[registrars] Registrar Meeting - Closed Session

[Robert F. Connelly]

At 09:03 PM 9/12/03 -0400, Michael D. Palage wrote:
>I just read your blog about the registrar meeting being closed for the first
>time. That is not 100% accurate. At the close of the Melbourne meeting,
>there was a supplmental meeting that was open to everyone except VeriSign as
>we discussed strategy regarding the ICANN/DoC/VRSN contract renegotiations.
>
>It was not clear from your blog why the meeting was closed.

Dear Michael:  I'll leave it for Elana to respond to this 
question.  However, for background, I had prepared sign up sheets for all 
the sub categories I could imagine would attend:

Voting Members
Non-Voting Members
ICANN Accredited Registrars not a member of the Constituency
gTLD registries
ccTLD registries
Member of other ICANN Constituencies
Non-Journalist Visitors
Journalists

Eric Faucet of ICANN blog attended the meeting but avoided signing any of 
the registers when he arrived.  I believe he entered in the back of the 
room.  When Paul Twomey spoke to us rather candidly, he asked whether 
anyone from the press was present.  Eric identified himself and made some 
kind of promise that I did not hear clearly.  Paul continued, but at least 
I was concerned that Eric's present was a deterrent to a thorough briefing 
by Paul.  Eric was sitting at the back of the room behind Ross.

During the noon session, I had some administrative announcements and read 
out the various attendance sheets.  Eric acknowledged that he has not 
signed in -- I then placed him on the Journalist's register.

>  For the benefit of those registrars not able to attend could you give a 
> briefings as to why
>it was closed. I didn't see anything earth shattering that would 
>necessitate this rather drastic step.

Again I defer to Elana.  For the time being, it was the last item discussed 
on the agenda and was the subject of a free wheeling brain storming 
session.  The presence of anyone other than a registrar would have deterred 
some of us from certain frank statements.  The gTLDs had left for their own 
meetings, there were no ccTLDs in attendance all day, nor were there any 
Non-Journalist Visitors.  IMO, it was quite appropriate that it was that 
way. The telephone Bridge was in place and at least Paul Westley was on the 
line --  though it was very difficult for him to hear.  I was unable to get 
around the room quickly enough to get mikes to the various speaker.

Had you been here, I think you would have agreed that we didn't need the 
press;-}

Cordially, BobC




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If something doesn't seem right, ask yourself whether you are a part of the 
*solution* --  or a part of the *problem*;-}