Alan, Thanks for doing this -- I know it was an action item we shared. I've added two paragraphs, one refers to board travel, they are not included as members of the community, they should be. Second is about the cost of fares. Think we've heard many stories of the agent not being able to get low cost fares, and the travel support reports show a wide variation in costs <http://www.icann.org/en/topics/travel-support/> Thanks, Adam Draft ALAC Statement on ICANN Volunteer Travel Support Guidelines The ALAC appreciates ICANN's continued funding of ALAC and RALO leadership travel to ICANN meetings, as well as the discretion to use such funding for other regional meetings. We still believe that full engagement of RALOs and ALS members requires additional funding for regional meetings. Such engagement is one of the key issues raised in the recent review of the ALAC. As such, we will be addressing this need through the normal ICANN planning and budget process. [new] The guidelines provide information about travel policies and support for all members of the ICANN community except the Board. In the interests of consistency and transparency, Board member's travel should be detailed in the same way as other community volunteers: cost of airfare, expenses and accommodation as well as information about policies that apply to such travel. In addition to information about expenses in attending the three annual meetings, expenses incurred attending Board retreats and any travel undertaken by Board members on ICANN matters and paid for by ICANN should also be provided. We acknowledge ICANN's wish to keep overall costs for travel as low as possible and to make the process of arranging travel for a large number of volunteers efficient and manageable; however, after reviewing the fares of travellers to recent meetings, and from our own experiences attempting to suggest cheaper tickets than those bought by ICANN's agent BCD Travel, we are concerned that the program is not at efficient as it could be. We recommend ICANN review costs to date, and begin a process of obtaining quotes from other agents. [new] Regarding the specific guidelines for the Brussels ICANN meeting, we are pleased that At-Large attendees are now allowed to attend the full ICANN meeting and are no longer required to leave before the meeting ends. We look forward to similar flexibility related to arrivals, where some of our attendees are not given the "luxury" of a reasonable amount of sleep prior to the start of meetings. We also look forward to refining the air travel reservation process to fully address the needs of both ICANN and attendees. Full and open dialogue with ICANN over travel issues has provided a number of improvements, and we hope that continued dialogue will lead to further benefits allowing At-Large to better carry out its mandate of representing the needs of Internet users within the ICANN multi-stakeholder processes.
Unfortunately, we missed the formal comment period on travel guidelines, but I would suggest that it is still appropriate for us to submit a comment. I understand that we will be starting a number of votes on Friday, and if there is not objection, we can vote on it at this time.
In general, there was not a lot of change in the guidelines for this meeting. Although we are currently funding RALO leadership to attend ICANN meetings (2 per region per meeting), the guidelines allow the funding to be used for regional meetings instead.
There has been no extension of the funding to explicitly address regional meetings or to allow ALS representatives to attend ICANN meetings. I believe that this is in line with our discussions to request such funding through the budget process, linking such participation to specific At-Large goals and not simply as "travel support".
In the specific Brussels travel guidelines, the most apparent change is that departures can now be delayed to allow participants to attend the open Board meeting. This was a privilege extended to other groups in some past meetings, but not to the ALAC. This time, it was across-the-board.
A related change was that ever since "Constituency Travel" took over from Stacy Hoffberg, we had to ask for "exceptions" to cover what was already the norm before, specifically to accommodate various arrival and departure schedules based on ICANN meetings. This time, the schedule allowed for such things as my attending GNSO meetings on Saturday, or the ExCom meeting on Friday afternoon.
The arrival rules are still not sufficiently flexible to accommodate late night arrivals. The formal rules for selecting itineraries are still as rigid as before, but there is some evidence that they are being handled in a somewhat more flexible manner.
Due to the short time-frame, please comment as soon as possible.
Alan
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Draft ALAC Statement on ICANN Volunteer Travel Support Guidelines
The ALAC appreciates ICANN's continued funding of ALAC and RALO leadership travel to ICANN meetings, as well as the discretion to use such funding for other regional meetings.
We still believe that full engagement of RALOs and ALS members requires additional funding for regional meetings. Such engagement is one of the key issues raised in the recent review of the ALAC. As such, we will be addressing this need through the normal ICANN planning and budget process.
Regarding the specific guidelines for the Brussels ICANN meeting, we are pleased that At-Large attendees are now allowed to attend the full ICANN meeting and are no longer required to leave before the meeting ends. We look forward to similar flexibility related to arrivals, where some of our attendees are not given the "luxury" of a reasonable amount of sleep prior to the start of meetings. We also look forward to refining the air travel reservation process to fully address the needs of both ICANN and attendees.
Full and open dialogue with ICANN over travel issues has provided a number of improvements, and we hope that continued dialogue will lead to further benefits allowing At-Large to better carry out its mandate of representing the needs of Internet users within the ICANN multi-stakeholder processes.
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