[council] Exploring More Effective Forms of Engagement - GNSO Non Contract Parties Gather in Los Angeles

[Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://blog.icann.org/2013/02/exploring-more-effective-forms-of-engagement-gnso-non-contract-parties-gather-in-los-angeles/
Exploring More Effective Forms of Engagement - GNSO Non Contract Parties Gather 
in Los Angeles

by David Olive on February 11, 2013

January was a busy month for ICANN community engagement. Building on the 
successes of the DNS Industry CEO roundtable event and the Europe regional 
Registry/Registrar meeting, the Non-Contracted community of the GNSO held its 
first intersessional meeting in Los Angeles as well.

This two-day gathering convened 43 non-contract community leaders from the GNSO 
as well as other community members participating remotely. The group 
represented a healthy mix of ICANN veterans and several new participants from 
both the Commercial Stakeholder Group, including the Business, Intellectual 
Property and Internet Service Provider constituencies, and the Non-Commercial 
Stakeholder Group, including the Non-Commercial Users and Not-for-Profit 
Operational Concerns constituencies.

One of the purposes of the meeting was to create the opportunity-outside of the 
pressures and schedule strains of an ICANN Public Meeting-for community leaders 
to discuss longer-range substantial community issues, build relationships, and 
collaborate with each other, as well as senior ICANN staff, on strategic and 
operational issues that impact the GNSO NCPH community.

Throughout the course of the meeting, the participants interacted with 
President and CEO Fadi Chehadé (who provided an overview of the strategic 
challenges and opportunities facing ICANN) as well as Sally Costerton and Tarek 
Kamel (who updated the community on engagement efforts across the ICANN 
ecosystem) and Xavier Calvez, CFO (who provided an overview of the Fiscal Year 
2014 Budget and SO/AC request processes). Christine Willett briefed the 
participants on the status of the new gTLD program while Margie Milam discussed 
the latest RAA Negotiations and WHOIS efforts.

The senior staff greatly enjoyed hosting the community at ICANN Los Angeles 
because of the access it provided for engagement and discussion. As a result of 
the various working sessions, the staff is now evaluating community requests 
for support and prioritizing solutions to meet these needs. As always, the 
recordings and transcripts of the sessions are available on the community Wiki 
page as resources. See - https://community.icann.org/display/ncph/Transcripts 
and https://community.icann.org/display/ncph/MP3+Recordings.

Without a doubt, the intersessional meeting of the GNSO NCPH community set an 
important precedent for engagement. We appreciate the goodwill and creative 
contributions made by several planning volunteers (including Marilyn Cade, 
Robin Gross, Michael Adams, Alain Berranger, Bill Drake, Tony Holmes, Steve 
Metalitz, Klaus Stoll and Marc Trachtenberg) to make this gathering a 
productive experience for all.

We are grateful for the thoughtful contributions and active participation of 
the community throughout the two days. Above all else, the event provided a 
dynamic and intimate setting for open exchange and interaction on various 
topics and collaborative efforts between the community and staff, advancing 
ICANN's unique bottom-up, consensus-drive multi-stakeholder model.

Staff will be preparing a thorough report on the resource impacts and utility 
of the meeting. We welcome any community comments and ideas about the Los 
Angeles meeting in particular and more generally on the value of these types of 
meetings outside the normal ICANN Public Meeting rotation.
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat
gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
http://gnso.icann.org