[NCUC-EC] NCUC EC Internal appointments/roles [bylaws]

[Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza]

Since you are asking so nicely, bylaws it is. But I will definitely need
help with that. Could you point me to the latest version and discussions or
all I have to do is check the bylaws list (to which I have just signed up)?
It will take some reading to get me updated with the latest gossip around
the impacts or this or that wording, but after a good 15 days we can start
working to get a discussion going in Singapore about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rHPIbrhpM#t=42


2014/1/13 William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com>

> Hey Carlos
>
> Great to hear from you.
>
> On Jan 12, 2014, at 9:24 PM, Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza <
> caffsouza at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone: this is just a very quick email to get the ball rolling on
> filling the slots suggested by Bill.
>
> a) I could happily join the work of the NCUC and PIR interface. I've been
> around for a while now and have participated in debates about their support
> to NCUC a number of times. The PIR visit during Constituency Day is a
> classic on its own. So count me in to help in this front. I don't need to
> be the REP, but would be happy to give out some ideas and advance
> partnership. I've been coordinating externally funded research institutions
> and NGOs for ten years now so I think I can help a little here.
>
>
> Ok, great, let’s put you down for that then.  Probably it will continue to
> be a nominal thing.  But at least you could ask them to spell our name
> right on the website!
>
>
> b) For the working teams, I can help in Communications and Events. Being
> doing a lot on those two in the past, but never for the NCUC, so I would
> love to be part of both teams, if possible. In terms of membership (inreach
> and outreach), I agree that some work on both fronts is expected from all
> of us.
>
>
> We don’t have a comms team, it never got going.  We could try again, but
> maybe better to just keep that in the EC along with finance.  You could
> certainly take a leading role here on some things we decide to say.
>  Stefania’s offered to help with wordsmithing etc too.
>
> Events, sure, join the team list.  Bear in mind this meeting needs to be
> really cross-community so it won’t just be an internal NCUC job.
>
> But that’ relatively small commitment stuff.  Let me try a bigger ask:
>
>
> c) Not sure if I would be the best person to lead it, but I would like to
> take part in the Bylaws Revision team. I still have some lingering memories
> of the pre-SG era that might be useful.
>
>
> Well….would you be willing to think again on that first phrase?  I’d see
> you as a great coordinator to make this happen, and I’ve come to believe it
> really needs to, in the April-June window, end summer latest so the Board
> could review and approve and we could add it to the December 2014 election.
>
> After all, you’re a veteran member so you know the back stories to all the
> politics around this including prior revision  discussions, the NCGS
> charter process, etc.  So you know what’s realistic, what needs to be
> avoided, who we can actually count on to help with what, etc.  And you’re a
> lawyer, a main link to one of our key financial and other supporters, a
> non-gringo…seems to me you’re optimized for the job!  You’d be a hero to a
> grateful ‘nation.’
>
> The bylaws are not long and complex, they just need updating and
> recalibration to who we really are now. And there’ve been several aborted
> efforts to start their revision; I’ve circulated these, or pointers, to the
> EC list last year, wouldn’t be hard to look them over, take stock, and
> really, this could get done in a few days if a few people put their minds
> to it.  I’d certainly help, and am sure other EC members, veterans and more
> could be dragged in if someone would just take the lead and start, set a
> schedule, map the tasks, and get it going.
>
> Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please
> Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please
> Please ?
>
> Bill
>
> So let's see who else would like to join which team/position and we can
> decide what would be the best division of labor for us. Looking forward to
> that!
