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 “in reserve” (don’t 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 constituency’s 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 constituency’s 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.