Summary Comments on the Discussion Concerning consolidating NCSG, NCUC and NPOC

[Mueller, Milton L]

Sam,
Thanks for this summary and thanks to Raphael for his more formal minutes.
I regret that I was unable to attend this meeting, it overlapped with a day job meeting as we are gearing up for the beginning of the university semester here and covid-19 has created a lot of extra work. If we have another meeting I would appreciate having a bit more warning, might be able to juggle the schedule.

Best regards,
MM

From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> On Behalf Of Tomslin Samme-Nlar
Sent: Friday, August 7, 2020 9:59 PM
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Summary Comments on the Discussion Concerning consolidating NCSG, NCUC and NPOC

Thank you Sam. Well summarised.

Like you mentioned in your summary, we must continue to work on improving the Troika. Taking into consideration all the good points that have been raised during the life of your post and discussion.
Cheers,
Tomslin


On Fri., 7 Aug. 2020, 00:29 Sam Lanfranco, <lanfran at yorku.ca<mailto:lanfran at yorku.ca>> wrote:
NCSG, NCUC & NPOC Colleagues,
I would like to express my thanks for the discussion that followed my deliberately provocative posting on possible futures for those of us working in the troika. This is my summary statement for now.
The discussion was rich and insightful with some deep-felt positions agreeing that we could restructure to do better. Collectively we are administratively top heavy. We are persistently short of volunteers to cover our role in the core work of ICANN (policy development, document review, etc.). Our recruitment of active and engaged membership has been wanting.
Given the size of the global civil society and non-profit sectors our recruitment efforts, independently and working with ICANN, have been of weak success. This is as serious an issue at two levels. One is the shortage of engaged members for the core work of ICANN. The other is the weight of our voice within ICANN.
In this discussion one colleague said that NPOC is the “Voice of the non-profit sector”. No. NPOC cannot claim that any more than NCUC can claim that it is the voice of non-commercial users.  We are hearty bands of volunteers who, to the best of our ability, voice the concerns of non-commercial users and the non-profit sector. We have no formal accountability and base our efforts on our best intentions. For example, my NPOC position comes from the Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH) NPOC membership. CSIH was once concerned about abuse around health gTLDs. They are no longer concerned, I am no longer formally accountable, and I should shift to individual NCSG membership.
ICANN needs us as a legitimate part of its multistakeholder model. While we are representatives FROM our constituencies, without formal accountability we are not representatives OF our constituencies.
The good work of those who volunteer for policy development, elected positions, and other ICANN tasks bolster mainly individual reputations and standings within ICANN. The weight of the troika’s voice within ICANN, as the troika, rests on the breadth and depth of our membership, and we are weak there.
I would hope that as part of our work agenda for 2020-2021 we have an ongoing discussion and look at structural changes that increase member engagement in ICANN work, reduce troika administrative work, and enhance the attractiveness of membership from our global constituencies.
Lastly, I would like to than Milton and others for correcting me when I got parts of the early organizational history wrong.
Sam Lanfranco
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