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<p>Good Morning. <br>
</p>
<p>It is great to see people care about policy and meeting
discussions. Allow me to attempt to clear up what I see as
unfortunate misperceptions as to what is going on.</p>
<p>First, the discussion with the Board. For as long as I have been
going to ICANN and sitting on a leadership position (that would be
since the fall of 2014 when I was first elected to council), there
have been informal breakfast meetings with the Board at face to
face meetings, They were not recorded, and they were also
invitation only....they were not on the agenda, and different
leaders handled invitations differently. I have vivid memories of
being chastised for bringing along other folks who were at the
meeting who were not elected officers, and even for bringing
elected officers who had not been invited by the chair. So I do
challenge Amr's memory of how these things have evolved. However,
the important thing to focus on is how well they have been running
in recent years, the fact that more Board members actually come,
and that we have a useful and informal discussion of challenges
and priorities. Now the question that arose, when we realized we
were going to be looking at virtual meetings for the foreseeable
future, is how do we continue this fruitful discussion? I have
tried very hard to be more open than we have been in the past,
with efforts such as the dinner at ICANN 66 to which we invited
everyone in NCSG who was present at the meeting, not just a
selected few. So I am deeply in sympathy with the concept of all
NCSG participating, not just the leadership team, but it is not
accurate to characterize those breakfast meetings as having been
open in the past, there were never more than a dozen or so of us
there.</p>
<p>Given the frank and open nature of the discussion, and the fact
that we are all suffering from zoom webinar fatigue, I discussed
it with the Chairs and we invited the NCSG EC and the NCSG policy
committee. Now, at no time did anyone on the policy committee or
EC push for wider participation. As an elected official I know
the buck stops with me, I am responsible and accountable for this
decision. However, all the other leaders had plenty of
opportunity to suggest we open this up to the list. The policy
committee has broader representation than just the councillors,
and the chairs also have a duty to speak up. Frankly, I do not
think we will have a good discussion with Board members if all of
our members who are not necessarily following our work closely
dial in and ask questions, but I am open to debating the issue if
you wish. More fruitful, in my opinion, would be discussion with
your elected representatives. Send your questions in. Listen to
the recordings. We are planning to have another call with Matthew
Shears at the end of August, and I am trying to settle the date
right now so that everyone can plan to attend.</p>
<p>There is a broader issue that surfaces in the context of this
debate. Folks are not happy with the webinar mode for virtual
meetings. They want to participate, There are many reasons why
virtual meetings have not taken off over the past 20 years as
predicted, replacing all travel to conferences , and we have COVID
19 to thank for forcing us to try to make this mechanism actually
work better than it is working right now. It seems to me that we
will have to find a way for everyone to chat and participate
during a session, without holding up the discussion that leaders
or working group members are having. This is, I believe, why chat
is disabled for viewers. but it certainly makes webinar mode
unattractive to non participants. We are all being subjected to
webinar contacts in every sphere of life, we want ICANN to remain
a leader in multistakeholder engagement, and that means everybody
gets to speak. I would like to propose that we experiment with
this by trying a parallel discussion, with a leader managing a
parallel channel with observers to a call, and if volume permits,
allowing interaction with the main channel. Of course if nobody
shows up, this is not a problem, but if 100 show up it can be
challenging to have a productive discussion in an hour.</p>
<p>This is just a modest proposal.</p>
<p>On to the second meeting, with the Commercial Party House
presumptive nominee for GNSO Council Chair. <br>
</p>
<p>We have been putting this meeting off since the election, because
folks were focused on other issues, including the KL virtual
meeting. I am remiss, we ought to have had this meeting a while
ago. The determination of Council Chair is a matter where
Councillors will vote. Phillippe Fouquart is very open to having
another meeting, in August (we have a September 1 deadline on this
matter). I made a special effort to make sure we found a date
that suited Rafik, who as Vice Chair of the GNSO Council has a
broad perspective on what the Council's needs and priorities are,
and as part of the leadership team has a thorough grasp of the
requirements of the job. Rafik has had a gruelling schedule
lately involving nighttime daily meetings for Council and the
