Re: AW: [council] updated draft letter

[William Drake <william.drake@xxxxxx>]

I agree, this version is fine as well.

Bill

On Sep 16, 2012, at 12:38 PM, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:

> 
> I support fully Thomas draft. 
> 
> wolfgang
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> Von: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx im Auftrag von Thomas Rickert
> Gesendet: Fr 14.09.2012 16:29
> An: GNSO Council List
> Betreff: [council] updated draft letter
> 
> 
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> as discussed during yesterday's call, please find below the draft letter 
> regarding the impact of new gTLDs on ICANN's structure including the changes 
> proposed by Stéphane. 
> 
> 
> Please provide your comments and suggestions as soon as you can as the plan 
> is to finalize the draft by the end of next week.
> 
> 
> Kind regards and have a great weekend,
> Thomas
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dear Bertrand,
> 
> the GNSO Council would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide 
> feedback to your request for input on the impact of new gTLDs on ICANN's 
> structure.
> 
> As you know, the Council as well as individual SGs and Constituencies have 
> been discussing this important subject for a long time now. It has also been 
> a topic during face to face meetings between the GNSO Council and the Board 
> and GAC as well as with the ccNSO. Some groups have already or will respond 
> to the Board directly and our impression is that they are confident to have 
> taken appropriate steps to address the upcoming challenges. 
> 
> As far as the Council is concerned, here will most likely be quantitative and 
> qualitative challenges. What these will be and their size can hardly be 
> predicted. 
> 
> In qualitative terms, there may be new requests to form constituencies and 
> new stakeholder groups in both houses, some of which may be re-configurations 
> or alignments of existing groups.
> 
> Since this is an unknown factor, the effects on the democratic and 
> participatory process of the Council and the response to that are yet to be 
> seen. However, we would like to highlight that ICANN is already publishing 
> information on how to participate (see 
> http://gnso.icann.org/en/about/participation.htm) including information on 
> how to form a Constituency. Thus, the information and processes are available 
> to be inclusive 
> 
> In quantitative terms, challenges are more predictable in some aspects. For 
> sure, there will be 
> 
> - more attention by the general pubic and Governments;
> 
> - more attendants at meetings, which has an impact on sizing the venues; 
> 
> - more groups that need administrative and technical support;
> 
> - more telephone conferences with more participants and more remote 
> participation;
> 
> - more documents to be produced and read; 
> 
> - more decisions to be made and operationalized;
> 
> - more contractors that need to be managed;
> 
> - the need for ever more stringent budget management and control; and
> 
> - more compliance issues that need to be taken care of.
> 
> These quantitative challenges require managerial responses that ICANN can 
> prepare for. Such preparations should also encompass the increased burden on 
> volunteers to deal with even more and potentially more complex material to 
> work on. Processes and support schemes for volunteers should be designed to 
> best possibly avoid volunteer fatigue.
> 
> The unknown is what new groups will be established and what their place and 
> role in the ICANN eco system shall be. However, additions will only lead to 
> marginal changes that can be dealt with once they are known.
> 
> In summary, the GNSO Council believes that the current structure is resilient 
> to respond to the challenges to come as long as ICANN provides the resources 
> required to accommodate an increasing number of participants / stakeholders 
> and their respective needs.  
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Stéphane van Gelder
> 
> Chair, GNSO Council
> 
> 
> 
>