Name, declared region of residence, gender and employment:

Dear all,

Here's my candidate statement for the NCSG Chair election.



Name, declared region of residence, gender and employment:

  Tapani Tarvainen, Europe, male, chief engineer at Jyväskylä University,
  Finland.


Any conflicts of interest:

  None.


Reasons for willingness to take on the tasks of the particular position:

  NCSG has an important part to play in keeping the Internet free by
  influencing ICANN's policies. And we have several gifted and
  competent people working on those policies.

  But in order to get their work done they also need administrative
  support - bureacracy if you will.

  I see the role of Chair in NCSG as an administrative one:
  keeping the bureaucracy working and well-oiled so that the
  people working on substantive issues can get on with their
  work with minimal administrative hurdles.

  That also explains my approach to administration: I believe it
  should be mostly invisible, and the Chair and Executive Committee
  should generally do their job in the background, keeping away from
  the limelights.

  That's what I've been doing the past year and at least NCSG
  has not totally collapsed yet, so I guess I could've done worse.

  Although admittedly when I started as the Chair last year I was, in
  retrospect unsurprisingly, too optimistic about what I could get
  done and how fast. But that is the way of things: they always take
  longer than expected.

  A few things I've got on on the agenda, either going on or
  planned for the coming year:

  * New membership management system is well on the way, indeed
    I hope it to by up and running before the Hyderabad meeting.

  * An independent website for NCSG is also coming along as part
    of the same project.

  * The Finance Committee has been reactivated, although later than
    I'd hoped, so they haven't been able to do much yet, but
    I trust they'll do more in the coming year.

  * More NCUC-NPOC joint activities and continuing to improve
    the relations between our two constituencies.

  * Conducting a review of constituencies as our charter requires
    us to do every two years.

  * Establishing and documenting procedures for various things
    the Executive Committee needs to do, like member removal.


Qualifications for the position:

  Been there, done that. :-)

  I won't bore you with my resume: let it suffice to say that
  I have an extensive experience in dealing with and administering
  various civil society organizations. Now including the NCSG.


Statement of availability for the time the position requires:

  Yes: I have agreed with my employer, Jyväskylä university, that I
  can continue to use some working hours to Chair the NCSG. I have
  also decreased my activities in Effi, so I think I will have enough
  time to handle the duties of our stakeholder group's Chair.


--
Tapani Tarvainen