[bc-gnso] Comments from the BC Chair

[Marilyn Cade <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you to the members of the BC for your participation in the election. This 
will be a first of occassional Chair's communications. It is intended to update 
you on a few items, and ask you to mark your calendars for some working 
sessions ahead.  In general, once we are organized as an Executive Committee, 
we will have regular scheduled communications. This communication is intended 
to thank you for participating in the election, to say that I appreciate the 
opportunity to serve as chair, mention some key events and describe how work is 
progressing in the transition, and to ask for your help, as we all work 
together. 
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 Thank you for this opportunity to serve as chair.  All of the newly elected 
officers are already at work, as you would have expected. I have been in touch 
with all other newly elected officers, and we will be holding informational and 
transitional discussions next week, so that we can be prepared to put proposals 
before our membership on various items where we believe the membership should 
be informed and have a chance to weigh in. You may find that a bit more 
communications on detail in the early stages of organizing the BC's new 
ExeComm's work, but please bear with us. For at least through February and into 
March, we will, as a constituency, need to make some general decisions that 
will affect our work for this year. After these processes are accepted by 
members, I expect to have more routinized/scheduled communications processes 
and meetings/conference calls.  
I want to thank everyone who stood for election, and recognize the commitment 
to working on behalf of the memberships that led each candidate to make the 
commitment to work as hard as I expect us to, as the new Executive Committee 
(ExeComm) this year.  According to the election analysis shared with all of us, 
83% of our members voted. That is actually quite excellent turn out.  All of 
us, as BC members, were served well by having candidates who gave thought and 
work to developing platforms and commitments to work for the Constituency and 
presented their views to the Constituency. The BC is stronger for having had 
these elections, and the opportunity for participation and for broadening our 
membership through recruitment and outreach is before us to build more 
geographical diversity, and to develop processes that will enable even more of 
our members to commit to working roles in the BC this year and in years ahead. 
As a sort of short update for your calendars:There will be some transitional 
discussions next week, followed by a full ExeComm discussion where we will be 
developing draft proposals to present to the Members for work programs and 
processes. In addition, I want to have a full Members call during the last two 
weeks of February -- depending on when we see an agenda from ICANN [I've 
checked in with ICANN staff and believe it is going to be posted 2/15]. Our 
call will be during the last two weeks, but as early as I can make it, so that 
you have preparation time before the Kenya meeting. That call will address 
preparation for Kenya ICANN in March, and have a short update from each of the 
officers. We will have one more preparatory update call before Kenya ICANN. 
Remote Participation/debrief on Monday and Tuesday, during ICANN meeting:  
During the ICANN meeting, there will be one hour debriefs for business 
users/ISPs/IP stakeholders TENTATIVELY scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 
as well as remote participation during various meetings, supported by ICANN. As 
an individual, I have been organizing these special debriefs with help and 
advice from Sarah Deutsch and Steve Metalitz and Fred Felman with ICANN, and 
want to mention them to any BC members who are traveling to Kenya, and to those 
of you who are not. They are open sessions [to which you can invite guests] but 
are focused on business concerns. This is an effort to ensure communications 
from Kenya, since the time frame is going to be tough for participation into 
the meetings, and is focused on the informal sharing of insights and 
information with colleagues. The actual BC meeting will have remote 
participation as well. 
Attendance in Kenya:Please send an email to the Secretariat at 
secretariat@xxxxxxxxxx to confirm your attendance in Kenya. Please include in 
your personal email to him your arrival date/time, and which hotel you are at. 
I would like to ask that you include your email and cell phone.  That will 
enable us to reach you during the ICANN meeting, but that is an optional 
decision for you. He will compile a private list and will provide that to the 
officers and councilors. We sometimes set up a private email list for those 
attending the meeting. I am not inclined to do that for this meeting, given the 
number of members who are not traveling to the meeting whom we should keep in 
touch with.  We can discuss this on the Members call. 
Transition Period: February We are fortunate to have Gary Hills, our 
Secretariat, assisting with the transition period. Gary will leave us at the 
end of February and his focus during the rest of February will be on 
transitioning the details of the operational aspects of the BC to Mikey 
O'Connor, Vice Chair, Operations and Finance.  His work is much appreciated and 
his help in the transition is very important to our smooth transition.
Valuing our Members:All BC members are important to the full participation and 
involvement of the BC in ICANN -- in its policy development in the gNSO; in 
broader work related to the stability and functioning of the organization 
itself, and in the legitimacy of the BC within ICANN.  We have a lot of work to 
do in 2010. We need each other, and I look forward to working with you, with my 
fellow ExeComm members, and with new members whom I am confident we will all 
work together to bring into the BC. 
I look forward to our work together.  As always, my email and telephone number 
are available to all of you, should you want to contact me directly. 
Marilyn CadeChair, Business and Commercial Users Constituency+ 1 202 251 
6787marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx