RE: [council] Draft reply Council on GNSO reform

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

Please see my responses below.
 
Chuck Gomes
 
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________________________________

        From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Philip Sheppard
        Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 10:33 AM
        To: 'Council GNSO'
        Subject: [council] Draft reply Council on GNSO reform
        
        
        Chuck, Avri, Tom
        you are right. I have written "partial support" either where the
intent of the BGC is unclear and we wish to clarify what we support, or
where we go along with the BGC but are adding a word of caution or
clarification.
        If you can think of a better phrase, I'm happy to use it.
"Qualified support" /  "conditional support" ??
        [Gomes, Chuck] I could live with "Qualified support". 
         
         
        On the specifics of support to WGs.
        I understand Council wants flexibility: going along with WGs for
most cases but we may choose other means now and again according to the
issue.
         
        The BGC report is written less flexibly and more reflects the
by-laws NOT current Council practice.
        see opening to section 3 on page 12 (caps are mine):
        "The BGC recommends that a working group concept becomes the
FOUNDATION and FOCAL point for consensus development work in the GNSO
AND potentially for other Council activities."
        This model would constitute an improvement over the the current
system."
         
        If we think that there may be at least one issue where we would
prefer to form a task force of constituency reps, or a committee of the
whole of Council, (like we did last week), we need to say this. The BGC
report text does not seem to allow for this flexibility. Or if the BGC
meant it, they did not write it.
        [Gomes, Chuck] I am probably being too picky on the reference to
'task forces'.  I totally agree on the need for flexibility in the WG
model even to include a working group of constituency reps or a
committee of the whole but in both cases am concerned about the
following: 1) working groups involving just constituency reps and NomCom
reps still need to be designed to incorporate more inclusive
participation, which of course can happen in a variety of ways instead
of just opening up the WG to anyone; 2)  I believe it is very critical
that we diligently move away from Councilors doing most of the work, so,
as I have communicated several times already, I strongly think that
initiating Council as the Whole working groups should be done with great
caution and should still allow for delegating work to others; 3) using
the term 'task force' in my opinion automatically conjures up the task
force requirements in the current Bylaws PDP, which are terribly
inflexible.
         
         
        Philip