[council] AWOL and the reform proposals

["Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@xxxxxx>]

Fellow Council members,
many apologies for missing the meetings in LA this week but alas my duties as 
IPRA president
intervened.
And I was flying during our voting meeting so could not dial-in without 
bankrupting the BC.
 
Anyway, it seems that some good progress was made on many issues (though I note 
not on the
politically sensitive issue of IGOs). 
 
GNSO reform
The reform proposals pose some fundamental challenges to the heritage we guard 
known as the
bottom-up process.
While we may differ in outcomes with respect to constituency boundary changes, 
it may be
productive to have debate on some of the wider issues of the reform proposals.
In particular it would be good to know fellow Council members views on the 
objective that
Council should manage the PDP but not decide (if I may paraphrase).
This objective is separate to its implementation (eg work groups ) for which I 
see little
need to debate as we do them anyway when we believe they are right to do.
 
But I am concerned that the objective may weaken Council by diminishing the 
incentive for
participation.
 
It would be good to learn of opinions on this.
 
 
 
Philip