Travel Support for Constituencies Mexico City, Mexico 02 March 2009. >>KEVIN WILSON: Why don't we go ahead and get started. A few people are coming, dribbling in. That's fine. My name is Kevin Wilson. I'm the Chief Financial Officer for ICANN. Today we're going to be covering travel support and particularly the travel support for the fiscal year '10 operating year and budget. The goal of the travel support program is just to clarify when, for whom, and how ICANN will provide the travel support for those members that get that travel support. Second is to engage the community, to solicit input, make sure that we capture the wishes of the community overall. Also, we'll be updating the documented travel procedures that were initiated last year. So we'll update those. And clarity on the budget impact for the fiscal year '10. So we're in the budget development process right now, and on Thursday there's a budget -- operating plan workshop as well. So this is a key component of that. And then also to clarify and provide guidelines to those travelers and those supporting the travelers so that we're clear on who does what and there's no confusion and we ensure that we're spending the travel support that we do have efficiently. The purpose for this meeting is to gather -- to kick that process off and to gather community comments and to start that process. Hi, Doug. We'll also provide online support, online public comment sections for you to provide comments on the travel support policy procedures and -- but, once again, this -- we're not -- the purpose of this workshop is not to roll out a new travel support procedure for fiscal year '10. It's to allow you to lay the groundwork to allow you to provide feedback. Why provide support? I think all of you know. But just to clarify that number one thing is participation. This allows members of the community and our stakeholders to participate for -- if they might not be able to otherwise. Second is to have -- provide outreach and facilitate new members to participate and engage with the community. And then the third reason is just productivity. The pace of the meetings, the intensity, the depth and breadth of the issues that occur in -- during the meetings in the -- is just facilitated by the in- person interaction. So that helps us advance the work by having this in-person interaction much more than phone and e-mail. The key to the travel support policy is to strike the right balance. It's -- it would be really easy to have a travel support policy that is none or -- from a financial standpoint or to have it for all. It would be easy to administer if it were for anybody. Anybody who wanted to come to a meeting we could support. Obviously, there's budget constraints on one end and getting the work done on the other end. So we have to strike the right balance and identify the forces and the pressures that determine that right balance. There's a diversity -- there's just a lot of diverse stakeholder views on what the level of travel support is. And, obviously, even within the stakeholders there's diversity, even within the different constituencies. Some members are supported by their employer, their institution, the university or the business they work for and others are not. Others come on their own means. Some members have financial needs. Others don't. Some members are sacrificing time and income. And there's also members with special needs, special requirements. So balancing all those is the art of the travel support policy. The process to date to create the travel support procedure -- by the way, I've been saying travel support policy. I really mean to say travel support procedure as distinguished between the formal policy in the ICANN language. So, when I say -- I mean travel support procedure to do that. So to get to the travel support procedure which we have for fiscal year '09, just briefly, how that was developed. There was an initial workshop in Delhi where that was discussed. There was an online forum comment -- online forum available for public comment. We received those comments and synthesized those and analyzed them and came up with a draft support procedure in May. And then there was more comments made on that policy procedure. It was incorporated into the FY09 budget development. And then there was community input during the Paris meeting and, obviously, lots of e-mails and conversations and phone calls and discussions about the -- about those procedures. And then, finally, in August 2008, the procedures were issued out. And that's the guiding principle that's providing this -- the travel planning that we've done for this year. So we're committed -- at that time we committed to review this procedure to see what's working, what's not. And that's what we're doing today is identifying that. Okay? So one of the questions is who is provided travel with the current procedures? And this chart describes it, so I'll walk through it briefly. You can see online in more detail, if you'd like. Going down the left column on the different stakeholders, the GNSO is - - the guidelines are the chair -- you add up the numbers of the chair, the NomCom appointees, and then take half the remaining councillors. And that translates to about 10 individuals that would be traveling per meeting plus 3 from the NomCom. The ccNSO similarly is the chair, the NomCom appointees, and half the remaining councillors. And that translates to about 9 per meeting. Yes, Alan? (Speaker talking off the microphone) >>ALAN GREENBERG: Half of the total number of councillors and liaisons with the chair and NomCom -- not what you said, which is different. >>DOUG BRENT: I think Alan is right, Kevin. >>KEVIN WILSON: I'll take a deeper look at that. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Is the 10 per meeting correct on the right? That's the number where I think we're supporting them. And the -- the ASO, the chair, and half the remaining councillors. That was my understanding, but I'll check that and correct that. And that -- anyway, it translates to 8 per meeting. The board -- all board members and liaisons. At-large is all the council members and RALO secretariats. That comes out to be about 22 per meeting. The Fellows have their program, and that support for the Fellows program for the ICANN meeting is a budget number. And it translates to about 20 Fellows per meeting. The NomCom -- they're supported for their NomCom meetings as well as the chair, the vice chair, and the previous chair for the ICANN meetings. And that turns out to be about 22 per NomCom meeting plus mentioned for the other meeting. SSAC, RSSAC, and the GAC are not supported for travel. This chart shows who is supported for travel in fiscal year '09. So you can see, taking the numbers from