[ALAC] Further Information about At-Large Travel

Thu Aug 14 06:45:22 EDT 2008

Dear Evan, see inline comments below (easier to follow)

On 14/08/2008 10:23, "Evan Leibovitch" <evan at telly.org> wrote:

Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
> For At-Large travel in FY 2009, in addition to funding the At-Large Summit, ICANN will be funding the 15 members of the ALAC to attend the Cairo meeting and the meeting being held in the Asia-Pacific region (location TBA) in June 2009.
>
Will the RALO secretariats, chairs and ALAC liaisons also be attending?

Funding is available for 15 persons only. If some members of ALAC wished to waive attendance for a meeting in favour of a Secretariat member, I'm sure that ALAC and the community could decide upon some different allocation methodology for the 15 funded spots (that's a part of the travel framework for the other parts of the community who are receiving funding after all).

> The funding for the 15 members will be on the same basis as has been the case for recent At-Large travel to ICANN meetings:
>
> * Hotel
> * Per-Diem
> * Airfare
>
> Of course, all the RALOs will be meeting during this fiscal year as a part of the Summit, and of course ALAC members will attend the Summit as well.
>
This is all stating the obvious. It also conveniently ignores that fact
that in calendar 2009 there will be no F2F meeting for either NARALO or
LACRALO since there is no ICANN meeting held in the Americas this year.
The possibility of having regional meetings was put on hold because of
the possibility that the Summit would happen this year.

That is indeed the case, however, it was always clearly stated that the request to hold regional meetings was going to be decided in connection with the summit request, since of course the regions would all get to meet face-to-face at the Summit. ICANN runs on a financial year that is not a calendar year, as you know.

> The result is that overall, At-Large travel is considerably increased for this FY over that provided for previous years.
"Considerably"? By your own estimate, the increase would be a MAXIMUM of
28% over the previous year.

A 28% increase doesn't seem small to me but I accept you and possibly others may disagree.

And then the FY2010 amount would be far, far lower ... dramatically
lower than the FY2008 amount. So there would be a short term spike
followed by a long-term reduction. Future years will be funded far less
than present and previous ones.

That is indeed presently the situation. I would reiterate that the entire travel framework is to be reviewed at the end of this FY to see if it needs amendment, so the situation for the next FY is not at all set in stone or certain.

Repeating the obvious point (that the Summit creates a one-time surge in
travel cost) cannot obfuscate the fact that the new travel policy is
designed to outlast the Summit and is a long-term cutback. The presence
of a Summit does not magically diminish the value and importance of
having Chairs, Secretariats and Liaisons funded for regular meetings,
nor does it justify halving the funding of elected ALAC member
attendance. And at a time when RALO outreach is desperately needed (how
many ALSs have joined in the past year?), that resource (ie, regional
F2F meetings) is being cut too.

I completely understand what you are saying. I hope that you also understand that in trying to provide more travel support overall to the whole ICANN community, it was always highly likely that the one community that received considerable support would end up receiving less in order to help other communities receive more.

I know that you and others in At-Large view this community as having characteristics different from other stakeholder groups, in particular commercial stakeholders, and that this uniqueness merits different and greater support for attendance at ICANN meetings. Doug is trying to create a predictable, transparent, and reasonable travel framework for all volunteers and as has been said in the announcement he understands that there is no way that doing this will please everyone.

>  To compare it in terms of the number of attendees, see below:
>
> FY 2008: 35 At-Large attendees funded per ICANN meeting = 105 persons total
> FY 2009: 15 At-Large attendees at 2 meetings plus up to approximately 105 attendees at one meeting = up to 135 attendees
>

Since you insist on belabouring this point, why stop at 2009? Let's
examine at what the policy will do the following year (and every year
subsequent):

FY 2010: 10 At-Large attendees (5 NomComms + 50% of the rest of ALAC)
funded per meeting = 30 persons total
FY 2011: 10 At-Large attendees (5 NomComms + 50% of the rest of ALAC)
funded per meeting = 30 persons total
... and so on...

So... we go from 105, to 135, to 30, and set to remain at 30 for
subsequent years. That means that after a one-year spike, At-Large
suffers a long-term reduction of travel funding of 72%. The "horror
excesses" of the Summit are more than recouped the very next year thanks
to these cuts.

Those numbers would indeed be accurate if the review of the travel framework at the end of this FY does not change anything.

> Please let me know if you have questions.
>

- How can anyone supposedly supporting the activities of At-Large defend
a 72% resource reduction at this crucial stage in its evolution?

I'm simply trying to explain things since questions are arising. The reduction you mention would only be the case if the review at the end of the year left everything exactly as it is today.

- Why is the one-time Summit (some spike -- a _maximum_ 28% over 2008)
brought up as justification for such long-term resource slashing?

If I somehow implied that the Summit justifies anything then I'm sorry as that's not what I was trying to do at all. The Summit is the Summit. It is a standalone event. The travel support being provided for the other meetings this FY is greater for ALAC than for the other communities receiving support, though it is indeed correct that if nothing changes, that support would decrease in the following FY.

What I would suggest is that the community has the rest of this FY to socialise the rationale for a different travel regime for At-Large for the next FY. Who knows? It is even possible that some of the other communities receiving support will wish to see a different allocation of resources in the next budget, which would change the travel support that various communities receive. There is a year in which this community can engage with others on this subject.

- Can we keep the status quo if we cancel the Summit? (If that is the
main reason for the long term cut then perhaps we should reconsider the
penalty that the Summit would exact on At-Large's long-term effectiveness.)

The Summit and the travel framework are completely separate things.

(And if the answer to the above is "no", then for heaven's sake stop
linking the Summit to the long-term cutback.)

- Evan

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--

Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
Director for At-Large
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
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