>
> Best,
> Carlos
>
>
> 2014/1/12 William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com>
>
>> Hi Stefania
>>
>> Thanks very much for your reply.  Your readiness to help out is really
>> appreciated.  It would be great if you could serve as e-team coordinator,
>> as this is our single biggest need and it’s imperative that these functions
>> performed.   When new members join, they must be added to the lists, data
>> base, and website.  When we organize a meeting, we must be able to post
>> information about it.  When visitors come to the website they shouldn’t be
>> greeted by creaky old information on the top, they should have to click a
>> bit to get to it.  And so on…And being the coordinator does’t mean you have
>> to all the work, but rather that you encourage people to engage in
>> collective action, are the medic of last resort when it fails, and can take
>> the initiative to tidy things up and fill gaps etc. whenever you’ve got a
>> bit of time and are in the mood.  If you look at the archives there’s some
>> clear recent priorities http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/e-team like:
>>
>> *We need a division of labor among the few folks that do stuff, e.g.
>> who’s the last resort responsible for list sysadmin, website, etc. And for
>> them to keep each other abreast as needed.
>> *Tapani sent a bunch of long emails explaining the different e-platform
>> items he was managing and what’s been left with whom in what state, on what
>> machines which bits are located, who needs to be paid when, etc.  These
>> ought to be compiled into a doc that’s available for reference by future
>> ECs and ET’s (not the movie kind).
>> *The website is just seriously in need of a refresh.…our digital persona
>> needs tending, or it looks like nobody gives a damn and we’re not doing
>> anything.
>>
>> BTW while Tapani doesn’t want to be responsible for stuff anymore he has
>> always been very quick to respond to requests for info and assistance when
>> needed.
>>
>> If you’ve got additional bandwidth available beyond this, we can
>> certainly use your help with any other items below…but the platforms are
>> really our foundational priority, ok?
>>
>> More generally: it is now going on a month since this EC was elected, so
>> it would be really good if we could start to function.  As a first step,
>> it’d be helpful if we could hear from others on the below and other issues
>> I’ve raised http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-ec/.  I’ve been getting
>> private replies from some folks on various points but there’s been no
>> collective conversation (a somewhat uncomfortable contrast with other
>> e-spaces I’m in all day where the mail is voluminous), I don’t have a
>> couple people’s Skype addresses so we can chat, etc etc.  It doesn’t make
>> sense for me to keep sending messages with new info etc. before the
>> previous items have generated some response and resolution, as needed.
>>  Let’s please try, e.g., to finish task A and exchange views on concern B
>> before I have to send info on new items C and D, or else it’ll all turn
>> into a bundle of loose unresolved threads.
>>
>> BTW recent communications with staff lead me to believe we will, with the
>> assistance of a couple of your home institutions, be able to have the whole
>> EC together in Singapore.  I don’t know if this has ever happened before,
>> but it’s a real opportunity and we should leverage it.  In any event,
>> please do reserve the dates on your calendars.
>>
>> I’d like to schedule a first EC meeting in the week of 27 January.
>>  Hopefully by then we’ll have some clarity on who’s prepared to fill the
>> open (external, non-EC) positions mentioned previously, so we can approve
>> as a set, and also take a few other decisions and prepare for Singapore.
>>  I’ll post a Doodle later, but if there’s anyone who simply cannot be
>> available that week it’d be helpful to know now.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 10, 2014, at 7:05 PM, Milan, Stefania <Stefania.Milan at EUI.eu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Bill
>> thanks for the long explanatory mail. I even had to take notes while
>> going through it, as dense as it is, but things are much more clear now. So
>> now there is no excuse not to volunteer for any of the positions.
>> In order to facilitate other people's choices, I will now share what my
>> preferences are - with the disclaimer that I am flexible and can easily
>> re-porpuse my role to fill holes.
>>
>>
>>    - I have familiarity with web design and content management. The new
>>    website runs on Joomla... and has the same (free) theme that I have chosen
>>    for the website of my research lab (good choice!). I can certainly help
>>    with the e-platforms.
>>    - I am also interested in the Membership Affairs, as I intend to
>>    engage in aggressive outreach, so MA would be my second preference.
>>    - I would be happy to serve as rep to the .org advisory council at
>>    PRI. In the past I did some fundraising for the NGO sector, and like the
>>    idea of seeing how PRI works.