the other side, the GNSO, for example, has 30 for the year, 10 per meeting. And they allocate in their own way by constituency -- you can see on the chart there and also across the meetings -- to come up with their 30. The ccNSO has 9 per meeting, so that's 27 supported travelers for the year, fiscal year. And they've had one at the Cairo meeting and 8 at the current Mexico City meeting. And they're still putting in their plans for the Sydney meeting. ASO was allocated 24 or 8 per meeting, and they have declined support for the meetings. The Fellows we mentioned, they have about 60, 20 per meeting. The GAC, SSAC, and RSSAC are at zero. And then, as far as At-Large, the 15 ALAC members for each meeting, in addition, the RALOs have their support. And you can see there the 68 down there -- add the 68 to the 15 ALAC members for the Mexico City meeting, and that's the number for the At-Large Summit, 83. So what have we heard? We've heard a lot of comments, suggestions, and feedback on the travel policy thus far. And we wanted to share with you what some of those comments are and then follow-up with hearing more of your comments on -- and like you to kick that off on providing more comments. So the first section here is on stakeholders to support. I heard some comments on that. But number one is the GAC has requested support. Number two, the comment is that some suggested ALAC reduce down to the SO level roughly half what they are. The at-large have made requests for more support. And the GNSO constituencies have requested more support. The new proposed constituencies -- I guess it's a consumer -- cyber crimes. What was the third one? Drawing a blank. City. City constituencies are -- have also requested support. And then some requested the GNSO council be supported at the board level, in other words, flying business class at the higher level of service. And then some suggested that the SSAC also start support. As far as the levels of support within those who do get supported, in general, the per diem amounts seem to be stabilizing and people feel they're okay. There were a couple comments that some cities -- we didn't provide -- the per diem calculations weren't enough. Some felt that the calculation of the days didn't factor in the travel days, so there was not enough for travel days support. Others said that they needed travel for extra trips, for example, if they had to fly somewhere to buy a visa or to get their visa. Some requested a higher economy class so they could upgrade to a business class on their own volition. Some thought that they needed business class. Some people thought they needed more support for Internet connectivity. And some people suggested that they need more support for breakfast. Some of the comments we've heard on logistics. We've heard a lot of comments on visas, in other words, to obtain the Visas, getting the Visas in time, clarify responsibility and who handles that. A lot of people want to book their own travel. Some travelers -- following up on the visa comment, some travelers couldn't make the meeting because they didn't -- weren't able to get their visa in time. Other comments, travel agents weren't too responsive. There's some confusion on the dates, who to contact, that sort of thing. A few people -- that's kind of a duplicate up above. The comment is that people -- some people feel that they can find lesser-priced tickets on their own without an agent. And one comment on the travel e-mail address is incorrect. So what else have we heard? We've heard that travel support is an effective tool to help advance the work of ICANN stakeholders. And we've heard also the comments on the choice and accessibility of the venues. They'd like to have venues selected that they -- even if they're paying for them themselves, that they could pay for it that would be more economical, more easily accessible cities and that provide more traveler support by obtaining less costly tickets, that they could provide more support -- provide -- add more people to their - - to the people at the meetings by buying the tickets more efficiently. So just to close -- excuse me -- just to close this out, going forward we'll work with -- staff will work with the community and the board to qualify their requirements for the fiscal year '10 travel support. The -- this workshop here will kick off the community input, so we're looking forward to listening to your thoughts on that. And then, obviously, we're really encouraging public comments. So this week we'll open up a public comment on the web forum to provide comments on the travel support procedure. And then already the -- I think on the 17th of February, the framework for the fiscal year budget and operating plan was posted. That's the framework. So, as part of that, we'd encourage you also to make -- add online public comments. And then, when the draft fiscal year '10 operating plan and budget is posted on the 17th of May or before, we encourage you to add more comments on that. And then that will lead to the adoption, the proposed final budget which would be approved by the board at the Sydney meeting in June. And then, concurrent with that, the travel procedure for fiscal year '10 would be issued. So the bottom line is the community input is encouraged now, specifically, on the travel support procedure and then follow concurrently and subsequently on the all-budget development process. So I'd like to open that up if there's any questions, comments. I think there's a microphone somewhere. >> DOTTY SPARKS DE BLANC: Dotty Sparks de Blanc from the ccNSO. It's a little bit difficult to make constructive suggestions without a detailed framework of what it is we're talking about like how are per diems determined and how -- it says like half the councils from the ccNSO, they're 15 and they don't divide by 50%. So -- what? Well, the three NomCom ones. But half of the remaining is 7 1/2. And so, if we could find, you know, an encyclopedia text that says what we're talking about with reference to the comments, we could be more helpful. