Friday 13 October 2006, Teleconference

Minutes

Start: 11:00 am (UTC+10)

Present:

Apologies:

Agenda:

  1. Agenda bashing
  2. Minutes from last meeting (5 September 2006)
  3. Financial report for September 2006
  4. Member survey
  5. Fee structure
  6. ICANN/NRO status
  7. IGF update
  8. AOB
  9. Next meeting

  1. Agenda bashing

    2. The following topic was added to the agenda:

    • none

    Top

  2. Minutes from last meeting (5 September 2006)

    • The minutes from the meeting on 5 September were approved.

      • Action ec-06-022: Secretariat to publish minutes from 5 September 2006.

    Top

  3. Financial report for September 2006

    • The financial report for September has been circulated. This also includes a quarterly report for the 3rd quarter of 2006.
    • This report contains comparisons of actual amounts to the budgeted figures. It is anticipated that revenue will be close to the projected budget and expenses will be about two percent below budget.
    • The report contains an explanation of the apparent discrepancy between membership growth and membership revenue (Action ec-06-019).
    • There was a review of membership growth in the past month. The second half of the year has seen better membership growth than the first half.
    • The EC approved the financial report.

    Top

  4. Member survey

    • It was noted that John Earls will provide a draft copy of the survey to the EC. The draft survey questions will also be presented to a test audience for validation purposes, prior to finalising the survey form and conducting the survey.
    • The final survey result is intended to be presented during APNIC 23.
    • The EC will have an opportunity before the validation test to provide feedback about the survey contents.
    • It was explained that it is not intended to use the survey to make a decision about the fee structure, but that it may be useful to use the survey to collect opinions on some issues that may be helpful to the development of the fee structure proposal.

    Top

  5. ICANN/NRO status

    • ICANN has announced its contract renewal with DoC. There have been many interpretations put forward about what this means, but the actual implications are not yet clear.
    • There was a meeting held this week between the RIRs and some ICANN staff and legal representatives.
    • The contract discussion with ICANN at the ARIN meeting was not a formal negotiating session, but a discussion about the positions of the parties involved.
    • ICANN recently responded to the NRO draft with some relatively vague comments. Although ICANN ruled out some aspects of the draft, they did not provide acceptable alternatives.
    • ICANN has insisted on signing agreements with the RIRs directly, rather than with the NRO.
      • ICANN wishes to ensure that the RIRs will be bound by the contract, however there may be other means to achieve that.
    • There was a review of the general issues that ICANN have objected to in the draft contract.
    • It was noted that ICANN does not want this contract to be a service contract, but rather a less formal agreement of mutual recognition.

    Top

  6. IGF update

    • There are no significant issues to report regarding the coming IGF in Athens.
    • It was noted that the IGF for 2007 will be held in Brazil. It will be important to follow that event carefully, given the intention to address issues of Internet technical coordination.
    • It was noted that the commitment of the Americans to IGF is now relatively small. It was suggested that the IGF may become more of an educational forum than a genuine dialogue.
    • There was a brief review of the role of the Japanese government in the IGF.

    Top

  7. Fee structure

    • There was a discussion of the best way to proceed with development of the fee structure proposal. It was noted that there was good discussion at the meeting, but not much discussion on the working group mailing list.
    • It was suggested that a single final proposal may not succeed and that it may be better to break the proposal up into specific problems and ask structured questions accordingly through formal votes.
    • It was noted that formal votes on fee issues do not have to be conducted at member meetings. It was suggested that online voting could be used to build a final proposal to be presented at a meeting.
    • It was suggested that if a new fixed fee schedule is established, then this long process will need to be repeated again in the future. It was suggested that the proposal should include a mechanism for adjusting the fees.
    • There was discussion of asking the members to delegate a limited fee variation power to the EC to make the annual budgeting process more streamlined than the RIPE method.
    • It was noted that some comments on the mailing list have called for a more detailed budget approval process.
    • There was a discussion of how to conduct the electronic votes. It was noted that constructing the questions well will be very important and may require further discussion.

    Top

  8. AOB

    • None.

    Top

  9. Next meeting

    • 10 November.

    Top

Meeting closed 12:25 pm (UTC+10)

Open action items

Top  |  EC