Evan Leibovitch ha scritto:
What I would have hoped for -- and would like to advocate -- is to push the calendar back, and to give the committee the breathing room to use arbitrary discretion regarding cities if no suitable bids in the region emerge. That way, if the existing AP bids fall through, the committee could select another city in AP without a host and move appropriately.
FYI, for what I learned from the Board - After the AP bids fell through, and before falling back onto LA, there was an attempt by staff to have ICANN organize the meeting in one major city in AP. Unfortunately, after about a month of scouting and negotiations, there was still no availability of a fit venue, and so it was thought better to do it in LA, which is much easier for a number of reasons. And at that time, given the APRALO situation, I supported the firm request to have the meeting in AP as soon as possible. I've never been in the Meetings Committee (incidentally, the ALAC could ask for its Board Liaison to be added to it) but I think you are making lots of suggestions that seem good and obvious at first sight, but then become more and more difficult as you try to implement them. For example, if you stay with the current model of soliciting bids from local communities, it's hard to ask local groups to plan two or three years in advance. You might move the timeline earlier, but then discover that you get no bids. On the other hand, if you move to a model in which ICANN organizes the meetings, you pose plenty of additional effort on ICANN's side (not just in terms of money - and I agree with Ross that ICANN could put more of it, especially for Southern locations - but in terms of local know-how and practicalities), and you risk wasting possible support and sponsors from local communities because you're not asking for them. Politically, it would put ICANN in an even more difficult situation: today already, rejected bidders and their communities are disillusioned, if not upset; but you can reply that the other bid was factually better on an objective scale. If ICANN will choose the venue indipendently on its own, all sorts of political pressures will start, for choosing country A rather than country B. About the "hub" requirement - I was not involved in the discussion, but I will note that it is true, as you say, that each continent has some hub cities, but it is also true that not all countries include a global hub. Of course it depends on the definition, but, in Europe, only the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany have truly global transportation hubs. Can you really tell to the other 30+ countries in the continent that they will never get a chance to host an ICANN meeting? Ciao, -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------