[NCUC-EC] Fwd: Buenos Aires, Argentina Supported Travel

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Aug 05 22:15, Edward Morris (edward.morris at alumni.usc.edu) wrote:

> 2. In terms of additional funding for travel from the NCUC treasury, Milton
> stated a while back that he thought it was reasonable for us to budget
> $5,000 per meeting for travel,  provided beneficiaries were going to the
> meeting to offer something of value to the cause. For this meeting I'm
> perfectly content with providing that level of support.

Agreed.

> Buenos Aires is the AGM. In my brief association with the NCUC I've noticed
> that all meetings are not created equal.  The AGM's seem to be a bit bigger
> than the others. I'd suggest this is the meeting we most need to maximize
> our bodies on the floor.

Sound reasonable, although I've never been to an AGM so I can't
properly judge that -- but that is also an additional reason I would
be interested in going there.
 
> 3. I see no reason Constituency supported travelers need to stay in 5*
> hotels. I've done a brief search on some commercial booking sites and there
> are several decent quality, 3* hotels within a half mile of the meeting
> venue. These hotels sell for no more than USD 75 per night. An 8 night stay
> prices these hotels, at most, at $600 for the Meeting.

Yes, or even cheaper. Which also means that air fare is by far the
biggest cost, at least for people from outside the Americas.

> Roundtrip air fares from Europe to Buenos Aires run between USD 1000 and
> USD 1200,

Yeah, although it depends a lot from where in Europe you start.
E.g., the cheapest flights from Helsinki to BA I can find are just below
US$1200, although it'll cost me an extra $100 to get to Helsinki first
by train, whereas flying from my home town (Jyväskylä) starts at US$1600.
On the other hand, from Madrid it'd easy to do with $800.

> from North America price at about USD 1000, from Africa between
> USD 1700- USD 1900 and from Asia between USD 1600 and USD 1700.

Which suggests it'd be better for us  to have ICANN pay for people
from Asia or Africa and use NCUC funds for people from closer by.

> The per diem has yet to be established.

I would be willing to forego per diem completely, but it would
be good to have consistent rules there as well.

> I think it would be reasonable to assume we could, if it makes sense, using
> the guidelines Milton set,  provide full support to 2-3 additional
> participants should there be cause to do so.

Yes. Two easily, three would be tight but possible, depending on
where they'd be flying from and whether we'd be paying per diem.

> If we decide to do this I'd suggest we should book the reasonably priced
> hotels in the very near future to guarantee availability. I'd wait a bit on
> the air fares as carriers generally enter a sale period in early September
> in most markets.

Yes. Two months before is also early enough in general.

> Three and a half months out it's hard to know if there will be work for me
> to do in Buenos Aires to justify the cost of my, or anyone except Bill's,
> attendance.

Aye. There's the rub.

> What will be 'on the table' in Buenos Aires? I intend to be highly active,
> as many in the EC, on the Bylaws rewrite.

Likewise, even if I'm not a lawyer. But I think there's a need for
non-lawyers, too, for they should be not merely legally tight but
also workable in practice for non-lawyers.

> The point is we have some some great criteria for selecting supported
> travelers but given the time frame for a decision I'm not sure how to apply
> the criteria to myself, never mind any other applicant.

My thoughts exactly.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen