[NCUC-EC] Travel Expenditures

[Edward Morris]

Milton and Tapani are suggesting professional approaches to management that
I am in total agreement with.

I woud suggest a fixed yearly amount, with some flexibility as to per
meeting allocation. In general terms, it may make more sense to have more
members at the AGM than at a typical summer meeting or, if the meeting
calendar allows, to focus on meetings with cheaper travel costs ( for
example, if we can get 5 people to London for the cost of 3 to Singapore we
may not want to equally fund both meetings).

I'd be very interested in getting Carlos view on this as he's an
experienced manager who probably deals with these issues on a frequent
basis.

Ed

On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Tapani Tarvainen <ncuc at tapani.tarvainen.info
> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 07, 2013 at 02:46:47PM +0000, Milton L Mueller (
> mueller at syr.edu) wrote:
>
> > [Milton L Mueller] Whatever was written would just be on the mail
> > list discussions we had. There was a pretty firm policy however, and
> > it was this: set a FIXED budgetary amount for travel per meeting
> > that would ensure that over the course of the year we could send 2,
> > sometimes 3 people.
>
> That sounds like a very good idea. Not only for travel but other costs,
> too.
> That is, making a budget on a yearly basis.
>
> > The virtue of such an approach is that it made planning easier and
> > imposed a slightly longer term perspective on the group as a whole
> > in making its decisions. Allocate within the budget constraint. If
> > you think about travel budgeting as something you do a month or two
> > before a meeting, rather than as a budget item for the entire year
> > (or even a 2 year cycle) then you are guaranteed to have a rush of
> > demands for travel support at the last minute as excitement about
> > the meeting grows. Decisions will tend to be made without reference
> > to the long-term sustainability of the level of support.
>
> I'm in 100% agreement with this.
>
> The only thing I'd change is that I'd put the budget somewhere
> in our website for future reference rather than just leaving it on
> the mailing list. And of course include all expenses, not
> just travel costs.
>
> --
> Tapani Tarvainen
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