NPOC EC Meeting Notes – Tuesday, July 21 2020

PRESENT: Joan Kerr, Raoul Plommer, Oreoluwa Lesi, Ioana Stupariu, Caleb Ogundele, Emmanuel Vitus, Jacqueline Morris, Juan Manuel Rojas, Maryam Bakoshi (ICANN Staff)

ABSENT: Carlos Raul Gutierrez

2. ACTIONS FROM LAST MEETING:

ESTONIAN ORGANISATION:

Action Items from Last Meeting:

  • Raoul Plommer needs to put together the information about pros and cons of setting-up an organisation in Estonia.

Updates:

  • Raoul: Wikimedia Foundation has put together a charter document that we can adapt for our purpose.
  • We want to keep the Charter as simple as possible and state that the Estonian-registered organisation is controlled by NPOC.
  • A possible name for the organisation is “Friends of NPOC…” or something equally catchy.
  • Joan Kerr: We had discussed in a previous meeting NPOC EC having a minimum of 2 seats on the organisation. According to Raoul, Estonian law requires a minimum of 2 board members for any registered nonprofit, so the rest of the board seats could be opened up to NPOC community.

NOMCOM:

Action Items from Last Meeting:

  • Raoul: Will ask Remmy Nweke (NPOC member who regularly attends the NomCom meetings) for updates on the last meetings

Updates:

  • NPOC sent a letter to the GNSO Council asking that the NomCom seats be more evenly distributed among the constituencies. A response from GNSO Council is expected to be given at the end of this month. After that, we can follow-up.

POLICY ISSUES:

Action Items from Last Meeting:

  • Joan will follow-up with Policy Chair, Carlos Raul Gutierrez on the Policy Actions list compiled from priority areas shared by Sam LaFranco.

Updates:

  • Sam LaFranco (NPOC member and representative on the Finance Committee) compiled a list of priority issues that he suggested NPOC get involved in.
  • Carlos has been busy with family issues and so Joan will share and review the list of priority issues with Jacqueline Morris, the Policy Chair elect.

CHARTER:

Action Items from Last Meeting:

  • Joan: Will confirm that the charter on the NPOC website is the original charter or not.

Updates:

  • Carlos Reyes of ICANN.org is putting together a document about the new Charter in preparation for a discussion with the NPOC EC.

New Action Item:

  • Maryam Bakoshi will follow-up with him on the progress of that document and check if he can have it ready for the next EC meeting.

NEXT CLOUD:

Action Items from Last Meeting:

  • Raoul: Will look for a tutorial video for NextCloud’s task management on YouTube
  • All: Upload their NPOC documents to NextCloud

Updates:

  • Raoul has not had the chance to look for a video but will work on this. He invites anyone to look through NextCloud and make suggestions of how best to use the tool.
  • Raoul uploaded some documents to NextCloud and urges everyone else who hasn’t already to upload their documents there. He will create credentials for anyone who has lost theirs.

New Action Item:

  • Raoul: Will look for a tutorial video for NextCloud’s task management on YouTube
  • Anyone: Look through NextCloud and make suggestions of how best to use the tool in order to organise our work better.

3. EC ACTIVITIES/UPDATES:

POLICY ISSUES & REVIEW:

  • Oreoluwa Lesi: Shared updates about the open public comment on the Multistakeholder Model being drafted on behalf on NCSG that she is contributing to.
  • Action Item:
  • Ore will share the comment she helped to draft with NPOC members on the mailing list.

OUTREACH:

  • Updates:
  • Ioana Stupariu asked Joan Kerr if there was any follow-up on the offer made by Adam Peake on organising webinars for NPOC members.
  • Joan has not had the chance to follow-up with him yet, but the decision has to be made whether to use the membership meetings for these trainings or to have a separate meeting.
  • Ioana will send an email to the NPOC members to check their preference.
  • Action Items:
  • Ioana: Will consult with NPOC members on preferred scheduling for education meetings.
  • Ioana: Will schedule the next membership meeting for end of August

WEBSITE & ENGAGEMENT:

  • Action Item:
  • Raoul: NPOC domain is up for renewal. Will renew it and submit the receipt for reimbursement.

FINANCES:

  • Ore: No changes to the finances. Ore will update with domain expense when payment has been made.

NCSG/WORKING GROUPS/PDPS:

  • Nothing aside from any updates made in Policy Issues & Review section above

DOCUMENT STORAGE

  • See Actions From Last Meeting

JUAN MANUEL ROJAS

  • There is a Volunteer Call for Interest for the Rights Protection Mechanism (RPM) working group. We could look for NPOC members who are interested in contributing to this issue.
  • A new tool called ADR is being introduced to help the GNSO Council track priority items
  • Topics that NPOC should pay attention to and get involved in are INGO and RPM
  • Urges people to share any perspectives they have on the ongoing Multistakeholder Model public comment with him, so he can raise in the Council meetings
  • Raoul: Urged Juan to push for NPOC having a seat in the NomCom, which would likely be taken from the CSG seats as the overall number of seats will not be increased. Juan will check the next Council meeting agenda and see if it works to include for the AOB segment.

4. BUSINESS ARISING:

ESTONIA ORGANISATION

  • See Actions From Last Meeting

NOMCOM WORKING GROUP:

  • See Actions From Last Meeting

PROPOSED MERGER:

  • Joan: Spoke to Sam LaFranco, who proposed the merger between NCSG, NCUC and NPOC and said that it makes better sense to see how to cut out redundancy in work and work together more efficiently. For instance all the SO/AC chairs are attending many of the same meetings.
  • NPOC represents the interests of registered nonprofits, which NCSG and NCUC do not, so believes that the merger will not serve the best interests of our members. However if there are opportunities to collaborate e.g. on organising trainings for the members then these can be planned jointly.
  • Juan: Believes the idea of a merger has gained some foothold because within NCSG there is competition between the constituencies on which is performing better and so they are not working together as a unit.
  • Joan: It is not the intention to compete with NCSG or NCUC and hopes that no NPOC member feels like they are competing against the other 2 entities.
  • Raoul: The merger would erase all the work that NPOC has done over the last 3 years improving our administrative and operational effectiveness.
  • Ioana: NPOC has a different mission from NCUC and a merger would weaken the voice of the nonprofit organisations. Instead it makes sense to strengthen NPOC and NCUC and find ways to work more efficiently.
  • We should think get involved in the ongoing discussion about the proposed merger on the NCSG list and if there is a working group formed to examine the proposal, NPOC EC and members should be active in it.
  • Joan: Volunteers to be part of any working group set-up on the issue.

CHARTER:

See Actions From Last Meeting

NEXT MEETING:

  • NPOC EC Meeting will take place on August 18, 2020.

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