[CNSIG-Council] BeyondTheNet and SIG Strategy

Hi Fellows, The BeyondTheNet Medium and Large Projects call is open till 2018-05-15 , so we have aproximately one month to present proposals, both at the local chapters and as a SIG: https://internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net/medium-large-scale-projects/ 25 projects out of ~200 projects were accepted last year based on estimations done using the data here: https://www.internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net/grants/ And of those, 7 were about CN related topics. Access and Development is one of the key areas for this call, and this makes projects associated with Community Networks of special interest, and of course the other key areas: Standards, Policy and Enabling sustainable development. Discussing with NicoE we see that this a big opportunity for us as Group of CNs speaking by themselves: * a chance for all of us to get an important push by this fund * an opportunity for the CNSIG to show that we represent the interests of the Communities, and to help the Local Chapters acknowledge and validate this representation * the chance to coordinate efforts among ourselves to augment our chance to do impact * a way for us to speak strongly about what are our needs and our way of dealing with them For that, would like to propose: * let each other know who wants to participate and on what you might be interested in participating * if possible, work together on common areas * split projects in network deployment kickstart/scaling and local capacity building projects (more tightly coupled to a Chapter), and technology development projects (more associated to a collective benefit, would say to the whole SIG). * do endorcement letters for all projects that came from members of the cnsig * announce in the cnsig.info page the projects that have been submitted What do you think? Also, would like to send this Questions to ask to Beyond The Net fund (Ilda I guesS): * Is there a minimum or maximum amount of projects going to be approved for each chapter/SIG? This will allow us to strategize properly how to ask for the funds. * Is there a minimum or maximum amount of projects going to be approved for each Focus Area (CN, Standards, Policy, Sustainability) per Chapter/SIG? That will allow us to push the idea that CNSIG endorsed projects should be approved. * Can global actors work together in proposals and present them in different regions for applying them in their respective regions? That will allow us to write proposals together instead of individually, and do a collective plan that has local implementation. Regards, FYI The list of presented projects, and rejection/approval, can be seen here: https://www.internetsociety.org/beyond-the-net/grants/applications/ Apparently only June-2017 were loaded there.