AW: [council] Meeting Protocol for Brussels and beyond...

Thu Jun 3 19:46:28 UTC 2010

Just to answer your question: there is consensus within the ISPCP constituency not to "close" the weekend council sessions as I've pointed out.

Regards 
Wolf-Ulrich 

________________________________

	Von: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes at verisign.com] 
	Gesendet: Donnerstag, 3. Juni 2010 17:03
	An: Adrian Kinderis; Knoben, Wolf-Ulrich; stephane.vangelder at indom.com; william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
	Cc: council at gnso.icann.org
	Betreff: RE: [council] Meeting Protocol for Brussels and beyond...

	Adrian,

	I have intentionally been delaying commenting on this subject for at least two reasons: 1) I first wanted to make sure I could speak on behalf of the RySG membership that I represent and not just share personal thoughts, so I raised the issue on the RySG list and have been watching the discussion there; 2) I also wanted to watch the Council discussion for awhile to get a sense of what various Councilors thought about this subject before I commented in my role as Chair.

	There has been quite a bit of discussion on the RySG list and it has been very consistent.  RySG members are opposed to closing off the meetings and not allowing observers to participate.  At the same time they recognize the need for good management of open sessions and support steps in that regard such as Council seating arrangements, name tags, etc.

	It might be helpful to look at some history regarding open meetings.  I think the new gTLD PDP serves as an important element of GNSO history in this regard.  Before I was even on the Council, it was decided to use the Council as a Whole approach instead of forming a Task Force but to do that in a way that allowed broader participation than just Councilors.  Bruce as Chair of the Council led the PDP effort and from beginning to end, over a span of more than 1 ½ years, participants involved Councilors and others who were willing to commit the time.  We had a lot of in-person meetings including long sessions on weekends in conjunction with ICANN International meetings and, at all of those sessions, attendance and participation were open to everyone who showed up.  Moreover, even though we were tackling one of the toughest tasks ever, we succeeded in producing supermajority recommendations.  The results were not perfect and we are still working on their implementation today, but it really was a huge accomplishment.  Bruce, and toward the end when Bruce joined the Board, Avri, are to be commended for their excellent leadership and all of the community participants, Councilors and non-Councilors, are to be complimented as well.

	I believe it was during the new gTLD PDP that the trend toward open WG sessions was expanded to include nearly all GNSO meetings on the weekend.   And in my personal opinion as well as the view of the RySG, that has worked very well.  It has not been without challenges and certainly can be improved, but it fits the bottom-up process that we are supposed to follow very well.  It also meets the Board recommendation that the GNSO Council should not be a legislative body.

	Another point that is important is this: From the time that weekend working sessions were started until now, it was always made clear that these were not official Council meetings and that no business would be directly done.  We always reserved business for the Open Council Meetings on Wednesdays or for our regular teleconference meetings.

	I believe that two people on the Council have supported Adrian's suggestion for making the weekend working sessions more closed: Adrian and Mike.  (If others have done so, I apologise and note that it is still early for me and I have not read all my email today.)  Another Board recommendation is that the GNSO Council should improve its representativeness of its stakeholders.  In light of that, I would like to ask Adrian and Mike and any others who have expressed views on this issue, regardless of the views, to answer this question: Do the positions you have communicated represent the views of your Stakeholder Groups or are they primarily your personal views?  Besides the representativeness concern, I ask this question because over the years I have observed excellent contributions from non-Councilors from every Stakeholder Group and Constituency including lots of contributions from members of the RrSG and CBUC.  I think it would have been a loss if those had not been allowed in the process.

	Finally, let me suggest a word of caution.  Each of us as Councilors has our own personal, business and/or professional interests with regard to GNSO work, otherwise we probably would not volunteer so much time.  That is as it should be but I think we need to be careful that we are not perceived to be using our Councilor role as a platform for promoting those interests.  I am not suggesting that anyone is, but I do believe that in taking a stance of making the GNSO working sessions more closed, some may perceive us that way and we may be seen as elevating ourselves above others in the community who also have their own personal, business and professional interests, just because we are Councilors.

