[atlarge-discuss] Re: [atlarge-panel] Resignation

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

I have written to Michael personally, and I hope he will continue to use his
insights in the furtherance of the At Large cause and User representation.

This resignation brings to a head the need to place decision-making
authority back in the hands of our whole membership. I'm inviting Joop
Teernstra to set The Polling Booth in action as soon as possible, to enable
ordinary members to set their own questions to our community, vote on those
questions, and help define and determine the future direction of our
organisation.

Only when we know what individual members actually want from this group can
we press forward and authorise a mission statement and a set of policy
goals/ actions.

It is absolutely clear to me that this panel (including me) has failed to
move our agenda on, grinding to inertia over the uncertainties of who we are
and what we actually want. It seems clear to me that the panel cannot now
claim credibility, when so many of the original elected representatives have
resigned, and others just "turn off the radio" and stop communicating or
even voting.

I think we have two choices with regard to the Panel :

1. We soldier on, and try to replace the resigned members with "the people
who came next" in the election, which is the process that should be
followed, according to the election rules.

2. We agree to resign and call for new elections, to introduce a fresh
intake of panellists, who will hopefully participate more regularly than
parts of this panel have.

At the present time, none of these is as important to me, as going back to
the membership and creating a democratic mechanism for real participation. I
believe that the Polling Booth will help ordinary individual members to ask
questions (phrased as they themselves wish), and will enable them to vote on
these questions, which will help us to define the wishes and direction of
this organisation in a truly democratic manner.

I also feel it is time to ask the membership themselves whether they want
this Panel to continue, or whether they want fresh elections. This could be
one of the first questions in the Polling Booth.

As a "bottom up" organisation calling for representation and democracy in
ICANN, we should be creating protocols and using technology, that empowers
the whole membership to determine the direction of *THEIR* org.

With the abdication of so many originally elected panel members... Vivek
Durai, Michael Geist, Joanna Lane, Judith Oppenheimer, and an enigmatic
silence from Satyajit, not to mention the failure of two other panelists to
vote... I turn to the membership to reclaim their organisation, and I will
endorse the
use of the full membership e-mail list to contact all members and enlist
them in the Polling Booth for some democratic decision making.

I doubt if the Panel at present can even raise a quorum to vote for its own
termination.

It's time for the membership to do the voting instead.

Democracy is its authority.

Richard H



----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Geist <mgeist@netcom.ca>
To: <atlarge-panel@lists.fitug.de>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 2:21 PM
Subject: [atlarge-panel] Resignation


> Panelists and members,
>
> I hereby tender my resignation from the panel.


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