>>MASON COLE: Thank you, Jeff.
I should point out for the council's benefit which I know everyone is aware, but this morning I formally stepped down as the chair of the registrars stakeholder group so as to assume my seat on the council later on.
We had a very productive day with the registrars yesterday. We began at 9:00 a.m., went all the way to 5:30 as David said.
We almost always have a very crowded agenda. Yesterday was no exception.
As you have seen by the note that I posted to the list, we have been in discussions for some time now with ICANN staff about a process related to our accreditation agreement.
We very rarely meet in closed session but we did have a closed session yesterday to discuss that. Yesterday morning. We moved on to a discussion with the compliance team. Maguy Serad and her team came in and gave a discussion about ICANN's compliance program. And with a survey that she is starting where registrars can self-assess and provide information with the Compliance Team as a way to enhance the compliance function.
We had several other pieces of stakeholder group business, things like our banking system and the need to change our bylaws, particularly in light of vertical integration as that approaches.
We broke briefly for lunch. We went then into a discussion with ICANN's policy team. David Olive and his very good team came in and gave a general update on policy activity.
We had an extensive discussion about the policy team's current capacity, which was brought up to the council in its sessions over the weekend. And I think we had a mutually productive discussion about how to assist with the GNSO's current overload of policy work.
We left that meeting. We went to talk with the board. We had several items on that agenda. We discussed the meeting the GNSO had with the GAC on Sunday. We talked about domain name takedown procedures. The board was interested in that. We talked a bit about ethics guidelines that ICANN is examining now. So we had a good session with the board.
We went then back into session with the registrar liaison staff. And I won't bore you with all those details but it was administrative issues about our interaction with ICANN.
We were then joined by the NomCom, the chair of the NomCom, Adam and Vanda joined us. And we talked about the NomCom and the need for greater outreach to help the NomCom fulfill its duties to ICANN.
We broke from that session. We said happy birthday one day in advance to our friend Jeff Eckhouse and to Tim Cole whose birthday is tomorrow. So be sure to wish Tim a happy birthday tomorrow.
And then as my friend David went into detail, we had a joint meeting with registries and there is no need for me to repeat what we discussed since he gave you an accurate read of that.
And that was our meeting.