Chairmanship of the EPDP. We picked Thursday 12:00 UTC to suit
his schedule and Tatiana's. Unfortunately, the meeting invitation
did not reach us in a timely manner, my fault for not doing
followup on that as soon as we landed on the correct time. My
family came to see me this week for the first time in 5 months, so
I must admit that I was offline and preoccupied with my new
grandchildren, not the manner in which this meeting was rolling
out. Mea culpa. However, I am following up with Philippe to
schedule another meeting in a couple of weeks in August, and we
will agree that date and invite the entire NCSG to participate
with a minimum of two weeks notice, you have my word.</p>
<p>In closing, may I say that I have 83 days left in my term as NCSG
Chair. I am doing my best to manage this heavily administrative
role, but I would be the first to say that results are not up to
my standards. I am always eager to talk to people, if they have
concerns. i am not sure that posting criticism to the list is the
most effective way to solve a problem, particularly when something
is a mere oversight (as is the case in the GNSO Council Chair
meeting) or is debatable point that I am happy to discuss (as is
the case with the breakfast meeting with the Board members). I am
trying to foster a productive discussion here, but if nobody talks
to me, it is quite difficult. I hope that when Bruna takes over
on October 22, you give her your full, whole hearted support.
There is no reason for drama or distrust here folks, we have
enough with COVID, we need to all pull together and help one
another.</p>
<p>Stephanie Perrin</p>
<p>NCSG Chair<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2020-07-31 8:12 a.m., Olivier Kouami
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAE0gvYABEVsO9gF6UFG07KPQWYoQNH=rZG76kcBgaQdKDSWsow@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">+2 @Amr. Thanks for sharing your experiences. It's
good to know. And this is still weird, for me.
<div dir="auto">
<div dir="auto">
<div dir="auto">Kind regards.</div>
<div dir="auto">Olévié</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">Le ven. 31 juil. 2020 à 10:38, Amr Elsadr
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:aelsadr@icannpolicy.ninja"><aelsadr@icannpolicy.ninja></a> a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>Hi,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You couldn’t be more wrong on all counts, Raoul.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This wasn’t an NCSG EC/Board meeting…, and in all my
years with the NCSG, I’ve never heard of any such meeting
take place. There are regular open NCSG/Board Meetings at
ICANN public meetings, which anybody (you don’t even need
to be an NCSG member) may attend. This wasn’t one of
those, though. This was another kind of meeting we also
used to regularly have, which is a small informal meeting
between NCSG members and Board members from the GNSO (CPH
and NCPH appointees). These also used to take place at
ICANN public meetings, traditionally over breakfast, and
were never limited to NCSG leadership participation only.
We even had Fellows and Next-Gen participants attend those
in the past. Basically…, anybody who was willing to get up
a little early and go to that breakfast. I don’t know
where you got the <i>“This has been going on for many
years already and business as usual”</i> from, but
that’s a factually incorrect statement. Like I said, these
have always been informal meetings, and never recorded or
anything…, but still very important.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also, when you frame my concern as one of
“transparency”, and claim it’s overblown, it makes me
think you either stopped reading my email halfway through,
or you just completely missed the point I was making. I
never claimed that there is a transparency (or lack
thereof) issue. Never even mentioned the word in my email,
so please don’t make this about something it’s not.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My concern is with how the NCSG’s leadership is
organizing these meetings in ways that are
counter-productive to the work being done by our members.
I gave the EPDP and ATRT as examples of where we have
members actively working on issues, where interaction with
the Board is vital to how we make strategic plans about
the actual work we are doing moving forward.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This isn’t about virtual handshakes and photo ops (or
screenshots). This is about engaging with the Board
members we appoint on critical issues like how they’re
going to deal with a final report that the NCSG really
needs to see adopted, when we have “divergence” on 2 of
the recommendations in that report by the EPDP Team. It’s
about engaging with them on their plans to work these
issues out with the ACs (ALAC, GAC and SSAC) that are
doing everything they can to sink all the work done over
the past 2 years on that EPDP, so that they can work these
issues out in closed rooms with the Board and staff, and
exclude the NCSG from these discussions altogether.