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you for the comment. >>GREG RUTH: At one point -- >>KEVIN WILSON: I forgot to say could you please identify yourself? >> GREG RUTH: I'm Greg Ruth from the ISP constituency. We're trying to work things out with ICANN. We suggested that why don't you just give us the constituency for GNSO's budget, and that way we could spend the money very wisely and give people some partial support and so forth and so on. The reply was, well, that actually isn't possible because of the accountability and transparency requirements of ICANN. So could you speak to that a little bit? >>KEVIN WILSON: Sure. Yeah. I think in short we have a fiscal responsibility, a fiduciary responsibility to manage the spending. So for us to -- I mean, taken to an extreme -- forgive me if it sounds like I'm exaggerating. If we gave people a wad of cash and said, "We'll trust you to spend it the best way you can," that's not honoring our fiduciary responsibility. So it's -- it's a balancing act. And -- but I'm hearing the comment, and I think I want to address that more in the current procedure and clarify that. I'll -- I've heard that comment a number of times. It seems clear to us. So I think we need to communicate that. >>KEN STUBBS: Yeah, my name is Ken Stubbs. I have a question for you and then I'd like to follow up with some elaboration. First of all, we went by that list of people who have been subsidized so quickly. Can you just give me an approximate number? I don't care what the breakout is. Are we looking at a hundred people, approximately? It looked to me like it was close to a hundred people, but... >>KEVIN WILSON: I think it's more than that. >>KEN STUBBS: Okay. I thought you had a chart at the very beginning that showed so many fellowships and so forth. >>ALAN GREENBERG: The previous one. >>KEN STUBBS: Yeah, the previous one to that, please. I'm sorry. Okay. So we've got 10, 20, 38, 60, 72, 92, a hundred and -- let's say - - let's round it off, just for the heck of it, just say it's somewhere between 100 and 120 people. >>KEVIN WILSON: Per meeting. >>KEN STUBBS: Per meeting. Okay. Now, I'm going to try to put a little sanity check to where we are at this point in time. We're all aware of the fact that we are encountering times now that are just very, very, very difficult. Dollars come near and dear to all of us. Those of us who operate businesses, those of us who are involved in the ICANN process. And I think it's incumbent on us to try to make sure that we optimize this thing. And I'm going to give you some examples. For instance -- and I'm speaking to all of you but I'm also speaking specifically to you, Ramaraj, and to people who are responsible for selecting sites and venues for ICANN. It's extremely important that we try to minimize the cost for participation. Also, if we can keep the ICANN budget for these venues in line, it provides ICANN with the possibility of additional capital which could be made available through cost savings. Let me give you an example. It costs an inordinate amount of money to manage your meeting in certain parts of the world, and I'll use as an example let's assume, for the heck of it -- we're talking about Africa next year. Let's assume that we settled on some place like Nairobi or something like that. The average -- if you take a look at the demographics of the people who are using the scholarships and so forth, and you take an economy- class ticket from almost anywhere in the world to Nairobi, Kenya, you're going to find that the costs alone to get there are staggering for 120 people. You're probably looking at somewhere between a quarter and a half a million people. Not counting the cost of the ICANN support staff and so forth. I think we need to take a sanity check and realize that we are in an economic time that forces us to take a look at decisions and try to optimize it. I do not want to have a situation where we are perceived as spending money like drunken sailors. You know, I will be frank with you, and I'm going to look you in the eye and say to some extent it's ICANN's communication process. When you hand me a brochure for the Sydney Hilton and I go up on the Internet and discover that the absolute cheapest room is $475 a night U.S., now, maybe you're going to come along and say, "Yeah, well, we've got some great deals for you." Well, maybe you ought to be talking about this ahead of time. I know how much money it costs to go to these different places in the world. I don't want to do it. Not only that, a lot of these venues -- a lot of these venues require a significant amount of travel time. So you end up not only losing your effectiveness when you hit the ground, but you may take a day and a half to get there and a day and a half to get home. So you've taken an additional three man-days out of seven, eight, nine hundred people, and so I'm trying -- what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to establish a tone for this. I'm not trying to argue over who gets this half a day or half a share of a hotel, but let's say -- let's be reasonable. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >>KEN STUBBS: Sorry for rambling, if I am. I apologize. >>KEVIN WILSON: No. Thank you. >>ALAN GREENBERG: A couple of very quick things and then I have to run. Can we get a copy of this presentation, number one? >>KEVIN WILSON: Yes. It's on the Web site now. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Okay. Are you going to show us what the equivalent numbers you're currently forecasting for fiscal year -- for the coming fiscal year? All of these numbers have been the past one. >>KEVIN WILSON: Yeah. The plan is that in the draft on the 17th, we would include that. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Okay. And the last -- >>KEVIN WILSON: 17th of May. >>ALAN GREENBERG: The last one on fiduciary responsibility and travel expenses. Pretty much every company in the world figures out a way to give someone a budget, get back receipts, and make sure their auditors are happy. I'm sure ICANN can figure out how to do it. >>DOUG BRENT: Actually, could I comment on that? Thanks. Is this on? Yeah. Hi. Doug -- I'll stand up so you can see me here. Doug Brent, chief operating officer at ICANN. So I -- this is sort of combining Greg's comments and yours, Alan. You know, certainly my bias is the best decisions are made closest to where -- you know, closest to the action. Right? So the best decisions about all this stuff would be provide a budget and let people make those decisions. The reason why companies all around the world can do this and why it's harder for ICANN is because, you know, the number of people who work for the ICANN company is small, and there is no -- there's no way to take responsibility for sending dollars outside of the organization where, you know, we're from business cultures from all around the world, we're from different cultures all around the world and it's a much easier management process if we're not talking about dollars but spending either air flights or hotel nights, because then that sort of goes through a preapproved process. We've looked at this a couple times. I agree with this point. I mean, I fundamentally agree with the point. But I'm not aware of anybody doing exactly what we're doing, which would be give a budget out. If people know -- like if you have organizations either, you know, cc organization or others where you're essentially delegating budget outside of that corporate entity, we'd love to hear about that. