Katrina Thank you for picking up on this. I had not realised the urgency. There are two issues, really. - The discouraging effect on participation of elected members of requiring Council Members or their "sponsoring employers" to pay for 2 out of three meetings for ICANN. - The disparate approach internally between elected and non-elected members. There is no urgency about dealing with the second point, as it is within Council's remit to decide. It also may resolve itself if the ccNSO receives sufficient support from ICANN to see equality with ALAC and GAC. The starting principle has to be that for a volunteer position on the ccNSO Council (which is not paid any form of remuneration) reasonable refund of expenses should -- like any professional organisation -- be supported. So, we should have, I feel, sufficient "seats" to enable - in the event that all Council Members are from small countries or developing regions -- that Council is funded for 100% attendance at each of its F2F meetings. We should also have some seats for other significant contributors to the ccNSO. Where (as if often the case) sevearl Council Members do not need to claim reimbursement, that 'seat' can (as has been done in the past) used to enhance participation. I don't have a figure in mind, but I think we should have at least the same number of seats as GAC or ALAC (whichever is the higher). On 13/01/17 13:52, Katrina Sataki wrote:
Nigel,
Thank you very much for pushing this forward.
My undersanding is: 1) ccNSO has never asked for increase in travel funding since 2008 when the concept was first introduced. 2) if we decide to ask for an increase we must do it NOW as FY 2018 is in the phase of active preparation and is due to public comments already in March (correct me if I'm wrong). It means that it might be too late to raise the issue in Copenhagen because then we can aim only for FY 2019.
Therefore if the Council decides that we should ask for more funded seats (any proposals?) then we should send a request ASAP. Please express your support or objections by 20 January.
Kind regards,
]{atrina
-----Original Message----- From: owner-ccnso-council@icann.org [mailto:owner-ccnso-council@icann.org] On Behalf Of Nigel Roberts Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2017 10:09 PM To: ccnso-council@icann.org Subject: [ccnso-council] Item for AOB - running out of time
About a year ago, we had some informal discussions with Xavier that was aimed at understanding the requirements on the Council for the allocation of resources for funding Council members and others to ICANN meetings.
Strangely (to me) this turned out to not be predicated on on a budget, but on 'per seat' basis. Two questions arise from this answer :-
- what requirement (e.g. from Finance or ICANN Board) is there on the ccNSO to allocate funds differentially between different classes of members
- where does the differential between ccNSO number of seats and (e.g.) ALAC and GAC come from?
This inquiry fell by the wayside.
I wish to suggest a small informal meeting in CPH including Chair or one of the Vice-Chairs, and myself (since I've been doing the research) and one other Council Member (perhaps from LAC or Africa?).
Situation has worked, by-and-large, this last few years, largely becuase of the support given from large registries who do not need travel support for their elected Councillors.
But I can see it could inhibit good candidates from developing regions and also small registries in other regions.
On the assumption Council continues to approve of this line of inquiry, I shall see if I can arrange something.
Council is asked if it objects to this further inquiry