>>    - Finally, I could (but by no means have to) serve as Secretary. I am
>>    a fast writer, good organizer, and used to work as a journalist, so I might
>>    be able to contribute there as well.
>>
>>
>> This is about me - waiting to hear from the others to see how we can best
>> distribute ourselves.
>> Stefania
>>
>>
>> ----------------------
>> Stefania Milan, PhD
>> Data J Lab || Tilburg University, the Netherlands || http://datajlab.nl
>>  ||
>> The Citizen Lab || Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto ||
>>  http://citizenlab.org ||
>> European University Institute || www.protestsurvey.eu/ ||
>> Center for Media and Communication Studies, Central European University ||
>>  www.cmcs.ceu.hu ||
>> International Association for Media and Communication Research -
>> International Council member and Co-Chair, Communication Policy Task Force
>> || www.iamcr.org ||
>> mobile: [31] 62 7875 425 (NL) || [1] 647 - 973 - 6533 (CA) || [+39] 333
>> - 2309945 (I)
>> http://stefaniamilan.net/
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *Da:* ncuc-ec-bounces at lists.ncuc.org <ncuc-ec-bounces at lists.ncuc.org>
>> per conto di William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com>
>> *Inviato:* martedì 7 gennaio 2014 15.51
>> *A:* NCUC EC
>> *Oggetto:* [NCUC-EC] NCUC EC Internal appointments/roles
>>
>> Hi
>>
>> Hope everyone had a good holiday season.  Time to get moving now.  I’m
>> trying to get caught up on a bunch of ICANN stuff, including clarifying if
>> the funds for the EC retreat can be repurposed to cover more peoples’
>> travel, dealing with the conference, appointments, etc. and will be
>> peppering you with more info in the weeks ahead.  Some replies to my prior
>> messages would be a good start, where relevant….e.g.* I never got the
>> Skype details on some of you, so have been unable to set up an EC channel
>> or tie you into the ongoing discussions among some of our more active
>> members.  If people could provide, that’d be a good start.*
>>
>> When we have enough responses to my call for nominations to the various
>> open slots, *I’ll organize a first official online meeting* (will
>> Doodle, of course) so that we can do the formal appointments and take other
>> pressing decisions.  Stay tuned.
>>
>> In the meanwhile, we need to begin figuring out how we will organize
>> ourselves internally, who’s willing to cover which functions, have a
>> division of labor.  Here’s where we could really use some folks to step up
>> and volunteer to take ownership of some pieces, with support of course—not
>> suggesting anyone has to be overburdened with solo responsibilities.
>>
>> Some particular options:
>>
>> On Dec 21, 2013, at 3:57 PM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch> wrote:
>>
>>
>> *1 NCUC Rep. to the Public Interest Registry*
>>  http://pir.org/about-us/get-to-know-us/advisory-council/
>>
>> PIR manages .org etc. and is a long time financial and political
>> supporter of NCUC.  We appoint a rep to its .org Advisory Council; Robin is
>> currently in this position as well.    I understand this has not involved a
>> lot of coordination of late, and indeed PIR’s website still calls us by our
>> old name, the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency (NCDNHC), but
>> as with some other slots/functions we might want to reboot a bit.  Our
>> bylaws specify that the EC is to appoint the rep by majority vote, with at
>> least four members voting.
>>
>>
>> The only offer I’ve had here is from a GNSO Councilor who’s already in
>> addition playing an important role in the e-platform team, handing email
>> administration and stuff.  I would think it better not to burden him with
>> this as well, and that serving as an interface with one of our historically
>> primary financial supporters might be a low impact but useful activity for
>> an EC member.  Such a person could also help when it comes time to hit them
>> up for funding, which I’m thinking might be best done after the Singapore
>> conf. this time, depending on what I hear from Fadi.
