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ESADT 20 August 2012 at 1800 UTC
Summary Minutes and Action Items
Thursday 16 August 2012
Participants:Alan Greenberg (AG), Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO), Carlton Samuels (CS), Olivier Crepin-Leblond (OCL), Rudi Vansnick (RV), Yaovi Atohoun (YA), Eduardo Diaz (ED), Dev Anand Teelucksingh (DAT), Darlene Thompson (DT)
Apologies: Tijani Ben Jemaa, Cintra Sooknanan, Sergio Salinas,
Staff: Heidi Ullrich, Silvia Vivanco, Matt Ashtiani, Nathalie Peregrine
AG: Three weeks ago we completed the responsibilities.
AI: Staff to locate the recording of the last conference call.
AG: Review of the document on responsibilities of the various positions. We did not have comments unless I missed something; however the document raised a lot of questions, while I was trying to interpret the ROP. My suggestion is that we go through the document and go through the parenthetical issues.
Any questions on the plan?
Discussion of the term "officer". There are 5 officers, one for each region of which one is Chair and one or two are Vice Chairs. To have 2 VC will not look good within ICANN.
OCL: He reminded that the term officer did not translate well in other languages.
ED: If we talk about teh Excom as supposed to the 5 officers or Excom those are terms we may want to replace as we go along.
The 5 ALAC members, one from each of the 5 regions.
Liaison: It is a clean term, a person representing the ALAC in another body. We may find that we may not need it as we complete the drafting. And in drafting the statements I ended up saying “ appointee”. If anyone has any objection I suggest that we keep it for now.
Examples: Non-liaison appointees, people who go to teams but they are not formally a liaison.
Some are designated liaisons some are not.
For instances when CLO was in the RTRA she was “appointed”.
CLO we have also appointments, whereby the ALAC appoint someone and liaisons, GNSO, CCNSO. Any leadership, representation or role.
There are ALAC appointees, some have the title of liaison some don't.
Staff: If we talk about staff, we talk about “support staff”. If there is a feeling that within the document we talk about support staff, that's ok.
All ALAC officers must be ALAC members...[Article was read aloud].
Non liaison appointments; they must have sufficient knowledge of At Large.
An ALAC member may not be occupied more than one position at the time.
Rule: No one sitting in the NomCom can be sitting for appointment in any group.
2 in the pertinent article were removed.
SOI rule: SOI is used in 2 completely different ways, one is a declaration of conflicts of interests.
Some Ralos do that, and sometimes ALAC does that.
ALAC Members must submit SOIs....
Do we currently have a rule?
OCL: A leadership role can be chair or vice chair. If we want to define a leadership role in a working group. If we scale up ALAC members really need to be doing things.
DT: There is more than one leadership role and we need to put leadership and I have been in too many WG where ALAC members did nothing. We need another word other than "Active participation"
If we say metric and people fail what do we do now.?
It is important that we try to define what our expectations are. We need to capture what you just said CLO.
CLO: [AI: We need to go back to the recording and capture the words said by CLO at 45 minutes into the call].
AG: Some of the definitions will come from other teams.
CLO: In a month and 1/2 we will come together as a Committee of the Whole again.
AG: We must keep the word Leadership.
We are not going to ask someone on the ALAC to take a Leadership role.
ED: We need to define what leadership role is. We will need to come up with the right words, particularly regarding translation.
DT: I don't agree. Some people can say I show up in a meeting and comment.
We have to find appropriate wording that if you are a member of the ALAC, an active participation in the ICANN community is the expectation.
Non-ALAC people taking part of the WG, which is okay, they do not need to be ALAC members.
OCL: I think it is very unfair to those people who are not ALAC, to see people on the ALAC doing a little a possible while they really are the ones doing the hard work.
Next meetings will be scheduled for 1 1/2. We will meet in 3 weeks.
Yaovi: Regarding active participation and Ralos. [comments inaudible]
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1. Roll Call and Apologies - Staff carried out the roll call.
2. Introduction Welcome and Purpose of Call
YL - Two options - can use the rules as they currently are or can deconstruct to see if they can be consolidated. Not suggesting this, but that we keep this in the back of our minds. Perhaps we can come to this question on the next call.
AG: I suspect a reasonable way to proceed is to start by a review of each rule, but to keep the consolidation in mind.
CLO: A quick pre-ruse would be useful. I think a re-work is necessary - particularly because of the duplication we currently have in the rules. Because our rules are stand-alone, we can get rid of a lot of fluff.
YL: A shorter form and more understandable form would be good. Currently, the various rules related to elections, selections and appointments are up on the screen. We need to review them that they are in our scope. Are we happy to start working on these rules.
