RE: [ga] Soccer Tournament in Mar del Plata

[RBHauptman@xxxxxxx]

I've been to many conventions, political, educational, vocational, academic.  At all of them there have been some strictly social events. A place to shmooze, have a glass or two, nosh a little, make friends, enjoy people's company away from the confines and strictures of the days's serious and important events.  It's great networking, and it's great fun.

Rick Hauptman

<<Sotiris:

Can I offer another perspective of this proposed soccer tournament. Knowing
that this good faith effort on my behalf has the potential to set off a
flood of email flames, let me start off with the following statement. I am
not a clueless ICANN director that believes ICANN's core mission has now
been expanded to include promoting regional soccer tournaments. However, as
discussed below I believe there is some potential benefit to Erick's efforts
if you just take a minute to look at it from a different perspective.

Although we have never had the opportunity to sit down and talk in person, I
was truly impressed by your efforts during the ICANN regional meeting in
Montreal where you stood up during the open session and read into the record
on behalf of third parties their comments. I thought this was a personal
touch that provided a little more involvement then Vint just reading an
email submission into the record.

As you are aware from your attendance during the Montreal meeting, there is
a lot of off-line socializing that takes place during these events, ranging
from events such as the host reception open to all attendees, to closed
events such as those hosted by the registries primarily for the benefit of
the registrars. In addition to these scheduled formal events there are also
numerous informal/unscheduled meetings that take place in the lobby of the
hotel or the bars and restaurants of the local establishments. Unfortunately
these dynamics are a part of an ICANN meeting that cannot be captured via a
web cast. This social interaction over the years has provided me with the
opportunity to understand different perspectives that I would otherwise not
have had.

I think providing attendees the opportunity to interact on a soccer field,
participating in one of the world's most popular sports, is a nice
alternative to people sitting at the hotel bar drinking and smoking. Perhaps
I am a little bias in this opinion, as I played soccer for seven years when
I was younger and this past fall I coached my son's soccer team which was a
nice break from the daily DNS grind.

Please note ICANN's limited role in this proposed event. A stakeholder asked
ICANN for assistance in disseminating information about this event to make
it possible. By way of example, consider the effort that the Registrar
Constituency undertook in Cape Town. Traditionally, the registrar
constituency has only met for a single day during the previous regional
meetings. In Cape Town, the registrar constituency asked ICANN for a room so
that they could hold meetings over a two day period. During this additional
day, one of the supplemental sessions was on deletes, see
http://www.icann.org/meetings/capetown/icann-domainnames-workshop-01dec04.ht
m. This session was open to all, and there were some papers submitted by
individuals users Danny Younger and Richard Henderson.

I guess what I am trying to say is that part of ICANN's core mission from my
perspective is helping people self organize and create an environment where
they can interact and work together. Since stepping down as the Chair of the
Registrar almost two years ago, I have had the benefit of attending all of
the various GNSO constituency meetings during the ICANN regional meetings.
Erick is active participant within the Non-Commercial Constituency and I
believe has made some valuable contributions.

In closing, I view Erick's efforts to organize this soccer tournament in a
similar light as your efforts in Montreal to provide people with a voice
during the public forum. Although you may not find his efforts particularly
beneficial, I think criticizing him is not exactly helpful and only
undermines the positive efforts that people like yourself, Danny Younger,
Richard Henderson and others have made.

Best regards,

Michael D. Palage

P.S. I hope that with ICANN having their 2005 annual meeting in Vancouver
you might be able to attend and offer a similar contribution as you did in
Montreal, plus provide us with the opportunity to sit down in person and
talk.>>