Dear Latin America & The Caribbean and North American ALS representatives:
As you know, the next ICANN International Meeting is in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from 25 - 29 June 2007.
There will certainly be funding for the North American region to attend the San Juan meeting - more details about that will be forthcoming later in April.
We want to do everything possible to make funding available for the LAC Region to hold their first General Assembly in Lisbon, on Sunday, 27th June. It is unusual to have a region attend two ICANN conferences in less than a year, but we all felt it was worthwhile to bring LAC so that the first RALO GA could be held.
To that end, we are working on saving as much as possible on other expenses, but it will still be very tight - so we cannot guarantee that we will be able to bring everyone in for a face to face meeting, for example; some might need to attend via remote video and audio links, and some attend in person - we are aiming for every ALS to be able to send a delegate - and we will know shortly.
What you should do RIGHT NOW though is begin the visa applications proces!. It can take three months from beginning to end - and even if an attendee does not get to come due to shortage of funds for the LAC meeting, ICANN would still recompense you for the costs of the visa application.
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Regards,
ICANN At Large
Main Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011]
USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460
Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135