>>
>>
>> Finally and parenthetically, the EC will also need to make some internal
>> appointments. For ex, our bylaws say we are to have a Secretary Treasurer
>> who must be approved by a majority vote of the EC with at least three
>> members voting.  Milton’s always been the Treasurer because he has NCUC’s
>> bank account, but he’s not been doing the ‘Secretary’ piece and it could be
>> helpful to separate and fill it.  We also need coordinators for the four
>> EC/member functional Teams http://www.ncuc.org/participate/working-teams and
>> the Bylaws Revision Committee
>> http://www.ncuc.org/bylaws-revision-committee/
>>
>>
>> I think splitting off the *Secretary function* from the Treasurer
>> function is the only way it’s going to be performed.  We need someone who
>> writes happily who can generate concise minutes (basically a page) of EC
>>  and Constituency Day meetings and send these to members, help with any
>> other outward oriented doc writing like press releases, missing web pages,
>> etc.  So maybe sort of a secretary +, or communications coordinator
>> position.  BTW we have budget allocated by ICANN to do print publications,
>> like Issue Briefs that could be released at physical meeting.
>>
>> *Teams  * http://www.ncuc.org/participate/working-teams/
>>
>> You may know that one of the innovations I tried to establish last year
>> was working teams linking the EC with regular members that would focus on
>> functional issues we really need performed.  A way to get people engaged in
>> collective ownership, etc.   The idea was that each could normally be lead
>> coordinated by an EC member, so that the work of the teams fed into the EC
>> when decisions at a ‘official’ level are needed, and conversely the views
>> of the EC on relevant points were conveyed back to the team members.
>>
>> At the outset of last year, we tried to set up six teams: inreach,
>> outreach, communications, finance, e-platforms, and events.  Some just fell
>> flat on their faces: the member who offered to coordinate inreach and
>> outreach didn’t.  So then we combined them into a single Membership Affairs
>> team that would presumably handle both, and alas the same thing happened,
>> we ended up with no EC member to facilitate conversation and it drifted.
>>  Communication never took off, even though we really needed external comms
>> to be upgraded, because the person who I’d hoped would lead that one lost
>> the election by one vote and nobody else wanted to pick it up.  Finance
>> being kind of dull (but crucial), it was hard to get anyone pumped on this,
>> so I ended up asking a non-EC member to serve as the coordinator, got
>> agreement but then illness happened and this too wandered with no
>> leadership and sort of dwindled out.  I ended up doing all the money stuff
>> like applying for budget support solo.  The two teams that did work were
>> Events (everyone like to plan meetings, especially the academics), and the
>> E-platform team, primarily because Tapani stepped up to do an enormous
>> amount of work.  Wilson and Sarah also helped by redesigning the web page,
>> Brenden helped from time to time, etc.  Now Tapani’s retired, and we have
>> three people—Brenden Kuerbis, Joly McPhee, and David Cake—trying to ad hoc
>> keep our e-stuff running but there’s no coordinator to keep track of what
>> needs doing and so on.  So for example we just did manage to add some new
>> members to the listserv, but not apparently to the data base and website
>> yet.
>>
>> So in short, right now we have four listservs and groups of people, one
>> reasonably active but leaderless, the others pretty much just sitting there
>> waiting for someone to juice them up.
>>
>> *E-platforms. * I don’t know if any of you have technical skills do
>> system administration or web site management yourselves, or would be
>> willing at least to simply coordinate the efforts of the folks who do that
>> so their time can be well managed and focused.  But absent staff support to
>> handle such things, (which we need to apply for, and probably could get) in
>> the near-term we have to make sure our tech is working and people who join
>> NCUC get fully plugged in and listed.  This is our most important team, and
>> it desperately needs a coordinator.
