Dear Councillors, Your decision is needed! I have been made aware that the Travel Funding Committee and the Secretariat are facing an issue with respect to travel funding of the Councillors elected by ccNSO members. As you know the ccNSO has 12 travel slots per ICANN meeting. According to the Travel Funding Guideline (hereinafter Guideline, see http://ccnso.icann.org/about/travel-funding-12feb13-en.pdf please NOTE: this Guidelines hasn¹t been reviewed by the Guideline Review Committee yet) : * 3 slots are for NomCom Council members. If not used they fall back to pool for other eligible candidates like presenters, WG members, etc. * 5 Slots for Councillors who are elected by members (one per region). According to the Guideline one Councillor per region is funded per ICANN meeting. If the eligible Councillor does not use the allocated travel slot it falls back to the pool for other eligible candidates. Further, the Councillors from each of the regions need to come up with a rotational scheme (per year): who is eligible for travel funding. The Secretariat will implement this scheme. Some of the ccTLD related Councillors have not used their slots (for various reasons). The unused slot then falls back to the pool for other eligible candidates (non-Councillors). * Basically, and according to the Guideline there are 4 slots for non-Councillors (other eligible persons). This number will increase if Councillors do not use their assigned slot. The issue the Travel Funding Committee and staff are facing right now is that for some regions all ccTLD related Councillors indicate that one specific Councillor can use more than one slot per year. Whatever the arguments (and there are plenty!), the current Guideline clearly states another mechanism. This puts the Travel Funding Committee in a position to make that choice (between the Guideline and the decisions of the Councillors from a particular region). Therefore there is a need for the ccNSO Council to step in and make a decision. And, sorry, but we cannot wait for the call to discuss this issue because we need to submit the list of funded travellers ASAP. So here¹s a suggestion to move forward: 1. The Guideline will be changed making clear that it is effectively up to the Councillors from a particular region how they want to assign the slots (independently of the number of fundigs received before). Only if none of the Councillors from the region expresses a need for the travel funding, it will be made available to the pool for others. 2. This change is effective immediately (after adoption by the ccNSO Council), hence applicable for the Helsinki meeting. If agreed, here is a draft resolution to amend the Guideline. May I ask you to indicate whether you want further discussion, or object to it by 7 April 2016 17.00 UTC? Thank you very much! Draft Resolution Background According to the ccNSO Travel Funding Guideline as adopted by the ccNSO Council in February 2013: One Councillor from each of the 5 regions, on a rotating basis, will receive travel funding for an ICANN meeting (i.e. a Councillor from each region will be funded once a year). The Councillors representing the Region are to decide in which order the rotation shall take place. If no decision is made, the order is defined alphabetically. If a Councillor does not want to use his allocated funding, the funds will be allocated to the ³Other Eligible Parties Category² or remain available for use during the remainder of the current fiscal year. It has been brought to the attention of the ccNSO Council that in some cases this creates issues for the Travel Funding Committee and for some ccNSO Councillors. To address the issue it is suggested that the Travel Funding Guideline will be amended to say: For Councillors: One Councillor from each of the 5 regions will receive travel funding for an ICANN meeting (i.e. a Councillor from each region will be funded per meeting). The Councillors representing the Region are to decide among themselves who will receive funding to attend a meeting. If no decision is made, or if none of the Councillors from a region wants to use the allocated funding, the funds for that region will be allocated to the ³Other Eligible Parties Category² or remain available for use during the remainder of the current fiscal year, to be determined by the Councillors from that Region. Draft Decision The ccNSO Council decides to replace the current language of the section Criteria for Eligibility, the sentences starting with For Councillors and ending with This will be determined by the Committee with: For Councillors: One Councillor from each of the 5 regions will receive travel funding for an ICANN meeting (i.e. a Councillor from each region will be funded per meeting). The Councillors representing the Region are to decide among themselves who will receive funding to attend a meeting. If no decision is made, or if none of the Councillors from a region wants to use the allocated funding, the funds for that region will be allocated to the ³Other Eligible Parties Category² or remain available for use during the remainder of the current fiscal year, to be determined by the Councillors from that Region. The Secretariat is requested to publish the amended Guideline as soon as possible after adoption. The amended Guideline will become effective immediately after publication. Kindest regards, ]{atrina