[NCUC-EC] BA Travel

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 09:16:35AM -0400, William Drake (wjdrake at gmail.com) wrote:

> one thing we should not lose track of is the number one rule that
> support should go to people who are actively engaged in processes
> that will be taken on frontally at the meeting. So to me that
> suggests priority for those involved in the bylaws rewrite. And do
> bear in mind, NCUC never had a policy of supporting EC members

Right. Actually, as far as I know there's never been a formal policy of
any kind - it'd be good to have one, or at least some guidelines
(as I seem to recall you've suggested several times).
The above sounds like a good starting point.

> there is zero presumption that being on the EC means travel to any
> particular meeting.

Zero? A tiny bit more, I think.

Not much more, though: EC members, apart from the Chair, should have
no automatic entitlement or other hard claim to travel funding.
If that's what you mean, I fully agree.

But I should think that being on the EC implies presumption
of some level of activity, and thus EC members are the first
ones to ask when travel funding is considered. That has certainly
been the case in the past.

> My groggy minded premise is simple. If they are going to take the
> lead on catalyzing the bylaws process, Tapani and Ed must be there,
> because that is our number one activity for the meeting, it will be
> demanding, and they've expressed willingness to lead us home.
 
> If we want to split a piece of NCUC's funds out as reasonable flat
> rate grants to the others that's ok

"Flat rate grants" are not exactly fair, given that travel
costs from different locations vary a lot.
If we want to provide partial funding to some, I'd suggest we'd
pay airfare in full (or perhaps deducting a fixed sum from it)
and skimp on hotel and per diem instead.

But as a rule I think we should try to use same funding rules
as ICANN (apart from using cheaper hotels).

> but they really do have to be creative and make it work.

Based on my own experience (you'll recall I arranged my own
funding for Beijing), I think newcomers should be given
significantly lower bar for getting in at least one meeting,
to give them a kickstart so to speak in joining the work.
So I would really like to see Zuan there, even if he's obviously too
new in this to promise or commit to much concrete work at this point.

Also, someone (Ed, I think) suggested that the Annual General Meeting
is important enough to have maximal NCUC presence there, perhaps
justifying getting the entire EC there.
I've never been to an AGM before so I can't really judge that,
but it doesn't sound too unreasonable to me.

And it would be nice to have the entire EC physically present in same
place at least once a year (although I note Wilson hasn't told if he'd
be able and willing to come to BA at all).

Actually we might want to push ICANN for providing more
travel slots for AGMs... maybe next year.

> When I mentioned institutions, I meant Carlos, Milton, and I
> believed CONAC staff seem to get covered via other sources.
> Apparently I was mistaken on CONAC.

So it would seem.

> Now, if we are all fully committed to making this happen, then as I
> say I will write to Glen and ask for a room and any other ad hoc
> support they may be able to provide. Imagine say 10-15 people come a
> day early to do this; if ICANN won't cover it, we should be prepared
> to put up a couple thousand for the extra hotel night. Which of
> course leaves less for larger-scale discretionary travel.

An update on how much money we have at this point would be useful,
but I'm sure we could afford to fund at least one traveler in
addition to such hotel costs in any case.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen