[council] GAC unilaterally cancels Prague meeting with GNSO Council

[<john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stephane,

Do I have it right with the subject line on this email?

The politics of the move are clear.  In order to press a
government-specific agenda, the GAC senses (properly) the opportunity to
move on its own at a time when ICANN executive leadership is both in
flux and Internet governance is being questioned.  Seems a smart
strategy to me based on my 15 years working in Washington, D.C.

But I have also been working in and around ICANN's multi-stakeholder
approach for almost 10 years.  How can we help you get this all back on
track?

Cheers,

John Berard
Founder
Credible Context
58 West Portal Avenue, #291
San Francisco, CA 94127
m: 415.845.4388



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [council] Our Prague meeting with the GAC
From: Stéphane_Van_Gelder <stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, June 19, 2012 2:36 am
To: "council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx List" <council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


Councillors,

Over the past few days, Jeff, Glen and I have been working hard to deal
with a last-minute request that came in from the GAC to move our planned
Sunday session with them.

The GAC initially asked that we look at bringing the session forward to
Saturday, but due to our own work constraints and the fact that this
would not leave us sufficient time to adequately prepare for our
interaction with the GAC through our weekend work sessions which, being
open to the GNSO community, also mean we get great feedback from them,
we did not want to pursue that option. Other dates were examined,
including Monday and Thursday, but both these present a significant
number of challenges.

As we were working to find a solution at our end, we learned that the
GAC had simply elected to cancel our Sunday slot before an alternative
had been agreed upon.

This slot is still listed on the public Prague agenda, but at this time
we are told by the GAC that as far as they are concerned, it no longer
exists.

We are still working to find alternatives and ensure our session with
the GAC does happen. But at this time I am afraid that we do not have a
session with the GAC scheduled for Prague. 

I have personally contacted Heather to urge that the Sunday GNSO slot be
put back on the GAC's agenda, and that we continue to work together to
try and find a solution that best fits both groups' requirements.

We will keep you posted, but I wanted to make sure you all had this
information.

Thanks,

Stéphane Van Gelder
Directeur Général / General manager
INDOM Group NBT France
----------------
Head of Domain Operations
Group NBT