Summary Record of the 2020 IGFSA General Assembly

Summary Record of the 2020 IGFSA General Assembly

2020 General Assembly
Virtual, 2 November 2020

Recording of Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygzWDgBnVgw

1. The IGFSA held its seventh General Assembly during the pre-event phase of the 16th IGF (virtual) on 2 November 2020.  62 IGFSA Members and observers attended the meeting via remote participation. Executive Committee Members were also in attendance. Markus Kummer, as the Chair of the Executive Committee, presided over the General Assembly.
2. The following agenda, sent out in advance and published on the IGFSA website, was approved by consensus by all members present.
   1. Adoption of the Agenda
   2. Approval of the Summary Record of the 2019 General Assembly
   3. Executive Committee election
   4. Adoption of the content of the reports and financial statements of the year
   5. Approval of the annual budget, based upon a recommendation by the Executive Committee
   6. Fundraising/Crowdfunding
   7. Release of obligations of the Executive Committee members
   8. Any Other Business
3. Adoption of the agendaThe agenda was approved as proposed.
4. Approval of the Summary Record of the 2021 General AssemblyThe summary record of the previous General Assembly from 28 November 2019 that had taken place in Berlin, Germany, was approved.
5. Executive Committee election
   Avri Doria, as Elections officer, presided over the Election agenda item. Five seats on the IGFSA Executive Committee were open for elections.  Eight IGFSA members put their names forward to seek election to the IGFSA Executive Committee. Election buddy was used as the election platform. The Elections Procedures document was posted on the IGFSA website.
   There were 49 active IGFSA members who were sent ballots to participate in the voting. 39 ballots were cast, and a total of 147 votes were tallied, and there were 0 abstentions.The following five candidates were elected to the IGFSA Executive Committee

• Ms. Joyce Chen;
• Mr. Brian Cute;
• Mr. Wisdom Donkor;
• Mr. Christopher Mondini

The following candidate who was serving the remainder of Mr. Tarek Kamel’s term was re-elected to the IGFSA Executive Committee

• Mr. Nigel Hickson, incumbent IGFSA Executive Committee Member

The full 2020-2021 IGFSA Executive Committee was constituted as follows:

• Markus Kummer, Independent (Chair)
• Joyce Chen, APNIC
• Brian Cute, Independent
• Wisdom Donkor,
• Nigel Hickson, Independent
• Christopher Mondini, ICANN
• Jimson Olufuye, AfICTA (Treasurer)
• Eduardo Santoyo, .coThe Executive Committee and IGFSA membership congratulated the newly elected IGFSA Executive Committee members. The outgoing Executive Committee Members; Marilyn Cade, Edmon Chung, Avri Doria, Nilmini Rubin; were also thanked for their service

6. Adoption of the content of the reports and financial statements of the yearJennifer Chung, Secretary, presented the 2019-2020 Report on IGFSA Activities. The report describes new memberships, meeting schedules, Executive Committee subcommittees, Executive Committee composition and how funds were collected and allocated.  The Secretariat noted that all meetings were held in a virtual setting due to the COVID-19 pandemic considerations.
   The Annual report was adopted with an amendment to an error in figures, and the draft status to be changed to final on the IGFSA website.
7. Approval of the annual budget, based upon a recommendation by the Executive CommitteeThe Chair provided an update regarding the Accessibly funding in the 2021 budget, IGFSA will continue to provide funding support for captioning services, and the travel fellowship (for 2020, it was connectivity costs, and hub sponsorship for the Haiti hub) will be administered by the DCAD Secretariat with funding from the ISOC SIG.
   There was a question and discussion regarding NRI requests from the Africa region. The Treasurer clarified the requests that were approved and completed for 2019-2020, and noted that there are sometimes procedural issues with banks from the region that require additional time. The Chair confirmed that all the requests that met eligibility criteria of the IGF Secretariat were approved by IGFSA.
8. Fundraising/CrowdfundingThe Secretariat gave an overview of the IGFSA crowdfunding pilot website. The platform chosen utilizes a payment gateway that has one of the lowest processing fees, and the platform itself does not charge fees for usage.
   The Chair noted that NRIs as well as the IGF did not hold physical meetings during 2020 and the intent during the 2019 General Assembly was to involve the IGFSA membership more in the crowdfunding efforts, so the focus may need to be shifted. There were suggestions from the membership that IGFSA should spend efforts on outreach to larger donors, as well as consider trying to influence other organizations to spend their money in ways that satisfy IGFSA goals. The Treasurer confirmed that there will be continued outreach efforts to potential well-resourced corporate and institutional donors.
9. Release of obligations of the Executive Committee membersAt the request of the Chair, the General Assembly granted the discharge to the IGFSA Executive Committee.
10. Any Other BusinessThe Chair introduced a proposal from the Executive Committee regarding the processing of NRI funding requests to be submitted at least 6 weeks ahead of the meeting. The process is to allow reasonable processing time for several steps to confirm eligibility from the IGF Secretariat as well as a period to allow for any clarifying communication regarding the request. The Chair confirmed that the IGFSA will consider reasonable exceptions to why the 6-week period cannot be met, otherwise requests will need to be submitted 6 weeks in advance of the event. There was overwhelming support from the IGFSA membership for this proposal and no objections.
    There was a discussion regarding IGFSA membership list. The Secretary noted that there is a database of IGFSA individual members but it is not public. Organizational members are listed on the IGFSA website.