[Chapter-delegates] Revised Chapter Agreement

Wed Sep 6 01:20:03 PDT 2017

Dear Alejandro,

Regarding your last comment below: “Re-balancing the HQ/Central-Chapter relationship will take much more work than just refining the Charter's provisions for managing Chapters internally.”

The Chapters Advisory Council (ChAC) has a subgroup that is developing proposals intended to make ISOC more bottom-up.

I would encourage you, and others, to submit specific proposals to that group.  You can do it by sending the proposals to the group chair, Eduardo Diaz, or to this list, or to the ChAC list.

Thanks and best,

Richard

From: Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Alejandro Pisanty
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 20:13
To: Borka Jerman Blazic
Cc: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Revised Chapter Agreement

Hi,

clearly Chapter officials rotation is not an easy proposition. We go through several generations in the formation of new leaders before some are ready, available, and clear of conflicts for time with their day jobs, as well as conflicts of interest such as working for government in Internet policy-making fields, having clients whose needs in litigation may be at variance with ISOC's positions, and so on. Other than a general call for renewal any crisp-set rules are bound to clash with reality. 

The need to incorporate new perspectives and people in leadership must be strengthened internally in the chapter. Otherwise too many incentives are created for intervention and manipulation by ISOC mid-level staff, who can play games with resources, choose favorites, enter into blame games, and on the other hand lose sight of the difficulties and failures of the leadership they choose to support.

Now let's for a minute imagine an ISOC that was built as a federation of independently founded societies, as indeed is the case for a few of the older chapters (and also is a little bit with some new ones, whose members are simultaneously members in some other local organization such as a trade association or an NGO.) What would we agree with a central administration and representation that we created?

We would put substance first, not form. One egregious disrespect that continues to happen is that ISOC delegations arrive at international events, such as those in the ITU's global and regional processes, without due advance coordination with the local chapter. To their surprise, the local Chapter is all over, invited by the local host, participating in consultations and even drafting documents... all on their own, and not being able to be decisive enough because the "party line" remains unknown. Ditto for ICANN, IGF WSIS Forum and so on. Further ditto for the processes where governments are taking their stuff away from multistakeholder mechanisms altogether. There is an asymmetry of trust that is hurtful to all parties in the long run.

Re-balancing the HQ/Central-Chapter relationship will take much more work than just refining the Charter's provisions for managing Chapters internally. 

Alejandro Pisanty

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:34 AM, Borka Jerman Blazic <borka at e5.ijs.si> wrote:

Hi all,

In ISOC SI we had more than 50% Internet wide members that never appeared in the chapter communications or activities.
We did not had as well any information why they were enrolled as our members. In that context I believe that  chapters
should have the responsibility to conduct themselves based on high NGO standards  that are either visible or are checked
each year.  However, being ISOC member global  is  attractive for the chapter membership, but most of the chapter activities
should lay on local institutions and members that are engaged and work within the local community.

So any firm restrictions in that context  are not appropriate in the new Chapter agreement.

With regards,

Borka

Susannah Gray je 4.9.2017 ob 22:23 napisal:

Hi Raul, all

On 01/09/2017 10:41, Raul Echeberria wrote:

<snip>

The number of Internet users have increased very much and the number of people involved in Internet development and policy matters have grown very much too. There are several (ISOC runs some of them) programs for developing new leaders. New people is coming on board every year. Youth at IGF, NextGen leaders, Youth SIG, the numerous IG schools are just some examples of those initiatives. We have to learn how to take advantage of all these new leaders that ara being formed by different organizations.

- Just a quick comment on this. I am fully in agreement that chapters need to rotate leadership, encourage young leaders and actively engage in succession planning.

However, I believe it's not always possible or in the best interests of a chapter to rotate leadership frequently, as several others have pointed out.

The SF-Bay Area Chapter has often had trouble recruiting Board Members. In the past, before I joined, I know the Board even talked about closing the chapter (one of the largest with over 2,000 members) because no one wanted to take over the Chair role.

Running a successful chapter is similar to having a full time job or running a small business when you consider the amount of administration that needs to be done (website maintenance, finances, reporting taxes, member admin and engagement, social media, project management, event planning, Board meetings, keeping track of mailing lists etc. ).

Admin and Board commitments take up a lot of time. Young leaders/those in the Next Gen programs are often at the beginnings of their careers and are working hard to climb the career ladder or are still studying, leaving little time for anything else. They may also not be able to ask for flexibility from an employer to carry out or contribute fully to Board/Chapter duties, which may be easier for people at a more advanced stage of their career.

While I would love to have a graduate of any of the programs mentioned above on the SF-Bay Area Chapter Board, my personal opinion is that overstretched Boards generally need people on their Boards who already have Board experience, need little coaching, know the industry and who can jump in and offer much needed advice and support from the outset as this greatly reduces the workload on existing Board members.

Kind regards,

Susannah

---
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President & Chair
San Francisco-Bay Area Internet Society Chapter
www.sfbayisoc.org
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