Dear all

 As Veni, I ‘ve been part of Meetings Committee, and I am sure they have tried the best they can to balance all interest. What I see is a different perspectives coming from people from different regions: people from the developed countries tend to see things from their own perspectives, forgetting the other side of the world has several problems they never have imagine could exist.  When venue happens to be in developing world, those living in developed ones will face same difficulty (not all) people from developing normally needs to face to attend any meeting.

That’s the way the world works. Meetings committee must deal with all different aspects to set a meeting to allow, in a balanced way during a period, the maximum attendance from people around the world. It is not an ease task, believe me.

As I see things we should reduce our complains and try to commit ourselves to send formal proposes considering all different interests. I don’t know if we can suggest something better, but instead to complain, worth to try.

Volunteer work also means responsibilities and commitment. Hence, I am second Veni’s suggestion to addressing consistent proposals to Meeting Committee formally, and debate with them ours and theirs point of view and solutions for each issue.

May be working together and reducing complains we will have better results.

Vanda Scartezini

Polo Consultores Associados

Alameda Santos 1470 #1407

Tel - +55113266.6253

Mob- +55118181.1464

vanda@uol.com.br

P Before print think about the Environment

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De: alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:alac-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] Em nome de Veni Markovski
Enviada em: quinta-feira, 27 de dezembro de 2007 20:53
Para: Evan Leibovitch
Cc: At-Large Worldwide
Assunto: Re: [At-Large] Venue Accessibility

On Dec 27, 2007 5:30 PM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

I've been through such processes before. Sometimes the "very good
reason" is nothing more than inertia, fear of change, and/or the
conclusion that "doing nothing" is an expedient solution. If there is
indeed a truly good reason for the status quo of last-minute planning
chaos that trumps the causes of stability and accessibility and that
diminishes the value of my recommendations , I would very much love to
hear it. So, I suspect, would others on this list.

I guess the best way is to contact the current Meetings Committee - they would give you today's reasons. I can give you yesterday's. They have been shared publicly during the public board meetings.

I can't give answers to all your questions; I just say that since you are not the first one to raise them, they have been addressed by at least three of the last Meetings Committee chairpersons, and they have not been easy to solve. That includes ideas for example to meet at locations, which are easily accessible, but then we are facing the problem of people from different countries not being able to travel in order to participate, or to cover their expenses. Or the fact that these are conferences, which are not exactly like the IETF, therefore comparing the two is like oranges and apples ( e.g. IETF is mainly in the northern countries, no problems about getting visas for people to travbel to the USA, and if you know how difficult it is to set up an ICANN meeting in North America, thinking about the many people, who will need to go through interviews worldwide to get a visa for Canada/US... and you could continue with such details). The fact that often the meeting will have to take place in a remote location, because the prices in the city are much higher ( e.g. Rome, Mar del Plata, etc.), etc., etc. When ICANN goes to distant countries, it also gives the people from the region the chance to participate - e.g. when they had a meeting in Bucharest, we had Bulgarians going by car,  etc.

Without going further into details - and without involving into a discussion, I repeat again - the best way to approach this problem, is to address the Meetings Committee; or may be even go into the ICANN archives, and see why the meetings take place where they take place, and why it is not easy to have the countries assigned two years in advance.

best,
Veni