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Then you need to overcompensate in providing the services to us. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you, Alan. Any more questions? Where's the microphone? How about up here? >>NORBERT KLEIN: My name is Norbert Klein. I've -- yeah, it's on. You can hear. My name is Norbert Klein. I have been in the GNSO Council and a travel question was at that time. Now I'm in the nomination committee. The question was at that time that living in Cambodia, I could get a ticket which was about one quarter of what ICANN offered, and then he said, Doug Brent, it's a little bit difficult to have this audited. I just don't understand it. I mean, if it is about 5% or 10% cheaper, I don't argue, but when I can get the ticket for 600 instead of 2,500, I don't understand why this is so difficult. Secondly, at that time, we found out the problem was related to the fact that I live in a so-called soft currency country, and, therefore, I could get this cheap ticket in Cambodia, but I think there are quite a number of people of those who are being supported in soft currency countries and I do not know whether this is really exploited in the overall budgeting and in the overall purchasing of tickets. I think it is a huge amount of money which can be saved if it is in the range of maybe one-third of what is the other cost would be. Thank you. >>KEVIN WILSON: Could you repeat the -- I didn't understand the last point about the one-third. >>NORBERT KLEIN: I bought a ticket from Cambodia to India for about one-quarter at that time of the price, which ICANN had offered. >>KEVIN WILSON: Okay. >>NORBERT KLEIN: And this would be multiplied by other people living in soft currency countries, I think the overall savings would be tremendous. >>KEVIN WILSON: Okay. Well, I mean, in short it's the CFO and it's in my blood to spend less money, so I really empathize with you and it's really important that we have a travel -- travel procedures for staff, board, and for travel-supported stakeholders that we spend the money efficiently. So we'll be looking at that. As I mentioned earlier, there was a number of comments on that area, and I think those are -- appreciate those comments. >>DOTTY SPARKS de BLANC: I'd just like to say that I emphatically support you on that position, and ICANN's position of staying in control of the travel costs, because it will cost you as much to keep track of everybody's little this' and that's as it does to just control it all from the beginning. In fact, when we were asked to be on this committee, all I could think of is, "Oh, my god, we're going to have to figure out people's travel stuff? That's a -- you know, that's a huge amount of time and effort." That's really beyond the request of a volunteer, I think. You know, so I -- I think you're dead-on, and I wouldn't really worry to spend a lot of time explaining it. Just tell them that's the way it is, because it's the only way that's really going to work effectively, and it will not cost you any more. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >> Can I just agree 100% with that. >>KEVIN WILSON: Could you introduce yourself? >>STEPHANE VAN GELDER: Sorry. Stephane Van Gelder from the European registrar constituency rep to the GNSO council. I really agree with what's just been said. I think it would be more useful for us to discuss how -- either whether travel funding is a good idea or a bad idea, and if we decide it's a good idea, how it will be allocated because that's been a problem for us in the GNSO and from what I hear from what you said earlier on, a problem for you in the ccNSO. For sure, I don't think -- you'll always get cheaper tickets and this and that, obviously local circumstances will make a difference, but if you chase that up, then you'll be, you know, wasting so much time and resources on things that really won't solve any problems. I'd much rather discuss how are we going to allocate travel funding in the GNSO. Is it going to be per-person, per-constituency? Are we going to give constituencies a lump sum and let constituencies decide how they use that? So that goes back to the earlier points about, you know, what ICANN can do, and what's your fiduciary responsibilities there. I'd much rather discuss that. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. Thank you, Stephane. And I wanted to emphasize a point that I probably skipped over earlier, which is, we really want comments from the community and the constituencies and all the stakeholders to explain and provide compelling arguments on why they should -- their travel should be supported. We don't want to -- I don't think it's the role of staff -- I'm looking at Doug to make sure we all agree, but I don't think it's the role of staff to decide who should go and who should not go. So I want to emphasize that, that we're hoping that those comments come in and explain it so that other community members can see why that's really important. Good. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Hi. My name is Evan Leibovitch. I'm chair of the North American region of at-large, and I'd like to get a bit better of an explanation of why you guys are planning to cut our budget. I have no problem with extending extra travel budget to other constituencies, but I'm curious to know the rationale of why that has to be done and cutting the budget of at-large travel just at a time where we're having the summit here, things are getting engaged, we're starting to get people involved, and then you go and start cutting things. And I'd like to get the rationale behind that. >>KEVIN WILSON: I appreciate that. I wasn't aware that we were dramatically cutting the at-large budget. I know this is -- we're developing the budget. We proposed a budget framework. It doesn't have -- in the current budget framework, there is no at-large budget in fiscal year '10. That was my understanding that was the intention this was a one-time at-large summit. We were talking about travel support at this level for next year. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: Well, depending on who you talk to, at one point it was even made the choice, that we had the choice of having a summit or we could have a choice of ongoing funding at the current level, and it's sort of, you know, one devil versus another, and it just seemed to be an improper choice to force people to make. The summit is a really good idea for reasons I hope other people in this room will appreciate, but having had the summit and energizing people just seems to be the wrong time right afterwards to start cutting things. