[council] Chairs roundtable

[Stéphane Van Gelder]

Councillors,

Just a short summary of the informal meeting of SO and AC chairs that happened today. It was a 2-hour informal discussion, in the room were: Rod Beckstrom, David Olive, Akram Atallah, Olivier Crepin Leblond (ALAC Chair), Heather Dryden (GAC Chair), Patrick Falstrom (SSAC Chair), Matt Larson (RSSAC Vice Chair), Lesley Cowley (new ccNSO Chair), Chris Disspain (outgoing ccNSO Chair).

We started off discussing the DOC's NOI on the IANA function and associated contract. Main points of the discussion were:
- Although the GAC will probably not submit a response, a handful of national govts may.
- This is the 1st time the DOC has put out an NOI on the IANA function.
- There's an option for a 6-month extension of the current contract and expectations in the room were that the DOC would probably exercise this option.

We then discussed technical issues around the root, and the probability of seeing the root forked by one or several countries. There was a feeling in the room that one important aspect is perception, i.e. if people are happy enough with the current model, then the temptation to adopt another one lessens.

The last area of discussion we went to is current workload and prioritization within ICANN. Main points of the discussion were:
- Is the current workload caused by new gTLDs and will it lessen once the program starts?
- There is a need to better define the roles within the organisation that is ICANN. Who is supposed to do what? What is the Board's role? What is the role of each SO and AC? There needs to be a clearly defined roadmap and flowchart so that people know what they're supposed to do.
- Training might help, so that staff and those volunteers that work hard on the SO and ACs might be able to put their meaning across in a more concise way, write shorter reports and emails, etc.

As a conclusion, there was a general feeling that a meeting like this is useful for the various leaders of the SOs and ACs to get to know each other better and to understand the differences between each group more.

I hope this short summary is useful for you.

Thanks,

Stéphane