[EURO-Discuss] Funding proposal for 1st EURALO board meeting in Geneva

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

I must say I also don't understand your interpretation of the situation Annette.

The process by which community requests for funding of projects outside of budgeting proposals are evaluated is of long-standing and can be found online at: https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?icann_p_ps.

For ease of reading I have repeated it directly below:

Procedure by Which ICANN Shall Decide to Fund the Request

 1.  Upon receipt of the request, ICANN shall acknowledge receipt of it within three (3) business days.
 2.  Within three (3) weeks of confirmation of a complete request, ICANN shall request additional information, if needed, or advise whether or not the request will be funded.
 3.  Where ICANN decides not to fund the request, it shall provide an explanation of the reasons why.

General Requirements


 1.  Submit funding requests (via email using form included below) to At-Large staff forty-five days before the activity for which funds are requested occurs; requests on shorter notice can be made (for example, if a critical meeting was called with shorter notice), and staff will make every effort to process them, but may not be able to do so.
 2.  Requests for funds should contain all the required information in order to be considered (using form included below).
 3.  Email requests to staff at alac.icann.org (staff will confirm receipt).

Processing of Funding Requests

    *   At-Large staff will:  1) determine if request is an appropriate expenditure under the At-Large budget; 2) confer with appropriate ALAC members and/or RALO members to determine advisability of expenditure; 3) (if funding request is deemed appropriate) submit it to senior ICANN staff for approval; 4) notify requestor and ALAC/RALO of approval/denial.
    *   In determining the advisability of an expenditure, staff will be guided by input from the ALAC for expenditures related to ALAC activities, and by the RALO (or the 3 regional ALAC members if RALO is not formed) for expenditures relating to a region's At-Large activities.
    *   Funding requests are subject to the availability of funds, which can be affected by revenue fluctuations, budget processes, and changes in ICANN expenditure policies.


On 22/02/2008 03:00, "Cheryl Langdon-Orr" <cheryl at hovtek.com.au> wrote:

Sorry Annette, I'm not sure I understand your point here....

Any procedures we have in place relate to the preparation of budget and activity finding for the 2008-2009 FY

The EURALO F2F Board Meeting planned to be held in conjunction with an IGF Meeting in Geneva  at end Feb, is an activity requesting funding from existing current budget, not the future one, so as I see it the information in Nick's response is absolutely relevant as for the current Budget no specific RALO outreach or F2F meetings were budgeted for outside of the 'usual' ICANN meeting cycle ones (this you might note is not what is happening for the proposed budget for the 08/09 year and we DO NEED to get RALO and ALS input into that process -> as discussed in public meetings in New Delhi post haste)

EURALO should also note that other RALO's have indeed made excellent use of the teleconference facilities offered by ICANN, (and I personally recommend this tool for your regular meeting use - *particularly* now we seem to have a service provider that is actually worth working with)  but that  in each of the F2F meeting(s) that I have been involved in for APRALO:- the APRICOT / BALI Meeting  {which was our RALO formation event} and which I attended as an ALS representative {but please note for that trip I was in fact funded by my ccTLD, who were also happy for me to be attending the main meeting} ...  and the 1 day outreach meeting held in Hong Kong, as well as our Hybrid F2F Teleconference monthly meeting in LA at ICANN meeting,  just like your proposal,  these venues were selected because a critical mass of us were already attending those fora, and teleconference facilities were used to allow those who could not attend, either because they were not funded to be there anyway, or due to clashes of commitment that prevented travel at the time  ...

For already established budgets, we need to work within whatever confines we have (and indeed funds still residual at this point in the cycle, after all expenses and claims so far have been made), and it is indeed unfortunate that this appears to mean this time that even though you have indeed made the proper application and it is well supported in concept (certainly I applaud anything that best gets RALO's working to meet their potential :)), as I suspect the rest of the current ALAC Budget SC do...  But just like the one APRALO activity funding proposal made to sponsor an outreach activity the 9th APNG Camp in August 2007 (also in this current budget) it appears that funds are not available to make all our wishes and desires happen... From the APRALO view we have as a result of this ensured that information project justification and background briefing materials as well as our endorsement of the concept of sponsorship as an outreach activity of the 10th Camp this August, (in the next FY) have been collected and will be submitted for consideration on the Budget planning for that year currently being undertaken.

So again Annette I don't really see how "our democratically decided procedures are ignored", particularly in this *time critical* application/ response requirement *time course*, nor do I feel that we are working under an arbitrary system, rather an unfortunately  currently resource limited one, and I certainly look forward to the opportunities offered by the new ICANN budget and activity process/development paradigm that we are currently involved in...

Please also note that the ALAC Budget SC still requires representation from an ALAC Member from AFRALO and NARALO to ensure regional interest equity, and I would like those names to be submitted for our next ALAC Meeting   see https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?at_large_officers_and_working_group_leaders



CLO




From: annette.muehlberg at web.de [mailto:annette.muehlberg at web.de]
Sent: Saturday, 23 February 2008 6:03 AM
To: Vanda Scartezini UOL; Cheryl Langdon-Orr; Wolf Ludwig; Nick Ashton-Hart
Cc: alac-internal at atlarge-lsts.icann.org; Europe Discuss
Subject: Re: Funding proposal for 1st EURALO board meeting in Geneva


Dear Nick,



Wolf adressed in the correct way his funding proposal to the budget committee and now you give a final answer without consulting with this committee.