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >>BRUCE TONKIN: My name is Bruce Tonkin. I'm on the ICANN board. I just want to clarify, at least from the perspective of the summit, the summit was approved as a separate line item, so it was a separate discussion to the other budget. So I'm certainly not aware of any directive to change any other part of the ALAC budget that might be part of this ongoing discussion. But I think you need to separate the two line items. The ALAC summit was a one-off event, but the normal travel for ALAC to these meetings is just part of any other constituency. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: (Speaker is off microphone). >>ZAHID JAMIL: Hi. My name is Zahid Jamil. I'm from the GNSO, a BC councillor. We had a travel drafting team within the GNSO, trying to allocate resources about this funding. We found it very strange that there was less money available than there were councillors. That became extremely divisive between the group. And I'm trying to -- understand the rationale from -- I have an issue really going right to the beginning here. If the idea is to give support, I think it should be given to everybody. Or there shouldn't be any support at all and let everybody go fend for themselves. I know that's a very harsh way to look at it but if we're going to fight amongst ourselves -- and we spent several hours on conference calls trying to figure this out, and there was e-mails, and I mean we're really wasting time here. From a simple point, which if the staff can help us on this -- and this is not a blame toward the staff or anything -- come up with a way in which enough allocated resources are provided for all the councillors to be equally treated. Otherwise, we have this graph and this table and I can see heads nodding which really, you know, creates unnecessary strive between -- within the constituencies. So my question really is: What was the rationale for providing travel support in the first place? If it is so that the councillors can get there and not meet, because I think if you start talking about need, you'll go down a very, very difficult path. So if it is for them to get there with the travel support, there must have been a rationale. I'd just like to get an idea what it was. And if it was just a one-off thing and we really don't want to do it, then we should cut it altogether but we should decide one way or the other. This is my comment and my question. >>KEVIN WILSON: All right. Let me have Doug explain. He's more explained in the background. >>DOUG BRENT: Right. So I was more involved in the genesis of this whole thing, so let me try to answer that. You know, I think if you go back to the comments from last year, I'm not sure if that preceded your involvement in GNSO or not. But, you know, you'll see comments -- and I don't think, you know, the -- obviously there's a lot of GNSO members here. You know, council members here at this meeting. And somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but my recollection was there was many strong comments from -- coming from councillors for full council support and there were some that said there should be no travel support whatsoever for GNSO. And so again, I see, you know, Avri and other councillors are here. Correct me if I'm wrong. That's certainly my recollection of the public commentary. I think that, you know, the second thing is, so there was not a -- there was not a uniform view for travel support, number one. Number two, it was a little bit new ground as ICANN ventured out in this. There had been a lot of one-off travel support. There had been sort of different categories of travelers getting supported over time and, you know, that's just not a sustainable model. You don't want staff in there making a decision, this person should go, this person should not go. You want a really consistent model. And then I think you have to look across ICANN. So it wouldn't -- I would think not just be, you know, councillors for the GNSO but councillors for the other sporting organizations. As Kevin mentioned, the Government Advisory Committee, last year in the fiscal year '10 budget, we wanted to look at travel support. And so it starts to become a -- you know, if you say full travel support for all supporting organizations and advisory committees and, you know, at-large is saying, "Well, at-large is an expanded level of support compared to current supporting organizations but maybe thinks RALO support would also be important," it starts to be quite a large number. So the question is where to draw the line. That was some of the original thinking. I would say one more thought, particularly in -- among council members are, that there's a range of council members, some of whom are supported by other businesses to come, some aren't. There's no way to predict that. We got into this whole need thing. There was an attempt to avoid that. And so saying, you know, that's how this balance ended up. Now, part of that whole discussion was also to have a discussion again this year, and I would fully expect some people will come back and say, "We should get full" -- you know, I see somebody is trying to make a comment. I'll finish up very quickly here, but full travel support. I think others -- you know, I think the reality is also when you look at the total amount of expense, as Ken did, it's going to be a tough balance. So that's -- I think really it's the community discussion with itself. So full travel support would be much of easier from a staff point of view. It's easy. >> (Speaker is off microphone). >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you, Doug. >>DOUG BRENT: Yeah. >>ZAHID JAMIL: I appreciate. I know and want to thank you for making that available to the GNSO for this year that's gone by and I think that that's great. But in order for it to be sustainable, it has to have a rationale of either if we're going to do it, let's do it properly. Because there's been a lot of commentary by people saying -- and certain, you know, degrading words, if any, used and I don't like to see that happen. So I mean, let's do it in a rational basis. Either we say look, we just cannot do this because if we do it for you, we're discriminating against other people so we just don't do it and then let everybody go and fend for themselves. But I think that's not the path we're going to go down. So I think if we're going to decide that the GNSO Councillors should be funded, then I think they should all be funded. If we're going to say, well, we don't have enough money, then they should be funded partially, all of them only partially, and I mean, there should be an equality as to that aspect. This is my only comment. >>DOUG BRENT: Somebody back there has been trying to get a comment in. >>KEN STUBBS: (Speaker is off