[bc-gnso] report from Toronto session: proposal to consolidate meeting locations

[Mike Roberts]

I think the BC should file comments on this.  

The purpose of the rotating meetings evolves as the organization grows.  Need to be sensitive to why people come.   In early days, mostly to help stand up ICANN, and to protect perceived organizational interests.  Today, more commercial, business flavor.  Tomorrow?

Comments on site thus far are good and suggest more staff work is needed.  Particularly in assessing overall attractiveness/efficiency of sites.  Example matrix:

- Visa availability
- Low (lower?) airfares
- Hotel/conf venue and guaranteed discount rates
- weather/local interest etc
- burden on staff to support (current arrangements are terrific drain on scarce staff time)

Recently, an American networking organization I have been involved with that draws 800-1000 attendees decided to have one major policy oriented meeting a year near Washington DC (home of policy for us whether we like it or not!), and a second meeting that moves around and also tailors its agenda to current items of major attendee interest/concern.  May be some lesson here for ICANN.  Do we really need to visit every topic every meeting?

- Mike




On Oct 18, 2012, at 10:18 AM, Steve DelBianco wrote:

> ICANN's Public Comment page for the proposed strategy is here.   
> The "RATIONALE FOR CONSOLIDATED MEETINGS STRATEGY PROPOSAL" is here.
> 
> Summary of the proposal for ICANN meetings in 2014, 2015, and 2016: 
>> Asia/Pacific gets 1st meeting of each year 
>> Europe gets 2nd meeting of each year
>> North America/Africa/Latin America alternate for the 3rd meeting.
>> 
> Discussion:
> 
> Kieren McCarthy: over half of ICANN participants come from North America.  It's more pragmatic to make North America one of the regular annual locations.        Chris Disspain asked, and Nick confirmed that North America has the best availability of suitable venues.  But Chris argued against using North America as a regular annual venue because of ICANN's global outreach priority.
> 
> Avri Doria: VISA availability is key.    Nick: If we pick a facility for re-use, we do better negotiating visas there.   Avri: “A good reason not to use North America is that  North America is not nice about visas”
> 
> DelBianco (NetChoice):  The title “Consolidated Meetings” implies fewer ICANN meetings.  I don’t see how we can get our work done with just 2 meetings instead of 3.   Asked if this 3-year plan is actually a transition plan to cut the meetings.
> Chris said no.  Nick Tomaso said “Consolidated” was a term with respect to the meeting locations.   Chris agreed. 
> 
> Euralo secretariat said that those who were denied a Canadian Visa will be on a list that could deny them future visas. (Is this even remotely true?!)
> 
> Hungary GAC rep: the South Africa GAC rep said they were not consulted about Durban location selection.   Chris disagreed.
> 
> Marguerite (Chilean participant): some countries don’t have venues large enough to meet ICANN’s big-meeting requirements.  Asked for flexibility.  Chris said it doesn’t work so well if participants have 20-minute bus rides to the meetings.
> 
> --
> Steve DelBianco
> Executive Director
> NetChoice
> http://www.NetChoice.org and http://blog.netchoice.org
> +1.202.420.7482
> 

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