[NCUC-EC] EC past and future

[William Drake]

Hi

In light of conversations I had with a couple of you over the past few days indicating a desire for a more formalized set of procedures (e.g. quarterly meetings with minutes etc), I started pondering why these suggestions seemed so alien to what I knew of the EC's history, and hence a bit hard for me and some other veterans to get their heads around.  In search of some empirical grounding for that perception, I took an hour and looked through the entire available archive of of the EC list, and combined what I found with the list of participants per period.  This institutional memory is below, followed by some observations and suggestions.

A Five Year Snapshot of the NCUC EC
http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-ec/

Current NCUC Executive Committee
Term: 17 December 2012 - 17 December 2013
NCUC Chair: William Drake
Executive Committee Africa: Wilson Abigaba
Executive Committee Asia: Norbert Klein
Executive Committee Europe: Tapani Tarvainen
Executive Committee North America: Edward Morris
Executive Committee South America: Carlos Alberto AFONSO

Mail

June 2013:
85 messages on budget, website, Durban, travel expenditures, resignations, brochures, CD, new member intake & MA team, EC meetings
May 2013	
42 messages on finance, Durban travel, mail lists, CD, website, lists

April 2013 
48 messages on CD, Beijing, Budget requests

March 2013
44 messages on CD, web hosting, new members, budget requests, website, GNSO Tool it, Beijing

February 2013:
82 messages on video, mistrust and cooperation, finance, process management, SIC, members list, ST, Beijing planning, Finance team reboot, publicizing policy work, moving the elists

January 2013:
39 messages on travel funds, EC members coordinating teams,  new member recruitment & role of ST, video expenditure

December 2012:
55 messages from us on new web site, lists, appointments, PC, Travel funding, outreach

Past NCUC Executive Committee
Term: 17 December 2011 - 17 December 2012
Interim NCUC Chair: David Cake
Executive Committee Africa: Alex Gakuru
Executive Committee Asia: David Cake
Executive Committee Europe: Nuno Garcia
Executive Committee North America: Brenden Kuerbis
Executive Committee South America: Carlos Alberto AFONSO
Nominating Committee Representative: Maria Farrell, Europe
Elected Chair Konstantinos Komaitis resigned, and as the charter requires, a member of the EC (David Cake) was appointed to act as interim chair until new elections can be held.
* GNSO Councilors are now directly elected by the membership of the Noncommercial Stakeholders Group
Mail



November 2012:
two messages on election admin

June 2012:
2 messages on Ning and newbie

May 2012:
6 messages on interim chair

April 2012:
32 messages on KK resignation, EC meeting, David as interim chair

March 2012:
20 messages on CD agenda, IOC/RC motion

February 2012:
12 messages re public comments, CD agenda

January 2012:
33 messages on new EC tasks, budget, charter, travel funds, rep at PIR, MM as ST

December 2011:
38 messages: letters to US Congresss; FY13 Budget request; PIR



Past NCUC Executive Committee
Term: 30 October 2010 - 30 October 2011
NCUC Chair: Konstantinos Komaitis
Executive Committee Africa: Alex Gakuru
Executive Committee Asia: David Cake
Executive Committee Europe: Cedric Laurant
Executive Committee North America: Brenden Kuerbis
Executive Committee South America: Carlos Affonso de Souza

Mail
November 2011: 11 messages on NCUC/NCSG listservs, reps to NCSG bodies
October 2011: 20 messages on travel allocations, NPOC
September 2011: 32 messages on UDRP letter to GAC, Council nominations
August 2011: 1 message on travel support
July 2011: 7 messages about NCSG listserv
June 2011: 7 messages about NPOC, JAS, list [Brenden begins process of renaming to NCSG-discuss]
May 2011: 5 messages on travel support, singapore meeting
April 2011:  dozen messages travel support
March 2011: 3 messages on GAC scorecard and proposed consumer constituency
February 2011:two messages on travel support
January 2011: one year pause without mail, couple dozen messages on travel support, GANDI, CD