How can we work in a reliable manner, if our democratically decided procedures are ignored? I think implementing our procedures is crucial otherwise we open the door to arbitrariness.



kind regards



annette

----- Original Message -----

From: Nick Ashton-Hart <mailto:Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org><mailto:Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org>

To: Wolf Ludwig <mailto:wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net><mailto:wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net>  ; Cheryl Langdon-Orr <mailto:cheryl at hovtek.com.au><mailto:cheryl at hovtek.com.au>  ; Darlene Thompson <mailto:DThompson at GOV.NU.CA><mailto:DThompson at GOV.NU.CA>  ; Annette Muehlberg <mailto:annette.muehlberg at web.de><mailto:annette.muehlberg at web.de>

Cc: Europe Discuss <mailto:euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org><mailto:euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>

Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:54 AM

Subject: Re: Funding proposal for 1st EURALO board meeting in Geneva


Dear Wolf:

Thanks very much for your note - you had raised this with me in person in New Delhi and now this provides an opportunity for me to respond in a like vein in a more public way.

Firstly, it is important to set the context in which this request is made. We have just concluded an ICANN meeting which was more expensive by a considerable amount than is normally the case. We will not have a clear picture of what impact this has on the remaining funds available for At-Large for a few weeks.

I am sure that you will agree that we would not want to spend funds now which could have the effect of limiting the ability of ALSes in EURALO to attend the ICANN Meeting in Paris. Until all the expenses for New Delhi are in and accounted for, we will not really know where we stand.

I understand that your request envisages the travel support for one to three people to come to Geneva, and that several members of the EURALO board will be in Geneva. What I would suggest as I mentioned to you in New Delhi is that we provide a teleconference facility to allow remote participation - not only by board members, but by ALSes too. ICANN would certainly be able to make those facilities available.

Finally, I draw your attention to the fact that the time between the request and the event is extremely short - you'll recall that the process by which funds are requested envisages three weeks between the request and the event. Of course we can be flexible and respond to situations as they arise, but when we are speaking of travel support, it is always important to arrange things far in advance as otherwise the costs of air travel are as you know considerably greater.

I agree that face-to-face meetings have an important role to play in facilitating debate and even more in facilitating agreement. I trust that the EURALO members present in Geneva will have productive discussions and that the addition of one or two members via teleconference will be an added bonus.

Finally, may I once again say that ICANN stands ready to facilitate telephonic meetings for EURALO, as well as briefings on policy issues of concern to the region, whenever we are asked to do so. I hope that the region will chose to use the time between now and Paris to ensure that the Paris meeting is as productive and constructive as the New Delhi meeting has proved to be.


On 15/02/2008 10:27, "Wolf Ludwig" <wolf.ludwig at comunica-ch.net> wrote:
Dear Cheryl, Vanda, Annette
Dear Nick,

On our last Tel.Conf. in January the board of EURALO expected the User Summit happen next June in Paris. And in this context we decided to finally have our 1st (physical) board meeting after ICANN's New Delhi meeting at the end of February in Geneva.

The EURALO board was elected in May 07 and we planned to have our first board meeting in conjunction with (Wolfgang Kleinwächter's) last Studienkreis Outreach meeting in October 07 in Warsaw. In August 07 we submitted an application for a rather modest funding for a one-day board meeting to ICANN which unfortunately was not approved. Please take into consideration that many of EURALO's board members have never met each other so far what hampered the working dynamic considerably. And the recent ALAC-RALO meetings in Delhi proofed in a rather convincing way how important f2f meetings are for any constructive debates (not only) among volunteers.

As some board member will come to Geneva in the context of the next IGF-consultation end of February, we thought that this offers another opportunity again to finally have a 1st EURALO board meeting in Geneva - -and presumably last meeting before ICANN's 32nd meeting in Paris. Please note that the term of some of our board members expires at the end of may resp. in June at our 1st General Assembly. And we consider it as being completely inappropriate not having had a chance for at least one board meeting in between, which is also indispensable for the preparation of the EURALO meeting in Paris.

As a first preliminary Agenda for this (1st) EURALO board meeting
we suggested:

(1) Briefing about ICANN's New Delhi meeting
(2) Options for a EURALO summit in Paris
(3) Draft EURALO budget for the coming fiscal year
(4) Planning for General Assembly in June 08 in Paris
(5) Board elections at GA in June 08 in Paris
(6) Other outreach activities foreseen
(7) Miscellaneous

The suggested funds for the EURALO board meeting the 25 February in Geneva are rather modest again. It just needs travel reimbursements for a part of the board members who are not coming to Geneva for the IGF-consultations anyhow.

Travel / flight reimbursements          EURO / US$ 2'000.-
Hotel accommodation (if required)       EURO / US$ 300.-
Meal                                                    EURO / US$ 700.-

Total                                                   EURO / US$ 3'000.-

This meeting is necessary for a decent preparation of the EURALO/ALS meeting this summer in Paris as well. We are looking forward for a positive considerations and response to our funding proposal to make our EURALO board meeting a success.

Kindest regards,
Wolf Ludwig
EURALO Chair



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Regards,

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