Nick, there are fundamental differences between our approaches. I assume that RIPE people mostly do the right thing. No pun intended. :-) In case one of us makes a mistake, others point it out, we correct it and we move along. This saves us a lot of energy because we do not need to invent and maintain(!) a lot of process. It also gives us a lot of flexibility. How likely is it really that we would end up with a RIPE chair whkeeps doing things that the community does not like? Do you really think that we would not get rid of a RIPE chair who keeps doing wrong things in our proven ad-hoc fashion? The chair has very little 'powers' to keep going against the community really. I also believe that what you call 'dynastic mrhod of selection' is totally compatible with a bottom-up process. First of all it is not dynastic because family ties are not involved, but that is just me nit picking. More fundamentally it is as valid as any method as long as the community supports the outcome. That is why I ptopose to have the new chair prove themselves as a vice chair. Again no formal approval process. I trust that a vice chsir who fails to ger support fron the community will do the right thing and step down. We should reslly strive to avoid creating more process than absolutely necessary. That is what has made RIPE such a pleasant and successful place. What we do in RIPE really does not need a lot of process. The NCC handles the money and the contracts. Daniel