	I apologise for such a long message.  Speaking in my role as Chair, I recommend that we continue to not only allow open participation in our weekend working sessions but that we encourage it but that we do so in a way that is well managed and effective.  And I commit myself as Chair to provide the leadership needed to make that happen with help from all of you.  As first steps in that regard, I would like to ask Glen to prepare 2-sided name tags for all Councilors and participating Staff members for our meetings in Brussels and I along with help from Glen, Stéphane and Olga will do our best to make sure that there is room for all Councilors at tables where we and other participants can readily see and converse with one another and observers.

	Thanks to everyone for the excellent dialog on this topic.

	Chuck

	From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Kinderis
	Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 7:58 AM
	To: KnobenW at telekom.de; stephane.vangelder at indom.com; william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
	Cc: council at gnso.icann.org
	Subject: RE: [council] Meeting Protocol for Brussels and beyond...

	Wolf,

	That must have worked well at a conference with 20% the usual participation level and no new DAG to bang on about...

	I think it will be very different in Brussels. Hence my original email.

	I would love to hear from our Chair and Vice chair on this (not you Stephane!).

	Adrian Kinderis

	From: KnobenW at telekom.de [mailto:KnobenW at telekom.de] 
	Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 9:45 PM
	To: stephane.vangelder at indom.com; william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
	Cc: Adrian Kinderis; council at gnso.icann.org
	Subject: AW: [council] Meeting Protocol for Brussels and beyond...

	Stéphane,

	I personally felt comfortable the way you were managing the weekend sessions in Nairobi which means: councillors taking seats at the table and speaking first to the various topics. Time for open discussion was still available and seemed having been taken into schedule account. I would welcome to keep it this way.

	Regards 
	Wolf-Ulrich 

________________________________

		Von: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] Im Auftrag von Stéphane Van Gelder
		Gesendet: Mittwoch, 2. Juni 2010 08:37
		An: William Drake
		Cc: Adrian Kinderis; council at gnso.icann.org Council
		Betreff: Re: [council] Meeting Protocol for Brussels and beyond...

		Bill's summary is spot on as far as I can remember. In Nairobi, Adrian had pointed out the need to ensure Councillors get priority at our weekend sessions. As acting Chair at that meeting, I tried to do just that. My impression was that by allowing Councillors to speak first and then opening it to other members of the community, we were able to ensure that these sessions were productive for Councillors while still remaining open and useful for the larger community as well. 

		Stéphane

		Le 2 juin 2010 à 08:20, William Drake a écrit :

		Hi Adrian, 

		On Jun 2, 2010, at 2:24 AM, Adrian Kinderis wrote:

		I would like to suggest that there be no questions from the floor during these sessions.

		When we last had this conversation didn't we decide against draconian 

		    measures that would preclude community participation (and were hence poorly 

		    received by some) and for some intermediate steps like only Councilors at 

		    the table, chair gives preference to Councilor comments and right sizes the 

		    time for others, etc? If people think this has not worked sufficiently, 

		    wouldn't it be possible to simply have an offline conversation with the most 

		    relevant parties saying please respect the following ground rules, and to 

		    reiterate these at the outset of meetings?

		On Jun 2, 2010, at 2:51 AM, Adrian Kinderis wrote:

		I'll shout an extra round at the bar on Saturday night to make up for it :)

		Hmm...didn't I hear something like this a few meetings ago, didn't materialize... :-)

		BTW, on the matter of after hour amusement, perhaps I'll pass along something I pointed out to NCSG, might be of interest to some here:

		On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 1:33 PM, William Drake
		<william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch> wrote:

		Hi

			Just an FYI for people who will be attending ICANN Brussels, as with Paris two summers ago, this meeting overlaps with the annual Fete de la Musique held across France, Belgium, Switzerland, etc.  Just had a look at the program http://2010.fetedelamusique.be/recherches?tid=&tid_1=All&city=Bruxelles and inter alia Saturday night 19th Toots and the Maytals is playing in the park near the conference site.

		Bill

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/attachments/20100603/d9e943ce/attachment.html>