[council] Re; Impovements plan - a comment on the compositon of the OSC

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

Thanks for your comments.

On 10 Oct 2008, at 08:22, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

> I don't think I would oppose this amendment as along as 'the
> requirements that need to be met to achieve this status' are clearly  
> and
> objectively defined to include reasonable evidence that the group  
> would
> be representative of a larger community stakeholder group.  Some of  
> the
> reasons against adding this amendment are: 1) the SCs could become too
> large to be effective;

I do not believe that we will have that many constituencies that will  
qualify.  But this is assuming that we create a reasonable set of  
criteria and a formal process for introducing new constituencies.

> 2) it depends on a definition that we will not
> have until after we act on the motion;

I think the plan needs to require that this definition be developed,  
and I think the language I offered does this.  What I believe is  
important at this point is the principle of openness and inclusion.

> 3)the real work on implementation
> is going to happen at the Working Team level, not in the SCs, and the
> Working Teams should be open to all just WGs are.

But decisions on what to charter, and a determination of when a  
charter is met or is problematic will be defined in the OSC.  As we  
have seen in other cases, this activity can be quite critical and  
quite problematic.  And to borrow from an example given in another  
email, if the OSC were to charter a group to look into making rules  
for SGs that prohibited the participation of faith based  
constituencies, this could be something where the existence of that  
charter could be relevant to a group that had met all the existing pre- 
conditions becoming a prospective constituency-in-formation.

Additionally, I think that having these end game candidate  
constituencies in the OSC also allows for a better view of their real  
seriousness and the level to which they are ready to participate and  
can play well with others.  I.e. I believe that those trying to  
determine whether to grant full constituency status will gain insight  
from having candidates participate as observers - though that is not  
my reason for suggesting the amendment.

Of course I do not have a second for this yet, so it may be a moot  
point.

a.