sounds great as its all users money

We had briefly discussed the Council submitting a comment on the proposed SO travel funding. To put the current proposal in perspective you need to first look at the projected contributions that come through the SOs in the currently proposed budget for FY09:

GNSO: $56,051,000 ccNSO: $2,300,000 ASO: $823,000

Based on that, the percentage of each SOs contribution that is being handed back to fund travel is as follows:

GNSO: $184,800 (0.33% of contribution) ccNSO: $170,400 (7.41% of contribution) ASO: $127,200 (15.46% of contribution)

In my opinion, there is no rationale that justifies these returns for travel funding.

The majority of the members of the Registrar Constituency opposes the proposed model, and in fact believe that no travel funding should be provided to the Council at all. However, understanding that the majority of the Council believes otherwise I would like to propose that the Council consider supporting one of these alternative funding models (some additional detail may be needed):

1. Travel support to the SOs should be based in part on the level of contrinbution to ICANN's budget. To the extent that travel support is provided to the GNSO, the funds should be allocated to each constituency and each constituency should have the authority to allocate that support among its members and representatives for travel or other constituency needs.

2. That all funds for SO travel support be pooled, and support would be applied for on a demonstrated needs basis. See the proposal submitted by Ken Stubbs at: http://forum.icann.org/lists/travel-support-draft/msg00006.html

Tim