Y’know…, real NCSG work stuff, Raoul?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>When Matthew Shears was up for reappointment by the
NCPH, I specifically asked him to make sure to hold these
meetings with the NCSG in order to have an opportunity to
discuss these very issues, and he complied. It’s our own
Executive Committee that failed to announce the meeting to
the general membership. That doesn’t mean there was lack
of transparency. The call was announced on the EC mailing
list, which is publicly archived.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You also seem to have selectively ignored the second
call we were not invited to, which was a call with a
candidate from the ISPCP Constituency running for GNSO
Chair. I hope I don’t need to explain the relevance of
attending a call concerning that election to you. If you
feel I do, I’d be happy to. Now that Maryam has circulated
the recording and attendance of that call, it’s clear that
the majority of our Councilors did not attend it,
including the incoming Councilors who will be voting for
and working with the new GNSO Chair. I always have a
checklist of promises I ask candidates for GNSO Chair to
make, such as a commitment to guard the GNSO’s right to
develop gTLD policy recommendations, which is a right
always under attack by ICANN ACs. If a candidate is not
willing to publicly make this commitment (as an example),
I normally advise our Councilors to not back him/her as a
candidate.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So, Raoul…, are you getting a picture of what the big
deal is?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Amr<br>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Jul 31, 2020, at 11:32 AM, Raoul Plommer <<a href="mailto:plommer@GMAIL.COM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true">plommer@GMAIL.COM</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">I think this demand for transparency
is somewhat overblown here, Amr. The board has
gotten together with NCSG EC and its chairs like
with all the other SGs. What's the big deal? This
has been going on for many years already and
business as usual as far as I can see.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>-Raoul</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 31 Jul
2020 at 06:58, Olivier Kouami <<a href="mailto:olivierkouami@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true">olivierkouami@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px
0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="auto">+1 @Amr.
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Warm regards</div>
<div dir="auto">Olévié</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">Le jeu. 30 juil. 2020 à 12:40,
Amr Elsadr <<a href="mailto:aelsadr@icannpolicy.ninja" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true">aelsadr@icannpolicy.ninja</a>>
a écrit :<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>Hi,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>From looking at the NCSG EC Archive (<a href="https://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-ec/2020-July/date.html" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-ec/2020-July/date.html</a>),
I see that there are a couple of calls
that are taking place without any notice
or invitation being sent to our general
membership. I, for one, would have liked
to attend both calls, and don’t
understand why they’ve been kept from us
regular members by the NCSG EC.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The first call, held yesterday (29
July) was apparently with Matthew
Shears, and possibly other ICANN Board
members too. I recall holding a call
with Matthew when he was up for
reelection by the NCPH (we were invited
to that call, thankfully), and recall
specifically asking him to hold periodic
calls with our members as a means to
keep in touch, and facilitate
communication with the NCSG. Matthew
seems to be doing his part, but we’ve
been excluded form participation by our
own SG’s leadership (a presumption on my
part, so please correct me if I’m
mistaken).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Right now would have been a really
good time to engage with our Board
members, especially considering the EPDP
finalizing its Phase 2 final report, and
the Board having a seemingly strong
opinion on one of the recommendations,
which conflicts with our own. There may
be other topics of importance to our
members, like the recent ATRT
recommendations, and what the Board’s
consideration of those will mean to the
ICANN MSM.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Earlier today, it seems like a second
call was also held (or was at least
scheduled to be) with colleagues in the
CSG regarding the election of a new GNSO
Chair. Again…, this is an issue of great
importance to NCSG members, particularly
those who are engaged in policy
development in the GNSO. Why were we not
invited to attend this call as well? I
hope that the NCSG’s new incoming
Council representatives were at least
invited to this second call, since they
will be expected to work with the new
GNSO Chair, and will also be expected to
vote in this election.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I find this kind of disregard to our
members’ participation to be incredibly
counter-productive to the work we do,
and don’t really care for explanations
or excuses. I’d just really like to see
it stop.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Amr</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
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