Dear GNSO Council, I have followed the discussion on travel procedure over the last few days. Clearly, there is some dissatisfaction with the new Community Travel Support Procedure, and there have been questions about its implementation, some of which seem to go back to the original discussion on this topic in 2007. So for those who haven't followed this from last February when public consultation began, a couple of quick comments: - the initial impetus here was to follow-up on the Council's request to fund additional travel to ICANN meetings; as most here know, opinions ranged from support all to provide no additional travel support - a key piece of feedback in the consultation was to allow for a good deal of flexibility in the allocation of funds to each Supporting Organisation; the intent was to not make the selection of funded travelers staff directed or too top down within an SO, in part, because the SOs are different and are in the best position to use travel funds in a way that advances their work; given the amount of discussion, maybe leaving this item as open was not right. - to allow for the fact that there are always a number of special cases with travel, the thought was to try and build up detailed implementation rules as the questions come in through a posted "Frequently Asked Question" (FAQ) list, as opposed to "baking in" an inflexible set of rules that don't work for ICANN travelers located throughout the world. If there is some staff support that can help at this time, so that this doesn't become a further distraction for the council, please let me know what kind of help we can provide. I have attached a document that addresses the first set of travel questions that have come up during the last week. These will be turned more into a FAQ form and posted, but I thought it was faster to get it to you this way now. Basically, it tries to make things as simple as possible for this first year in implementing the travel procedure. Also, the Cairo meeting is coming up so fast - the attached information will help us meet the goal of providing GNSO participants with additional travel support. This includes headcount-based funding instead of budget based. Also, it recognizes that the Council may want to take more time than is available now to get to a more sustainable approach to making its decisions as to who can be funded. As I've communicated separately to Avri, I'm personally committed to facilitating a review of this travel approach at the end of the year. I'll continue to monitor the travel-related threads, but suggest that you email travel-support@icann.org to get any specific travel-related questions answered. Of course, please email me directly as you see fit and I will respond. Best regards, Doug -- Doug Brent Chief Operating Officer ICANN Voice: +1 310.301.3871 Mobile: +1 650.996.4447 Fax: +1 310.823.8649