[council] Comments in relation with GNSO travel funding and policy

[Olga Cavalli <olgac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

The Travel Drafting Team met with ICANN Staff in México ( Kevin Wilson, Doug Brent and Stacy Hoffberg).

What we agreed during the meeting was that GNSO would prepare a document with those ideas and requirements that GNSO has in relation with travel funding and travel policy. They expressed that this information could be very useful for them.

The drafted text is included in this email for your revision.

Your comments are welcome, then we will submit it to the ICANN staff members that were present in the meeting.

Best regards

Olga



Comments about GNSO Travel funding and travel policy

All GNSO council members should be founded to attend ICANN meetings.

All council members volunteer their time and the GNSO amount of work is a lot.

The amount of work in GNSO is highly increasing due to the GNSO restructuring and the different steering committees and working groups that council member´s participate in.

GNSO must undergo restructuring and this enormous task is unbudgeted and no additional resource is allocated for this purpose.  Hence, extended travel funding especially in this period
is required. If there is additional work, then there is a need for additional funding resources.

The workload of the GNSO is, at least in these times, enormous and it would be unrealistic for the structures to work by volunteers being stretched beyond limits especially without travel support. This support may include WG and DT members as the Constituencies may nominate.

It could be good if constituencies receive the travel funds and they distribute these funds among their members with flexibility.

The budgeted amount for GNSO should be monetized and divided equally between Constituencies (possibly SGs if there is a proliferation of Constituencies).

Constituency allocation should be transparent but at the discretion of the Constituency.

If in one Financial Year a Constituency does not utilize and saves its allocation, that allocation should be reserved and rolled over into travel reserves for the next FY in addition to the budget allocation for the next.

A growth in the active participation of ALL GNSO Councilors in ICANN meetings may enhance the face to face work of GNSO making it more efficient and also it may also benefit the work on teleconference meetings.

It may also benefit the participation by a broader spectrum of the GNSO community.

 Travel funding should not impact registrar or registry fees.

According to the proposed budget documents, ICANN expects revenues that will be $13 million "in excess" of ICANN's budget for FY10.

A rough estimate of the extra cost of funding all councilors' funding for next year is $200K.

It could be useful to know a detailed breakdown of the GNSO travel support budget.

Also it could help knowing the travel support provided to the GNSO today and the monetary amount of travel support for ALL GNSO Councilors.