Hi,

During the Cartagena meeting I promised that once I got out of the rush I would write an update to the membership on the status of the Stakeholder Group charter discussions.

First, as was announced on this list earier, two events have occurred, or are occurring, with respect to Constituencies in formation.

A) With respect to NPOC, the Not-for-profit Operational Concerns constituency, after the comments received and the discussions we engaged in, the NPOC constituency-in-formation made certain changes in their name and in their basic charter statement.  Based on those changes the NCSG-EC approved NPOC as a Candidate Constituency in the NCSG.  I have attached a copy of NPOC's updated charter to this message which Amber recently sent to the NCSG-EC.

B) Based on discussions between Alex Gakuru and Beau Brendler, both NCSG members, there is an intention for them to combine their two efforts, the Consumer Interest-Group and the Consumer Constituency, into a single constituency-in-formation.  Once they have reworked their charters into a single charter, the NCSG-EC will review it with an eye to renewing the Consumer Interest-Group's Candidacy status in the name of the newly combined effort, which I sort of assume will be Consumer Constituency.

On Thursday last several of us had a meeting with members of the Board's Structural Improvement Committee (SIC) to discuss how to bring the entire charter issue to a successful close.  All those on the NCSG-EC and NCSG-Policy groups who were in Cartagena were invited to the meeting.  It was attended by Amber, Debbie, Mary, Robin, Wendy and me.  From the Board: Jonne Soininen, George Sadowsky, Mike Silber and Ray Plzak who is Chair of the SIC .  From the staff:  Samantha Eisner from Legal council and David Olive, VP of Policy and I think Olof Nordling attended.

The SIC members indicated that in general the main issue pending was their desire to codify a general process for Constituency formation that would work across all Stakeholder Groups.  This would need to be completed before they approved our charter. They indicated that they had an advanced draft on this, and though we have not seen it yet, they assured us that it was very much in keeping with our charter's proposals of:

- Approval of new constituencies by the Stakeholder groups with oversight by the Board
- A two Stage process: Candidacy and Full status
- Required conditions for being accepted as candidates
- Required conditions, including activities, for reaching full status.

It was acknowledged that we would probably need to make some edits to our charter once the Board approved the constituency requirements (I do believe there will be a public review of their requirements, so  there will be time for considered changes and discussions). From what we have been told, I do not expect these changes to be significant, but that remains to be seen.

Another issue that came up was the possible need for changes in the by-laws to accommodate our new charter, specifically the issue of stakeholder group approval of new constituencies.  The question was: are there any required changes or can the by-laws work as currently written?  The NCSG-EC in cooperation with legal staff has agreed to review our charter against the requirements of the by-laws to identify if there are changes that are needed.  If there are, they need to be identified in the next few weeks, so that the by-laws can go through their change process in time for the rest of the process to occur by/during the SF meeting.

There was also a discussion of some pent up intention within the NCUC for the spin out of some new constituencies once this became feasible.  This was encouraged and the SIC members indicated they would provide the information for new constituencies as soon as they could so that any groups within the NCUC who wanted to work on spinning out new constituencies could start working on it.

While the schedule will be tight, there is hope that we could complete this in time for SF.  My hope is that we can get the new NCSG charter and NPOC Constituency approved at the same time.  Also, if the Consumer constituency does its rework quickly, I would like them to also gain approval at the same time.  While I believe the NPOC members support this goal, they also still have a concern that that the by-laws changes might delay the NCSG Charter approval, in which case, they would prefer not to wait.  It should be noted that as they applied before the TBD new constituency changes were defined, they would not be subject to those requirements, though it was said that the new requirements were really nothing more than amplifications of the general existing requirements, so the point may be moot.  While I personally understand the NPOC's desire to be approved as soon as possible, I still hope everything comes through at the same time in the very near future.

It was made clear in the meeting that the staff's role in all of this would be facilitative and that direct communications between the SIC and the NCSG would be maintained.  Ray and I have spoken frequently during this process, and I trust this will continue as necessary.  I am very comforted that he has decided to remain in his role as chair of the SIC for another year and will be able to see this process through to completion.

I think this is about it, though as always, I invite those who also attended the meeting to add whatever it is I forgot or thay they perceived differently.  

a.