[registrars] Position Statement - Jay Westerdal

[Jay Westerdal]

Registrar Consituency Members,
 
I want to thank Tim for my nomination for Secretary.

I believe I have made a difference in the last year serving as your
secretary. The first thing I pushed for was that ICANN operate our bank
account and remove our yearly chaotic shuffle. I pushed Jon to ask ICANN
about this earily on. As you may recall, for the last few years we have had
a series of Treasures that found it hard to manage our money in a post 9/11
world. Bank accounts and Collecting funds is something we needed to
outsource to a paid staff member and to ICANN for yearly coincidence. I am
proud to say that I think this one of my intitives this year that I can
claim partial ownership of.

My second accomplishment was setting up a Wiki for the Constituency. I
believe heavily in a website that the community can manage. It avoids
dependencies on old officers and allows the job of Secretary to migrate
easily from year to year. Even if I am not elected again I am glad to report
the website will transition smoothly because it was built on open source
software and is free and clear of any licensing. The website was technically
challenging at first, I had to created three groups of users. Registrars,
ExCom and Anonymous. I was given a budget of $10,000 to accomplish the
entire website. We have had several websites in the last few years which has
disappointed me. Not only because of the cost but because they lacked
attention or focus. By turning the website over to every member of the
constituency I removed another transition hurtle we have faced every year. I
am glad to report I came in under budget, as I spent $0 to put the site
together because I volunteered my staff's time and myself. The web hosting
was donated as well from Spry.com (a web hosting company I own).

http://www.icannregistrars.org/

Paul has asked about dues and ICANN invoices, so I glad to report that the
registrars that I represent are fully paid up on their invoices to ICANN as
our my dues to the constituency.

Bob has asked about Domain Tasting, so I glad to report my registrars have
never domain tasted. While I coined the term "Domain Tasting", I have never
done it. That is ironic I guess.

I am a small registrar that does not have retail customers, we only service
customers through eNom's Club Drop. I can not pretend to represent the
constituency and state my conflicts when ever I have a chance. However I do
understand this industry incredibly well as I have been in it since the
90's. I am both a domain owner and a registrar so it has given me a health
perpective.

I am not without faults, I think I could have served the Constituency
better. I have to say Bob manages setting up and mantaining teleconferences
at ICANN meetings a lot better then me. That is one of my faults. In the
future I would like to see Christin or an ICANN staff member manage this
function. It is a hard line to balance when running a for-profit company at
the same time volunteering. I am glad we have hired Cristin this year, she
will be handling a lot of duties that the secretary and the treasury have
been handling in the past. I think this will make a big difference in next
year and I am very supportive of having a paid staff member for our
constituency.

I would like to run for Secretary again. So I am asking for your vote.

Bob is a great guy and I wish him luck as my opponent. I have nothing but
respect for Bob.

Out-Going Secretary of the ICANN Registrars Constituency and hopefully
In-Coming,

Jay Westerdal
President and CEO
Name Intelligence, Inc.
http://www.domaintools.com