Past NCUC Executive Committee
Term: 30 October 2009 - 30 October 2010
NCUC Chair: Robin Gross
Executive Committee Africa: Alex Gakuru
Executive Committee Asia: David Cake
Executive Committee Europe: Konstantinos Komaitis
Executive Committee North America: Brenden Kuerbis
Executive Committee South America: Carlos Affonso de Souza

Mail
December 2009: 1 message on a meeting
 
 
Past NCUC Executive Committee
Term: October 2008 - October 2009
North America region: Robert Guerra, CPSR
Europe region: Georg Grève, Free Software Foundation Europe
Africa region: Dave Kissoondoyal, ISOC Mauritius
Latin America/ Caribbean region: Carlos Afonso, RITS Brazil
Asia-Pacific region: Horacio Cadiz, Philippine Network Foundation
Mail
October 2009: 7 messages on appointing (not electing) EC members




Some Observations

1.  None of the below is in any way a criticism of the folks who were on the EC previous.  These were simply different times, with different expectations and needs.

2.  It is obvious that from from 2009-20012 there was rather little discussion on the EC list in terms of both volume and topical diversity. We have exchange more mail on more topics in six months than our predecessors did in five years. The level of activity underscored that the EC was not "where the action was" in terms of discussion and decision making.  Back then, most of that took place on the main members list, among Councilors, or off list.  Decisions were taken by rough consensus to move quickly, and generally there was no voting.  Nor where there standardized EC meetings with records etc., or much focus on the bylaws more generally (although a group of us did work on them in 2009, and even more so on the NCSG charter in the same time frame).  The creation of NCSG and NPOC was really a dominant, bandwidth sucking activity during at least the first half of my four years on Council, 2009-210.

3.  While the EC list was previously rather quiet, what discussion there was was invariably collegial and relaxed.  The participants were friends who'd been doing ICANN meetings together for years.  In contrast, our group has comprised folks who didn't have history together and came in with very different ideas about how things should function, but were mostly seeking to make notable capacity building improvements to the constituency's function.  Inevitably then, we've talked much more about many more things and have found many more occasions to disagree, sometimes in a tone that's a bit unpleasant and would probably shock any regular members who happened to look at the archive.  Conversely, such instances would probably at a minim provide amusement and those folks from other stakeholder groups and silos that have historically held NCUC in low regard for whatever reasons.

Some Suggestions for Going Forward

1.  Despite some ups and downs and period of strain, I think most of us still have a shared desire to make NCUC work a bit better, and that should be the focus.  It'd be great if a really collegial tone could be maintained, but at least professional would do to avoid embarrassment and undermining our position.  In the meanwhile, we each have project with think are important to carry forward, e.g. the website, brochure, Durban events, bylaws rewrite, etc.  I remain of the view that we should try to engage members in some of these areas where possible, and that even if the teams are not always as responsive as one would like they are worth preserving and trying to grow rather than bypass.  Of course volunteers' bandwidth is going to ebb and flow, but if we stick with it and try to coordinate the efforts at a minimum we make our processes more open and inclusive.

2. If it would please folks to move the dial away from the informality of the past and make things more standardized, I'm happy to do that.  I did receive some initial push back from vets who thought excess bureaucratization was being suggested, but think we're beyond that now. So, for ex, we can do quarterly meetings, or even more.  In my GNSO Took Kit Request for FY 14 (sent to this list in March), I asked for support for teleconferences, including with Adobe Connect, phone bridge, etc.  I believe we will get that.  So we should be able to do open or closed EC meetings (I'd prefer open) using ICANN's facilities beginning July 1. And if a situation really calls for voting rather than rough consensus, ok there's nothing to stop us from doing it that way.  The bylaws refer to voting but offer no formula for its conduct.

In light of the responses to my message yesterday about scheduling an EC meeting, I will ask Glen whether it'd be possible to book a first one in Durban for Sat. 13th.

Tapani sent some initial ideas about items we might cover in a EC meeting.  I would welcome any others.

Thanks,

Bill
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