Letter from a NCSG Volunteer

[David Cake]

Thank you for all your enormous amounts of work, your stable and patient leadership, and I agree with everything you said. We were lucky to have you, luckier still you stayed and did so much, and having been council, policy committee and council leadership myself, I know the huge amounts of work you have done.

I agree with all your comments. 

Thank you for everything, and I know we don’t deserve any more from you, but I hope you will be around for a while still (if not working so hard).

David
> On 21 Oct 2020, at 9:13 pm, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> 
> Today is officially my final day as councillor and I wanted because of that to share some thoughts with you. I am not planning to seek any elected role within NCSG or NCUC in near future and hoping to have some time away from ICANN. Sorry as it will be a long message but I hope you will find time to read it and use it as it fits.
> 
> It was a great 4 years on the council and I believe I could participate in achieving some projects there. I do think the GNSO council is evolving in its role of PDP manager and changing its working methods. However, there are still challenges coming and our representatives there have to be ready and prepared to step up.
> 
> PDP 3.0: I had the chance to be involved in that project as a member of the council leadership team till being the lead for the implementation. I really urge everyone to read the final report for the implementation to understand the different areas covered and to listen to the webinars presenting the recommendations. No, PDP 3.0 is not the silver bullet, not solving all problems in council or PDP. It is aimed to create a new dynamic of continuous improvement and so the work will continue.  PDP 3.0 is an opportunity and challenge for NCSG. For example, using a representational model can ensure that we are not overwhelmed like in an open working group and give us weight. However, it also means that we have to have enough of a pool of candidates and people who will participate effectively there and keep us updated regularly. The PDP 3.0 needs be also seen with the broader context of board initiative for multistakeholder model initiative or now the new proposal for Operational Design Phase for gTLD Policy Implementation and possibly later the one for PDP lifecycle. We have to be vigilant and ensure that GNSO remains the center point and sole responsible for gTLD policy making and management. 
> 
> GNSO Council: the council is being more assertive in terms of program management and planning the activities. It also added new tools for managing such the overhauled Project list, the new ADR (Actions Decisions Radar) and Project management tool. We don’t want to have 3 heavy PDP WG running at the same time with 2 extending their timelines for almost 4 years and another being terminated before delivering. The council also spent time to outline the roles and responsibilities of WG leadership, council liaisons etc. Our representatives have an important role to be aware about the council discussions and topics brought for council attention, report them and participate on all the small teams and drafting activities, review all the documents, ask the right questions and get detailed responses from ICANN staff. Definitely it is not just about attending the monthly council call. Our representatives also have to continue the coordination and be able to vote following NCSG membership positions. Regarding the reporting, we have some experiments with the council meeting summary but personally I couldn’t continue because of the workload. I hope things will improve in that area.
> 
> Council leadership: I had the privilege to be council vice-chair for NCPH for 3 years and work with 2 different teams. It was a good learning experience and let me participate in setting the council agenda, being aware about the topics discussed and participating at a different level in term of working with staff, WG, board and other SO/AC. I acknowledge that was not a light workload and sometimes I had to balance between being a NCSG representative and vice-chair. We have now new leadership team and we got Tatiana to be the next vice chair for NCPH. I trust she will do a great job there. It is important to keep asking the leadership the right questions and not just count on them to do everything. 
> 
> Policy Committee, I have been chair of NCSG PC for almost 4 years and I think we did well but there are a lot of things to improve and move to the next level. The PC has an important responsibility for NCSG to shape its policy positions and follow closely all PDP and non-PDP activities, council work etc. That can be only done if all PC members participate actively, between councillors and constituencies representatives. In terms of challenges, the PC has to continue the work on improving the working methods (such operating procedures), improve the reporting to members and how to scale out our participation taking into the new trends and incoming changes in PDP and committees. We had some webinars this year for EPDP but we could do more in several policy  topics more regularly to complement our monthly calls but I acknowledge that will require more work and preparation. Our engagement in ICANN is all about policy and that is what matters. Other issues are more means to achieve that and we need to be careful about where to spend our attention and effort to be effective. it is always tempting to jump between too many issues and forgetting what is essential i.e. defending the rights of non-commercial registrants and users. 
> 
> I also had the chance to work with different NCSG chairs and my conclusion is important to have a supportive chair who else understands their role and limits within what the charter describes. NCSG charter set a clear division of labor and scope for the committees. We just need to make that work more effectively. There is so much to do and few people to volunteer to make it.
> 
> Regarding participation, I know this topic that was in the agenda of many leadership and candidates, that was discussed several times and many ideas or initiatives suggested or implemented such as policy writing. My take is that participation is at the end depending a lot of personal engagement and commitment. We can create favorable conditions and prepare but there are limits to that. Personally, I believe I grew up and learned a lot as an elected officer but that meant being active and participating. Some experience is needed and effectiveness is required. if you read the GNSO operating procedures, you have already understood a lot about GNSO council and PDP. There are now other resources like ICANN learn. There are regular webinars and policy briefings that anyone can listen or read. My observation is those who volunteered for drafting and/or joined working groups were able to move faster than just counting on any kind of capacity building. I want also to emphasize that most of the work is done between F2F meetings, in numerous calls, exchange in mailing lists and volunteering to draft or review proposals and documents.
> 
> Future topics: if you check the GNSO work plan , project list and more importantly the ADR you can get an idea about what is coming as work at GNSO level. there is RPM phase 2, the endless list of RDS related tasks due to EPDP etc. But it still doesn’t cover everything. We have to deal with all recommendations coming from the review teams and being assigned to GNSO or even recommendations from WS2. We have possibly also the GNSO review coming and this requires everyone to understand the background of the first GNSO review and how the structuring helped us to be more vocal and influential in council. I am pragmatic and not keen on pessimistic approaches. We need to identify what is coming calmly and strategize how to respond to that by building our initial positions, understanding the parameters and terms of the activity to be initiated and more importantly preparing the volunteers who lead there. We also have new activity now in NCSG that might propose some changes. I think there are a lot of expectations from new leadership to make changes but first it is critical to identify the issues and right priorities. Things can change anytime. 
> 
> I believe in self-criticism and acknowledge that getting criticism or feedback is not that easy. I acknowledge that I made mistakes and failed on some issues. I can only apologize sincerely and take responsibility. It is easy to deny and deflect but it is definitely not the right way. I can only state that I worked with good faith and what I believed aligned with NCSG interests and values. There is temptation to object all the time, to make strong statements but the real work in the trenches is about building consensus and finding common ground. It is not visible, it is not sexy but I believe it has a lasting impact.
>  
> Finally and with this,  I will be only active as a member and will try to attend calls as much as possible or participate in discussion if I can help. I will be glad to support our elected officers and representatives and give them feedback. Thanks everyone for your confidence and trust that you gave for all those years I was representing NCSG in different roles
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Rafik Dammak
> 
> NCSG member
> 

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