Dear NCUC members:

You may be vaguely aware of the ongoing attempt to define a charter for the Noncommercial Stakeholders Group. 

This is the latest news about what is happening. The following Board Resolution was passed. It gives the policy staff and the Board "Structural Improvements Committee" (SIC) the authority to rewrite the charters we submitted. According to this the revised SG charters and explanatory memorandum will be posted by Sunday. 

Registrar, registry and even some business stakeholders in GNSO are already grumbling about the top-down nature of this action. We will see Sunday how bad/not so bad the results are. Since this decision, policy staff have made no efforts to consult with anyone in NCUC and called off a meeting they were trying top arrange to reconcile differences between our proposed charter (which received the most support in the public comment period) and the other proposal.

--MM

"Whereas, the Board established a four-phase timetable intended to seat
the newly structured GNSO Council by the ICANN meeting in Sydney,
Australia; 

Whereas, the Board acknowledges that the GNSO community has made an
effort to comply with the timetable - including submission of proposed
Stakeholder Group charters; 

Whereas, most of these charters require revisions to ensure equitable
participation and representation by new constituencies; 

Resolved (2009-05-21-13), the Board directs the Structural Improvements
Committee and ICANN Staff to make the necessary changes to the
Stakeholder Group charters to make them consistent with the Board's GNSO
Improvements Report and related Resolutions, and to post the revised
charters, and an explanatory memorandum, for GNSO consultation and
public comment later this month; 

Resolved (2009-05-21-14) the Board will consider any comments and the
Stakeholder Group charters for Board action at the ICANN Sydney meeting
in June 2009. 

All Board members present unanimously approved of these resolutions."