDP on new gTLDs work
2.1 Marilyn Cade and Chuck Gomes draft terms of reference to review the 
creation of a reserved words list for the top level and update the list 
for the second level for gTLDs.

2.2 Kristina Rosette and Ute Decker draft terms of reference to review 
the sunrise processes used by recent gTLDs and ccTLDs (e.g .eu) and 
determine whether a standardised process that is scalable for many new 
gTLDs is feasible.

2.3 Council members were invited to submit ideas.
2.4 Draft terms of reference should be submitted by 11 January, 2007, 
one week before the Council meeting on 18 January 2007

2.5- membership structure as for the GNSO IDN working group
Chuck Gomes to urge IDN group to work to meet the Lisbon meeting 
deadline and additional issues regarding the introduction of new TLDs 
that need to be added to the recommendation paper in the draft Final 
Report on the Introduction of New Top Level Generic Names.

3. The Secretariat will survey the Council and task force members to 
establish a date for the interim meeting and work towards organising the 
meeting.
-- 
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org