Hi,

Late... but I support the proposal, and answer 
yes to both questions at the end.

Couple of comments. There should be basic 
criteria for the formation of constituencies, 
compliance with those criteria should be 
monitored on an ongoing basis.  ICANN has a 
compliance process that might be adopted (adapted 
if necessary.)

Is what's being proposed open to capture or some form of abuse?

Perhaps for later - how to handle chapters and similar?

Adam




At 4:13 AM -0400 10/9/08, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>Hello, all
>Important news about the GNSO Improvements. 
>First, we have no official notice yet but the 
>Board has voted to delay the full implementation 
>of the Improvements by 3-4 months. This is 
>supposed to have happened at the Sept 30 
>meeting, but we have no description of what they 
>decided yet so cannot provide details.
>
>This has implications for our GNSO Council seat 
>elections. It would mean that there would be 2 
>open Council positions instead of 5, although 
>one ICANN staff has suggested that we go ahead 
>and elect all 5 and keep them ³in reserve² 
>(don¹t shoot the messenger, I am just relaying 
>what I know).
>
>More important, we need to start thinking about 
>the new structure for the Noncommercial 
>Stakeholders Group (NCSG). Below is a sketch of 
>what I think would work. Please let us know what 
>you think.
>
>
>NCSG structure sketch
>
>Membership
>Eligibility criteria same as before, except we 
>allow individuals according to current 
>provisional regime
>Individuals and representatives of organizations join NCSG directly
>             Social networking site for interactions and records
>             NCUC discuss list retained (but renamed) as NCSG discuss list
>3 categories of membership:
>             Large organization ­ 4 votes
>             Small organization ­ 2 votes
>             Individuals ­ 1 vote
>No membership dues, but renewal required bi-annually
>Chair and GNSO Council reps elected by NCSG members
>
>Officers
>Chair ­ same duties as NCUC chair
>6 GNSO Council representatives elected by NCSG
>Executive Committee (EC)
>Consists of Chair, 1 delegate from each constituency, Council representatives
>             Constituencies represented by their own chair/delegate
>
>Constituencies
>Constituencies are self-defined groups organized 
>around some distinctive policy perspective (e.g. 
>consumer protection, privacy); shared identity 
>(e.g., region or country of origin, gender, 
>language group); a type of organization (e.g., 
>research networks, philanthropic foundations) or 
>any other grouping principle that might affect 
>its stance on gtld policy.
>Each constituency sets its own eligibility criteria
>Constituencies have a right to:
>x    Place one rep on the executive committee
>x    Delegate members to working groups
>x    Issue statements on PDPs which are included 
>in the official NCSG response, but marked as 
>constituency positions, not necessarily the 
>position of NCSG as a whole
>
>To be recognized as a constituency a group must 
>be supported by at least 5 people who are 
>already NCSG members, appoint an organizer 
>(chair) and submit a charter. Steps:
>1)      A prospective constituency organizer 
>issues a notification of intent to form a 
>constituency to the entire NCSG via its email 
>list
>2)      When 5 or more NCSG members volunteer to 
>join the NCSG on the public list it becomes 
>eligible to schedule a meeting (which can be 
>either in person or online)
>3)      The eligible constituency holds a 
>meeting(s) to draft a charter. The charter 
>defines its grouping principle, eligibility 
>criteria, and procedures. The meetings also 
>designate a constituency chair, and other 
>officers if so desired.
>4)      The charter is submitted to the NCSG EC 
>for ratification. Ratification is based 
>exclusively on due diligence whether there are 
>really at least 5 members, whether the 
>constituency¹s eligibility rules or procedures 
>contravene NCSG charter in some way
>
>Current members of NCUC are automatically made 
>members of NCSG, but NCUC dissolves as a 
>constituency once this proposal is adopted.
>
>NCSG members can join any constituency, provided 
>that they meet the constituency¹s own 
>eligibility criteria.
>Should we allow constituencies to exclude based 
>on criteria? I propose yes ­ otherwise 
>constituencies are meaningless
>Should we allow members to join more than one 
>constituency? I propose yes, as long as voting 
>for council seats and chair is NCSG-wide.
>
>Constituencies keep track of their own 
>membership, but members should reflect their 
>status on the official NCSG social network site. 
>Status is reviewed by the EC bi-annually to see 
>if they still exceed the 5-member threshold.
>
>