CLO: The rules appear to be in scope. As they are currently listed, they are in 3b - a set of rules an procedures. Note I put them in the opposite order, - that elections are really just a different way of selection. Rule 11 on recall, may need to discussed - it may need to be covered by another DT. This is if something happens by a ballot process. It does have a particular issue if we use a vote that is applied to the selection of someone. If a person has been elected (like in the ALAC Chair), and they do an awful job, which calls for a recall - that is in our remit. That context may fall into the remit of the other DT.
YL: We do need to coordinate with the other DTs.
AG: There is another that has overlap - Duties and Responsibilities DT - is looking at the qualification...
YL: We can then start working with the rules listed: 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 27.
3. Review of and agreement on relevant Rules (existing) for review what is IN and Out of scope (Pen Holder/ 40 min)
YL: Rule 2
2.1 -
AG: No consensus - it is clear we want 5 officers. We want 5 people, one from each region. I prefer a chair and perhaps one VC. The others could be as require by the Chair. The more important, if you take on the position of VC, you are taking on the duty that requires a lot of work. The Chair should request one or two VCs and the others officers without portfolio. The two year position for the Chair was mandated. However, I would not suggest two years for the other position. We don't need the position of Rapporteur.
YL: Since this is also a matter for the other groups. You are saying, there are 5 officers, one from each region.
AG: Also, officers, and ExCom - perhaps we need other words.
CLO: Remove the position of Rapporteur. Chair has to be elected. Chair and Excom for now. But let's remember that another DT is working on it. We can deal with the Chair and the rest of the regional leadership team later. Will require a bylaw change, but can use these terms for the next 18 months or so until the bylaws are changed.
AG: I think election of the Chair makes sense. That the Chair has been selected by the entire committee.
YL: A two year term is required.
YA: In the two year term, should this be discussed here or in another DT? I'm fine with the two year term for the Chair, but at the same time...if there is a situation where one person has one year left on the ALAC, how would that work?
AG: For the Chair, the term, is two years. That does that mean that the person has to have a term of two years on the ALAC. Similar to the Board.
CLO: I agree with what Alan said, the issue of term limitations is one we need to watch. But I don't want to see it as a ....factor. It is the ALAC that will do the selection - the election of the Chair and the rest of the Excom. If you have a reasonable expectation, they have the proven skill set, and that they have a term limitation, it is one of those times that the ALAC be told that "my NomCom selection went well", the ALAC could say, we'll put you in a one-year VC position. I believe that the NARALO term limits are that a rep could be re-elected after a one year space.
YL: One question is how detailed do we need to be in writing these rules?
AG: I think that we should do this as laws - as little detail as possible so we have flexibility. We can then develop regulations like they do in US gov't. Given that we ..Chair, that they have the skills, the time, and capable. That is a small pool to choose from.
YL: Let's review. Anything more about Rule 2?
AG: I note that there will be timing issues in this rule, but we don't need to review now.
YL: I see comments in ES from Sergio that the Chair be elected by the RALOs.
CLO: I find it utterly unsustainable to have a bi-furication of the ALAC and the regions.
YL: I feel the same. I just wanted to make sure that this suggestion is not alive still.
AG: I would think that it is likely supported by some. I think that changing the rules that some ALAC reps are more equal than others not be good.
CS: I would like to echo CLO and AG's comments. It is offensive that there are two classes in the ALAC.
Perhaps we can have a division based on those who work and those who don't.
OCL: I agree with the comments above. The ALAC members are on an equal basis.
YA: I would like to support what my colleagues said. Also, in some cases, we could have someone from outside the ALAC be more qualified than inside.
Rule: 7 - Other appointments
AG: We need to decide on what we do for situations
where we only have one candidate. Normally, if there is only one candidate, we declare them the winner. We want to allow the reasonable thing here.
CLO: Appointments - by consensus as the first step - until the bylaws are changed. We do need to recognize that an election or polling is a valid methodology. Something along the line of ...rule so of election of the chair. This might mean in the appointment part, we refer to the electoral section, we refer to the...a set of methodology that is unified.
CLO - committee of peers...We elect for Seat 15...we do Elect for the Chair of the ALAC. Other election should run along similar sets of rules and be harmonized.
YL: On rule 7, there are elements - 7.5, 7.6, 7.7 are identical to other sections. They preferably should just be mentioned once. We should try to do this.
AG: Secret ballots where names are involved. We don't want to publically declare who their friends are. For selecting someone who is not....Meeting in closed sessions in lieu of a secret ballot is something we may wish to consider.
CLO: In camera is also a possibility and then come back and say what the result of that discussion is. This minimizes the potential for conflict.
YL: Provided summary of the meeting. There are two options.
Next Meeting:
GG: We can either keep this time or do a Doodle.
YL: Could we do a quick review of who can do the same time?
The majority showed that this time works.
GG: I'm happy to send a Doodle out to confirm.
YL: We can take a look at the time.
GG: Could do rotating times - 13:00 UTC/18:00 UTC. Will send out the date/times of meetings for now through Toronto.