[council] GNSO Council Approval of STI Review Team Recommendations

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter,
 
I know that Staff has already informed the Board that the GNSO Council
approved a motion earlier today to forward the STI Review Team
Recommendations to the Board, but I wanted to follow-up with some
personal observations.
 
Over the last 10 years the DNSO/GNSO has often been criticized for its
inability to get things done and those criticisms are accepted.  The
very nature of a global, bottom-up policy development process requires
great time and effort and developing processes for making it successful
have been an ongoing challenge, one that is continuing now and will into
the future.  At the same time, I personally believe that we have seen
progressive improvements over the last several years and those
improvements laid the foundation for the accomplishments of the STI
Review Team.
 
I want to make sure that the Board and the broader ICANN community
appreciate the significance of the STI Review Team work.  They were
given a very difficult task with a nearly impossible deadline. Were it
not for the scheduling of the GNSO Council meeting, the deadline would
have been met.  As it stands, the Council missed the deadline by only
three days.  
 
I cannot take any credit for this accomplishment.  The full credit goes
to each member of the STI Review Team and the Staff members who
supported them.  As you know, I have been around since the beginning of
ICANN.  I have never been so impressed with the cooperative spirit of
everyone on a team.  At the beginning, I don't think there were many who
thought it was possible to reach any sort of reasonable agreement and
especially in such a short timeframe.  But, without exception, every
individual and the groups they represented constructively worked
together to produce the product you received.  There are still points of
disagreement that will be further vetted in the coming days and weeks,
but the overall package of recommendations is one that the Council
unanimously supported.
 
I know full Board will join me in acknowledging this accomplishment and
thanking all those who made it happen.  I am not going to call out names
because that would require naming everyone on the team.  It was a
classic example of teamwork.
 
Sincerely,
 
Chuck Gomes
GNSO Council Chair