microphone). >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Every year -- my name is Carlton Samuels. I am from the Latin America region of at-large. I listen to this conversation every year and what seems to have been missing is the rationale for why ICANN, the organization, would think it's important for people like us to be here. It's not a beauty contest. So there is something that the organization, ICANN, is looking for. And I'm a volunteer. I work for a fee. I am a consultant. When I'm here, I don't get paid, okay? And my contribution, which I believe is valuable to ICANN the organization, the reason why they want me here is because they're interested in what I have to offer. Okay? And every time I hear this conversation, it irritates me, because it presumes that I'm here for a trip. That is a big lie. I am here because ICANN wants something from me. >>DOUG BRENT: What about this conversation is making you think that this is about a trip? >>CARLTON SAMUELS: People start saying, you know, well, some people should be funded and some people should not be funded and some people -- because at the heart of all of this is the corporate objective. At the heart of all of this. And when you -- when you belittle that, you get into that kind of argument. It becomes a reductionist argument, and that's the thing that bothers me about this. Thank you. >>KEN STUBBS: I'd like to use the gentleman's argument to rebut what you were talking about. ICANN, for many people, is not an eleemosynary endeavor. Significant members of the Names Council, for instance, have worked very hard, number one, just to get to the council. People are not being dragged onto the -- I was on the Names Council for almost nine years. People are not being dragged into the position of Names Councillor. There are -- there's a significant amount of angst going on over the multiple -- the term limitations, and I think that the reason that we're looking at the situation is, sir, I commend you -- and you're the kind of person who deserves the kind of subsidy, if you're here, given the intentions that you have, but there are significant numbers of people here at these meetings who are -- have specific advocacies, who are being compensated for being here, who are pushing a business agenda. I do not feel comfortable having ICANN subsidize these people. If you take this to the nth degree because if you're going to name the subsidize the Names Councillors, then by God, you ought to be subsidizing everybody who is working on these working groups, because those people are, quote, volunteers. The reason those people are in these working groups is they're there to make sure that the constituencies and the advocacies that they are representing are being either protected or moving -- moved forward, so I'm sorry, there are people who are here for that community service, but there are an awful lot of people that are here because it's good for business. >>ZAHID JAMIL: (Speaker is off microphone). >>KEN STUBBS: (Speaker is off microphone). >>KEVIN WILSON: Go ahead. >>ZAHID JAMIL: This was mentioned on the list as well, and I'd like to clarify. I don't have a business agenda being here. I'll -- >>KEN STUBBS: (Speaker is off microphone). >>ZAHID JAMIL: Okay. Well, I'd still like to get the opportunity to respond to that. Just because you're a BC councillor or you're an IPC councillor doesn't necessarily mean that you have an advocacy objective, which is self-serving. Everybody here, including people from ALAC, have an advocacy agenda. That's why they're here. They have a point of view. And they have a right to have that point of view. And that is what is - - what the advocacy is all about. So I think that to turn around and say, "Well, because you got something to advocate, we don't want to pay for you," I think that that's not fair. So that's the response that I'd like to make to that. So if people with here, whether they are from the BC. The IPC, the ISPC or anyone else, and they're advocating some sort of an agenda, that is exactly what the ICANN structure wants them to do. That's the whole purpose of it. That's why you have constituencies within the GNSO. And that's why you have an ALAC. That's why you have a GAC. Everybody in the GAC has an agenda. They have an advocacy. And we're talking about funding all those people. So I'm sorry, but your argument is a nonplussed argument because it's assuming that nobody should be here except for a non-agenda, which I don't think is the case. >>KEN STUBBS: (Speaker is off microphone). >>KEVIN WILSON: Avri is next. Avri is next. Go ahead. Tim, go ahead. >>TIM RUIZ: You know, for me, it's not so much that people are here with an agenda. You know, obviously that's the case. The thing is that there's people here that are being paid to be here. They're employed by someone who has asked them to be at these meetings, to represent them at these meetings. They're paid to be here. The problem is, that isn't always easy to identify. And it isn't just so much that, you know, they're employed and being paid. You know, there's a lot of other ways that those in attendance here, that some in attendance here, are actually profiting from their involvement in ICANN. And that can't -- that's hard to identify. So that was my problem with -- with -- you know, I originally had a great respect for the concept of doling this money out based on need and I quickly came to realize that can't be determined. So, you know, when we're talking about this choice between, well, fund all the councillors or don't fund any, then I would be heavily on the side of don't fund any, because if you can't determine need, ICANN can't go down the road of funding everybody, and that's what it sounds like is happening in these as we see these numbers grow and grow, you know, the entire council, the entire ccNSO, and I don't see how that can be sustained or how it could even be justified to the people who are actually contributing the money that ICANN exists on. And that's the users. Who, for the most part, are not very well represented within ICANN in the first place. So it's not about agenda; it's that we can't identify who's profiting and who isn't from their involvement in ICANN. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. How about Avri? Avri, behind you. Behind you. >>AVRI DORIA: I just wanted to point out a couple things. First of all, I definitely am in the camp of supporting all of the various volunteers. And even those who are pure volunteers who get nothing out of it, as you said get something. I have been volunteering for five years and learned an immense amount that I would have to pay perhaps a fortune for somebody to pay me. Perhaps that's a good enough reason for you to say you come here, you learn something. So, you know, why should we pay? But among the so-called "employed" volunteers, I know as chair, I have been getting them to do things that have nothing to do with the reason they're here. I ask them to chair things. I ask them -- you know, and to be impartial in these and such, to volunteer for various working groups that really are not in their main track of business. And you see it with all of the volunteers that get very involved, is they are not just doing the thing. And you start talking to them and they find out that, yeah, their job pays for them to go or their job, you know, gives them the time to go but it doesn't want to pay their transport so they're paying their own, that they're working this as a second job, that even though, you know, their company is willing to support them some, it still expects a 40-hour work out of them doing the other stuff. So this is stuff they are doing in their spare time. I don't think you can look at any category of person and say "that one is paid, therefore, it is all to their self-advantage" or "that one is totally unpaid, gets no money from ICANN-related business and gets nothing out of it." As I say, I have learned a lot. But I still would come even somebody didn't pay for me to come. >>TIM RUIZ: (Speaker off microphone). >>KEVIN WILSON: I think Thomas was waiting the longest. >>STEPHANE van GELDER: There is no way to decide who deserves funding and who doesn't deserve funding. If there is funding, it is difficult to decide that -- obviously people have an agenda. It is difficult to decide that some people deserve funding and others don't. I think there is one important point, is we need people on councils and in SOs and different organizations that come from different backgrounds. Not everyone works for a company that has the resources to fund them to come to these places. So if we accept the premise that we need travel funding, then I think we need to explain it to the community in terms of diversity of input. I mean, if we can get people on the GNSO Council, for example, speaking to something that's closer to my heart, that come from Europe and smaller companies, then it may be a good thing. And we may need to fund them to enable them to be able to run for the position of GNSO Councillor. You know, otherwise it may be just the big players that will come or maybe just the business people. So I think we need to keep that in mind. If we accept the premise that we need travel funding, then it needs to be there to help people that can't come to these meetings to help them participate at the highest levels of the supporting organizations in ICANN. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. How about Thomas? >>THOMAS NARTEN: Thomas Narten here. So I guess I sort of want to uplevel and ask, I think this discussion has gotten off in the weeds a little bit because fundamentally -- I thought this was about what the travel policy was going to be and how to tweak it at some level. Fundamentally, we have to have one. There isn't enough funds here to pay everybody to go, that's one extreme. The other extreme is we don't pay anybody to go in which case ICANN can't get its work done. There has to be, you know, some allocation of resources. There has to be some judgment and thinking about how it's done. And the details are going to vary from instance to instance and some judgment is going to be needed, even though that's painful. I think it is the right model to try to push that lower down into the organization where people closer to those that are doing the work are in a position to make those trade-offs and make the decision. It may be, for example, certain councillors are given travel every other meeting because that allows them to come and do the work. In other cases there will be people that will never be funded because they are able to go on their own, through their employer, through some other means. We have to sort of leave it at that and focus on having a reasonable travel policy and not about who is -- you know, these discussions about who should go and who should not at this level in here I think are not very productive. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >> Hi. I have a question for the community and something that puzzles me coming from a world that doesn't really overlap very much with this one. Why every six months do we have to have meetings every six months? Why not every nine months or every 12 months? That would save everyone money. And it would be better for the planet, too. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. How about over here. >>TIM RUIZ: I just -- I agree with Stephane. I think that's a very noble idea. If we can get there, we would be great, if that's the purpose of the funds. I just don't see that happening right now. So if that is a goal that we are actually going to see some improvement or ICANN is going to get something back out of this, out of the money we are going to spend, is there a way -- should we be adding something to this whole process and policy that looks at that, that tries to somehow quantify that or some metrics that we can put together so that as different SOs and ACs get this funding that there is something concrete we can point at and say "look, see the benefit to ICANN because we spent this money on travel." >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. Ken, go ahead. >>KEN STUBBS: Yeah. Maybe what we need to do is to start getting a little more creative and what I'm talking about is this. Right now the ICANN format calls for bringing all of the constituencies in at one time, all of the supporting organizations. Maybe we need to look down the road and say "is it really necessary for all of these constituencies or supporting organizations to be melded together two or three times a year?" Maybe it would be a good idea to have the concept of having a GNSO-type of a summit and ccNSO-type of a summit and concentrate on supporting participation and providing staff members for those summits and then on a periodic basis, whether it is every once -- once every nine months or whatever it is, bring everybody together on that kind of a basis. Let's start trying to create more efficiencies from that standpoint. It would help from a budget standpoint. It would remove the necessity for ICANN to have to provide major support for every single meeting. They could concentrate their support and optimize that. And one more comment, and that is you need to concentrate on developing efficiencies. I respect Norbert's idea, but having a travel agency, you need to be able to concentrate your purchasing power to get the biggest bang for the buck. Maybe you save -- maybe Norbert saves $2,000 there, but by negotiating as a package for your supported people here are able to save an inordinate amount of money on hotels, cut a deal with a host airline or something like this to take care of a lot of this. So I think efficiency is where you need to be going. I'm not going to argue the rest of this. I'm trying to get back to what Thomas was talking about. Food for thought. