General Manager’s Report

Prepared by

Don Hollander

November 7, 2006

Overview

The period since the meeting in Hong Kong has been a steep learning curve but I am grateful for the support provided by all those that I’ve spoken with and particularly grateful for the support from Jordan Carter, Keith Davidson and Nick Wallingford of the Secretariat.

There are a number of challenges facing APTLD.

The first is the difficulty in cold calling non-members. Indeed, getting in touch with some members is difficult enough, but many non-members have e-mail addresses that bounce and phone numbers that are no longer in service. However, when I do engage with non-members, particularly through introductions from mutual acquaintances, the results are fruitful as in the case of .sb, .fj and .ws.

There don’t appear to be many material issues between ccTLDs and Internet coordinating bodies such as ICANN. While some might not see this as a challenge, having a common issue was useful for APTLD sustenance in prior years. The focus now will be to work with members to help them offer world class service.

The appointment of a General Manager has resulted in some uncertainty as to who is responsible for what. From my perspective, I still expect the Board and its committees to provide the industry specific knowledge (as performed by the Training Committee), with my focus being the implementation.

Activities

Since the meeting in Hong Kong I have done the following:

• Contacted, or at least tried to contact, every member to get their perspective on what they want from APTLD.

• Contacted, or at least tried to contact, every non-member in the region. This has been a very frustrating experience – except when I went through common acquaintances.

• Attended a CENTR meeting to meet their key players and understand how they do what they do.

• Developed a program for the Bangkok meeting. I am very appreciative of the work that .TH is providing on the ground.

• Through the Secretariat we’ve added a Wiki which is only available to members.

• Workings with the Training Committee, a set of training syllabus have been developed and negotiations with AIT have been taken.

• Working with the Secretariat we are pursuing outstanding membership fees.

• Recruited three new members from the Pacific and organized travel sponsorship for one of these and one potential new member.

• Worked with the Chair and the Secretariat on Secretariat options after December 31^st - No resolution.

• Worked with the Chair and signed a Contract for Services for the GM.

• Worked with the Meeting committee to schedule the meetings for 2007.

• Worked with committee chairs to prepare their committee report.

• Redeveloped and printed the APTLD brochure and delivered them to Hong Kong for a meeting there.

• Developed a draft business plan and budget for 2007.

Relationships with CENTR, LACTLD & AFTLD

It is suggested that we engage with our regional cohorts and share resources and benefits where applicable. In particular, we should suggest that we provide reciprocal membership benefits except voting. Steps will have to be taken to ensure that ccTLD’s do not join geographically remote associations to arbitrage the membership fees (APTLD’s are significantly less than CENTR’s)

Financials

During 2006 the pursuit of payments and recommitment of members has been lackluster. Indeed as at the beginning of November we had only 14 members who have paid their membership fees. Others are in process.

In 2007 it is proposed that invoices be issued in January with members making payment before the first meeting at the end of February.

To better quantify the value of membership, it is proposed that a fee be charged for the member meetings. Each member will be able to have two people attend at no charge and additional attendees will be at cost. Non-members will be charged a premium. No charge will apply to speakers or sponsors.

We also recommend that APTLD be more assertive in its membership list, removing membership benefits from members who have not paid within 45 days of invoice. Membership benefits include being able to attend meetings at member rates and participate in e-mail lists.