>>
>> *Membership Affairs. *I still think could serve a really useful function
>> by doing some targeted outreach (BTW, all regional EC reps are supposed to
>> do outreach to potential new members in their regions….) and more
>> importantly by engaging existing members, bringing opportunities to their
>> attention, getting them plugged into GNSO working groups, generally
>> facilitating anything they’re willing to put time into.  You may have noted
>> some recent discussion on the list about the idea of rebooting Interest
>> Groups in which a few members said they’d happily join an IG focused on
>> development aspects.  Well, we don’t have a ning site anymore where people
>> can just build social nets around topics (sort of a big loss in our web
>> transition), but if we had someone willing to work with members and provide
>> a platform, we could still do stuff like set up listservs for folks who
>> want to discuss and hopefully work on special topics and get these listed
>> on the website.  This is a wide open opportunity for someone proactive to
>> make of it what they will; I’m betting more than half the nine people still
>> subscribed to the MA listserv would be happy to re-engage if someone were
>> to lead.  I know I would.
>>
>> *Finance.*  I’m inclined to just retire this and say that any money
>> related stuff gets discussed in the EC.  Probably not needed.
>>
>> *Events.*  I’ll coordinate this for now, since I secured the funds for
>> the conference in Singapore and will need to interact with staff and the
>> community extensively anyway on the agenda and logistics.  But interested
>> people are welcome to join.
>>
>> Any of these lists can be joined by following the links from the URL
>> above, and you can also look through the archives to see what was and
>> wasn’t done last year.
>>
>> *Bylaws Revision.*  Here’s another big important thing that’s just
>> laying there without a leader.  The person who was most adamant that we do
>> this and offered to lead a group effort is no longer on the EC or wants to
>> do it.  It was set up as a ‘committee’ for some fluky reason at
>> http://www.ncuc.org/bylaws-revision-committee/ but should probably be
>> folded into the Teams page.  Anyway, the lack of movement may have dampened
>> the interest of the folks who signed up, most of whom were newbies, so this
>> group may need to be reconstituted a bit.  It certainly would need
>> engagement from veteran members who have institutional memory and were
>> involved in writing the current bylaws (which date back to pre-Stakeholder
>> Group days and are almost entirely unrelated to how we actually operate) or
>> prior efforts to revise them.  While some folks have felt like what’s the
>> difference, life goes on even if the bylaws don’t map with how we operate,
>> I think that as long as we do have constituencies it’d be much better to
>> have bylaws that fit who we are and how we operate.  Good for transparency,
>> accountability, and in dealing correctly with any problems that may arise.
>>  It would be really good to get them revised in the second quarter, after
>> the busy Singapore meeting, so that they could go to the board and staff,
>> get cleared, and be put up for a vote in next December’s election.  This
>> might seems like a really daunting task, but it need not be if there’s an
>> active group; the extant text is not that long and complicated.  I would
>> encourage folks to consider stepping up to coordinate.  I would help,
>> others will too.  Would be really good to have someone with legal
>> expertise, I suppose…
>>
>> Ok, that’s more than enough for you to chew on in one message.  Bottom
>> line, there’s a lot to do, but none of it is unmanageable, and should
>> involve more than a couple hours per week of work.  Most of the time
>> consuming, heavy lifting stuff defaults into the chair’s lap, but if I
>> could get some help with some these bits it’d be really really great.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NCUC-EC mailing list
>> NCUC-EC at lists.ncuc.org
>> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-ec
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Diretor
> Instituto de Tecnologia e Sociedade do Rio de Janeiro (ITS)
> https://www.facebook.com/ITSriodejaneiro
> +55 21 3235-6315
>  _______________________________________________
> NCUC-EC mailing list
> NCUC-EC at lists.ncuc.org
> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-ec
>
>
> ***********************************************
> William J. Drake
> International Fellow & Lecturer
>   Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
>   University of Zurich, Switzerland
> Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency,
>   ICANN, www.ncuc.org
> william.drake at uzh.ch (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com (lists),
>   www.williamdrake.org
> ***********************************************
>
>


-- 
Diretor
Instituto de Tecnologia e Sociedade do Rio de Janeiro (ITS)
https://www.facebook.com/ITSriodejaneiro
+55 21 3235-6315
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