Dear North American and LAC travellers: Since a number of people have asked questions about the per-diem system, how the amount was chosen, and the like, I thought I would put out a brief note. The amount chosen is actually based upon the US Government's OCONUS system amount for San Juan. We looked at two systems: the US system and the UN DSAR system. In the end, we settled on the US system - which is slightly lower - since there are frequently food and drink options at evening events - in San Juan, there are evening events every night which will have drinks, and are expected to have food - certainly the gala dinner will have a sumptuous meal as per usual, and the opening night reception traditionally has food as well. We removed the lodging portion of the US per diem amount since lodging is of course included. In the case of At-Large, both the LAC and NA regional meetings will have a catered lunch, and the ALAC will have two meetings with breakfast included. Obviously, this is the first time a number of these measures have been impemented. We want to know how it works for everyone. Robert Guerra came up with the superb idea of having the polling system conduct a poll on the various elements of the travel handling for San Juan, which all of you will be invited to take part in, so we can use the feedback to make things better for everyone. One final note: I explained the per-diems rather badly in my previous email I find. Here's the text from the travel policy which is much clearer: You will receive the per-diem for each full night you are away from home. For example, if the per-diem amount set for the meeting in this example was US$80, and you leave on the 13th to attend the meeting, arrive at the meeting location on the 15th (meaning you travelled a long way on flights, or overnighted somewhere along the way), and left for home on the 20th, and arrived on the 21st, you would receive the per-diem for 8 nights. -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart Director, At-Large ICANN PO Box 32160 London N4 2XY United Kingdom Main Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011] USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135 mobile: +44 (7774) 932798 email: nick.ashton-hart@icann.org Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart