Re: [registrars] Motion on Travel Funding

[Ross Rader <ross@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the feedback Bruce. The practice of funding travel for  
strategic inter-sessional meetings has, in my opinion, been of limited  
value. It has been successful in bringing some additional constituency  
participants together to help make real progress with some important  
policy development issues.
It has also managed to underwrite the costs of many councillors that  
would participate whether they are receiving travel funding or not.
I have no issue with ICANN making an investment to increase the depth  
and breadth of the participation, but I am seriously opposed to ICANN  
making funding available to the Council on the basis that it would  
increase participation  and increase the effectiveness of the GNSO.
Registry, Registrar, Business, ISP/Telco, Intellectual Property and  
Non-commercial Councillors have a stellar track record of  
participating in the face-to-face meetings. There is no way that we  
can gain anything from funding the travel of these parties, nor do  
they need the money.
Do you have a suggestion concerning how the motion might be amended to  
include your observations about the value of funding travel for non- 
councillors at strategic intersessional meetings?
On 11-Dec-07, at 2:16 AM, Bruce Tonkin wrote:

> Hello Ross,
>
> I am not comfortable with a blanket rejection.
>
> Personally I found the support ICANN gave to have some face-to-face
> meetings separate from the normal physical ICANN meetings to discuss
> some of the details of the new gTLD policy to be very useful.   They
> were typical 2.5 days of fairly intense work, which is not easy to
> duplicate via online mechanisms.   These were important to build some
> level of teamwork to attempt to reach consensus rather than the usual
> adversarial approach that is prevalent within the GNSO.   Of course  
> such
> funding should only be for policy activities that are deemed
> strategically important to ICANN and in the strategic plan - rather  
> than
> more reactive policy work (e.g add-grace period adjustments), or
> refinements to existing policy (e.g transfers).
>
> Regards,
> Bruce Tonkin
Ross Rader
Director, Retail Services
t. 416.538.5492
c. 416.828.8783
http://www.domaindirect.com

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