[council] Board meeting agenda for 15 Feb 2008 in New Delhi

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

Below is the agenda for the Board meeting in New Delhi.   Key topics of
relevance to the GNSO are new gTLDs and IDNs.   My understanding so far
is that the Board is probably not going to approve the new gTLD
recommendations in New Delhi, but will be considering some of the work
done by staff on implementation.   

One thing worth noting is that while the GNSO struggles to meet the PDP
timetable in the bylaws due to the complexity of the issues - it is also
the case that the Board also struggles to take action on GNSO
recommendations within a timeframe that was envisaged in the bylaws for
the same reason :-)   Having said that I do know that the staff has been
doing extensive work on the new gTLD recommendations, and I will
continue to encourage staff to discuss this work with the GNSO.

The other topic for the GNSO to consider is the budget for the 1 July 08
to 30 June 08 year.   Some of the areas of discussion include the
proposal to charge registrars transaction fees during the 5 day
add-grace period, and an appropriate travel policy for the many
volunteers that contribute to ICANN policy development.   When
considering travel budgets - it is important to think in terms of
relative priority of expenditure (e.g what expenditure could we give up
to support more meeting participation, or could we invest in better
audio/video conferencing techniques?), rather than simply adding more
expenses to ICANN as an organisation.   The proposed budget already
raises expenses from $42 million in this financial year, to $57 million
in 1 Jul 08 to 30 Jun 09 financial year (about a 35% increase).   We
need to consider this cost in the context of the tasks (allocation of IP
addresses and domain names), and the context of the industry size.   The
travel and meeting budget is currently proposed to be around $10 million
(or around 17% of total expenditure) to provide some context.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin










From:  http://www.icann.org/minutes/

15 February 2008
Regular Board Meeting

Agenda

(As set by the Executive Committee of the ICANN Board of Directors)

1) Approval of Minutes of January 2008 Board Meeting

2) Approval of ICANN Accountability and Transparency Frameworks

3) Review of Board Governance Committee Recommendations

Possible BGC Actions

(Ombudsman Framework)

(Bylaws Mandated Reviews Update)

4) Review of Board Finance Committee Recommendations

Possible BFC Actions

(Funds Disbursement and Approvals Policy)

(Budget Next Steps)

5) Review of Board Audit Committee Recommendations

Possible Audit Committee Actions

(Approval of Auditor)

6) New gTLDs - Next Steps

7) Acknowledging Receipt of DNSSEC Recommendations from SSAC

8) ICANN Bylaws Change Request from ALAC

9) IDNs (update on IDNc discussions and technical test)

10) Other Business