Hi, Missed the candidate meeting yesterday because of a conflict and have not had a chance to listen to the recording yet. But from what I have heard since, these seem like good ideas. Common sense ideas even. One point on electing a PC chair. It does not need to be a council member. Just needs to be a PC member. Given that we only have 2 constituencies, that means there are a pool of 4 other people for the PC members to chose from. I do think it has been tried in the past, but with the same results. PC has occasionally been adequately led by a vice chair or such, but that only happened after a dearth of leadership from a chair. And I continue to believe that the reason the monthly policy meetings have not worked is because the PC members, especially the council members, do not make participating a priority - no knock against the current members, over the years, the members never have. I think this may also be part of the problem with the PC. While most of them make attending the council meetings a prority, and many of them make participating in Council groups and WGs a priority, few make the PC a priority. avri On 19-Aug-16 06:03, William Drake wrote: > Hi > > Yesterday’s call provided a useful opportunity for dialogue on the > candidates’ views and priorities and also turned out to offer some > folks a chance to start clearing the air, however uncomfortably, > regarding issues that arose within our Council contingent the last > cycle. I’d like to suggest a couple take-aways in hopes that we can > re-set that which needs to be and move forward on a firmer footing. > Purely my own views, which I guess some folks will disagree with, in > which case fine, let’s talk it out. > > 1. Differences of perspective among Councilors are fine but these > should be openly shared in order to preserve trust. It might make > sense for the interested parties to find some congenial space in which > to privately work through past bits of friction that arose re: e.g. > Marrakech, the GNSO chair selection, and whatever else. It doesn’t > make sense to leave misunderstandings unresolved and entrenched as it > can impact on the effectiveness of the team effort going forward. > Hyderabad obviously offers F2F options, which are likely to be the > most productive in coming to resolutions, but it might make sense not > to wait entirely on this. > > 2. It would be helpful if Councilors could be sure to attend the > monthly NCSG calls and proactively share their thinking about upcoming > Council meetings and votes with each other and the wider membership. > In ancient times when I was on Council we regarded these as fairly > mandatory and tried to miss only exceptionally and with notification, > but more recently participation seems to have be spottier at times (I > believe the NCSG chair has attendance records?). Yes we’re all > volunteers with day jobs and travels so things can happen, but it > shouldn’t be the case that people miss more than a couple per annual > cycle. > > 3. In parallel, it’d be good to have greater open discussion of > pending votes and positions on the NCSG PC mail list. I’ve been on > that list since we set it up in 2011 (first as a Councilor, then as an > observer) and think it’s under-utilized resource that should work in > synch with our monthly calls and those of the Council. Of course, > issues should not always be sorted purely on an internal PC basis; > important policy choices at least should also be vetted on > ncsg-discuss so the PC is well informed by a feel for general member > sentiment, even if it’s divided. > > Either way, between the monthly calls and the PC, we shouldn’t have > cases where members of the team don’t know until they arrive at a > Council meeting how their colleagues will vote, or what contacts and > representations of the group’s shared positions are being made to > other stakeholder groups, etc. You can’t have a team effort if people > are unaware of each others’ doings. > > 4. Part of the PC’s challenge has always been to ensure effective > chairing, including tracking of progress on open projects, herding > cats, etc. We’ve always appointed Councilors to chair but the results > have been variable as people are already maxed out. On yesterday’s > call Ed made a suggestion that merits consideration: having a > non-Council member as chair, and allocating one of the NCSG travel > slots to this person so as to promote their continuous coordination of > the process. It’d be interesting to hear views on this. > > 5. After-meeting reporting to the membership of the issues and votes > should be routinized. This doesn’t have involve demanding magnum opus > treatments, a couple paragraphs one a month should be sufficient and > doable. I’d suggested (below) that the six Councilors could rotate > the responsibility, as was briefly attempted in 2009-2010. Stephanie > counter-proposed on the call that reporting be done by non-Councilors, > in part as a way of on-boarding ‘new blood’ and helping to prepare > folks to stand for Council in a future election. This could work too, > although it may involve some extra coordination to ensure every > Councilors’ votes and views are reflected to taste. Worth a try… > > If we could do at least some of this, I think it’d increase our team’s > solidarity and our general members’ understanding of what their > representative are up to, what’s in play in the GNSO, and what the > opportunities for engaging in working groups and such are. It’d also > make our votes in elections more well informed. > > Thoughts? > > Bill > > >> On Aug 17, 2016, at 10:39, William Drake <[log in to unmask] >> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: >> >> Hi >> >>> On Aug 16, 2016, at 23:38, Robin Gross <[log in to unmask] >>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: >>> >>> Agreed. It is important for members to become more acquainted with >>> our representatives and resumes are extremely helpful for that. >> >> Sharing candidates’ resumes is not a bad idea. But I’d like to >> suggest we go beyond this. Two issue we might want to consider on >> tomorrow’s call: >> >> When I joined Council in 2009, we discussed the need for better >> reporting to members as to what their reps were actually doing in >> Council. We launched an attempt to deal with this by having >> Councilors take turns doing brief reports about Council meetings. >> Alas it didn’t get far, after a couple times the sense of urgency >> faded, people told themselves “well, members can always look at the >> Council archive to see what’s happening," and the effort drifted off. >> But of course it’s actually not easy for a member to dive through >> the Council archive and try to reconstruct what’s happening, and it’s >> not so hard to compose a one or two paragraph summary of a monthly >> Council meeting indicating how our reps voted on which issues, >> especially if the workload is rotated among six Councilors, making it >> just a few times per year each. So while it’s a bit uncomfortable >> suggesting work to be done by others, I’d like to put this idea back >> on the table ahead of our Meet the Candidates call tomorrow. It need >> not be an one onerous thing, and after all we exist to participate in >> the GNSO, so surely we should be able to know how our reps are >> representing us in the GNSO. Especially when we’re being asked to >> vote them into ‘office’ (for incumbents) on the basis of past >> performance. >> >> More generally, we have long debated the matter of coordination among >> Council reps. Unlike most if not all other parts of the GNSO, NCSG >> by charter doesn’t normally do ‘directed voting,’ where the members >> are bound to vote in conformity with a rough consensus position. We >> have a charter provision to do this in exceptional cases, but I don’t >> recall it ever being invoked. We’ve always been content to operate >> on the notion that the Councilor does what s/he thinks is in the best >> interest of civil society @ GNSO, and if members don’t approve of >> anyone’s action they can vote them out in the next cycle. But as >> that has not really happened, it’s sort of a meaningless check and >> balance. And this is not without consequence, as we’ve sometimes had >> internal differences within our contingent that have arguably >> undermined our effectiveness and credibility in the eyes of the >> community and staff, and can even allow our various business >> stakeholder group counterparts to exploit the differences in order to >> push through what they want in opposition to our common baseline >> views. So at a minimum, we need to do better somehow at team >> coordination and make sure all our Councilors know what each other is >> doing and why and so there’s no real time surprises, especially >> during meetings with high stakes votes. >> >> Thoughts? >> >> Best >> >> Bill > --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus