[soac-newgtldapsup-wg] Welcome to the Joint SO/AC WG on New gTLD Applicant Support

[Olof Nordling <olof.nordling@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,
A warm welcome to this Working Group* - and thanks for signing up! Together 
with Glen de Saint Géry, I will provide ICANN staff support for the WG, which 
will initially be chaired by Rafik Dammak who is also the GNSO Council liaison 
to the WG. Election of a chair for the WG will be one of its early tasks, so 
please give that aspect some thought already now.

In view of the ambitious objectives, to have an outcome ready well before the 
ICANN meeting in Brussels in June, we need to have a first conference call 
really soon. The plan is to have the first call already this upcoming Thursday 
29 April at 11.00 UTC! Please notify me 
(olof.nordling@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:olof.nordling@xxxxxxxxx>)  and Glen 
(gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxx>)  right away if 
this time doesn't work for you - if foreseen attendance is low, we will set up 
a doodle and defer the call to the following week.

You will receive dial-in details, call agenda etc separately before the call. 
As a background, you may wish to (re-)read the following, including the links: 
In Nairobi, the ICANN Board invited the community to suggest suitable ways to 
provide support for New gTLD applicants, see 
http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-12mar10-en.htm#20 . The GNSO 
Council has since resolved to launch a Working Group to address this matter, 
see http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#201004 , inviting all interested ICANN 
SOs and ACs to join in the effort. The work is planned to commence in late 
April and to conclude in time before the ICANN meeting in Brussels in June this 
year.

Looking forward to working together with all of you!

Very best regards

Olof

*  With a full name for the WG as long as it is, and with an unpronounceable 
mailing list name, the suggestion is to call it "JAS WG" for short, unless 
there are objections (OK, JAS means coat in Dutch and a fighter aircraft in 
Swedish, but the confusion risk is low;-)