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. Go ahead. Back here. >>ZAHID JAMIL: I'm glad to see that the discussion has gone back to what Thomas started talking about. We have two options. Either we fund everybody, don't fund everybody and say, look, hopefully there is enough money for everybody. If there isn't, okay, so we tackle that reality and say, okay, there is a limited amount of a pool of money. Then I think we need to split that up equally within the constituencies. Let the constituencies decide how they want to use it. If they want to take that money and fund not councillors but working group people, fine, excellent, that's a good thing. And that may also happen. But that is the decision and the transparency and obviously it is -- I don't think anybody from a constituency would like to see its people get funded and not work and not support them. Let that accountability come to that level, that's Number one. Second, I actually like the point that was just raised about the meetings, and I think this counts as the public participation that the board is looking at. If you -- this is maybe a strange idea, but if you had two meetings a year, total of three, but two meetings a year in one location where you did a good job -- and I want to tag on to what Ken has just said -- where you negotiated rates saying we are going to have two events at this premises, this place, and you stick by that, maybe one, maybe the second year as well. And one meeting, the third meeting, is rotated around the world. I think people will save a lot of money because you have been there, you have got the SIM cards. You have sorted things out. Let's look at Cairo, the amount of money that was spent in Cairo for the hotels, funding, et cetera. That's just two comments, thank you. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. Paul, back here. >>PAUL LEVINS: Paul Levins from ICANN staff. I just wanted to make a point, those are very good points, the frequency of meetings and just point to the fact that we actually raised this in a paper that was put to the board in Paris, and there was a discussion about this issue in Paris, precisely what you have just outlined. Two meetings a year, one in a rotational hub and so on. So maybe the existing financial circumstances would provide an opportunity to revive that debate. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you, Paul. >>DOTTY SPARKS de BLANC: While it doesn't solve all the problems of travel funding, it seems to me that the most controllable thing and maybe something that would give you a more powerful negotiating thing is to provide rooms for people because everybody doesn't need a per diem and plane ticket and rooms. But when you add it all together, it gets sometimes to a choking point that you really have to struggle to figure out how to meet. And if you could provide rooms even in a number of different hotels, you're in complete control of that and the price and this issue of who lives farthest away or closest or how far, it is not something that becomes the issue. You provide the place and place for them to say and hopefully sponsor the meals part. Find somebody else to sponsor the meal. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. Anybody else? Anybody that has not spoken yet? Go ahead. >>EVAN LEIBOVITCH: A little bit on meeting venues. I'm a little curious on how things are set up. On one hand, it seems like there is a bidding system where ICANN wants to think it is the Olympics and that various cities really want ICANN to be there. I understand the value of that and especially the value of being in places around the world to attract international participation. But does that have to be done with every meeting? If there are two meetings a year, could it not be done that one is allocated on a bidding system and the other one is based on a limited number of systems -- cities that are known to have cheap travel, less expensive hotels that would be more accessible? And so the idea perhaps two meetings a year, one of which was rotated around the world that various regions and the other one was sort of in a small number of cities that are known to be less expensive, would that not be able to control costs even for people who weren't subsidized? And anyway, so that was -- that was part of it. And also, for instance, in Delhi I noticed that the lunch was provided. Part of the travel allocation includes a per diem. Would it not be possible to have other meetings where things like lunches were provided and you reduce the per diem and it makes the -- and that kind of thing reduces expenses as well. You know, these -- I mean, if there was a real level of, you know, public involvement in this on an ongoing basis as opposed to just meeting like this at the ICANN meetings, you might have enough of a lot of good ideas coming up that might help this kind of thing. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. Appreciate the ideas. I just want to, once again, encourage the posting of comments on the Web site -- public comment Web site. Thomas, you had one more question or comment? Any other questions? Anyone that hasn't spoken. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Just a comment. I was on the drafting team for the GNSO and I just want to say that sometimes people have thought that maybe it was staff that was a problem. Let me be very clear on this and speaking from the drafting team -- >>KEVIN WILSON: I missed the first sentence. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Sorry. Sometimes people feel, there is a perception that staff is the problem why travel funding is an issue. But my interaction and I think the group that tried to basically work with the staff found that was not the case. So I just wanted to make that point. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you. >>ZAHID JAMIL: They really do help us work this through and develop something that was workable even though the money was limited. We came up with something that sort of worked for this year. We hope that will get improved for next year. >>KEVIN WILSON: Thank you for your comment. Any other comments? Questions? Okay. I will call the session closed. As I mentioned, the public comments posting will go up next week -- before the end of next week and encourage you to comment on that and also comment and write into the framework for the budget for next year and ultimately the budget for next year. Thank you all for your comments, questions.