[Gnso-sc-budget] Cost of Montevideo team meeting in Saint Lucia on Valentine's Day

[Ayden Férdeline]

[From Twitter](https://twitter.com/ICANN/status/964517026298396674) I gather that the Montevideo office is hosting an all-hands meeting in Saint Lucia, some 5,400 km away, this week. The tweet indicates that 10 ICANN staffers are in attendance and names the countries where they are based in. However, in the photograph shared on Twitter I recognise a Stakeholder Engagement Manager who is based in the United States. The US is not name dropped in the tweet like other countries are, so it is possible there are more than 10 staff in attendance, perhaps not from the Montevideo office.

I do not understand why Saint Lucia on Valentine's Day was chosen as the venue when ICANN has an office in Montevideo and most of the staff in attendance will be traveling from neighbouring countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru, if not based in Uruguay itself.

To help contextualise the cost of CROP and other community support which is being cut, I would find it helpful to be provided with a figure of how much this meeting is budgeted to cost on average per staff member in attendance, and what the average cost of a supported CROP traveler was in FY18. I understand from the ICANN staff travel policy (posted in FCM and viewable to constituency travellers) that staff fly business class on journeys over eight hours, which would apply to most of the staff in attendance, though perhaps the Budget Owner has asked staff to fly in a lower class of travel?

[staff_travel_policy.jpg]

I do not intend to scrutinise every team retreat that is held, or to try to determine the cost of everything that ICANN is tweeting out, and I hope this message does not come across that way. I think there is value in face-to-face meetings like this one. A lot of value.

But my perception is that the community has been unfairly targeted for cuts in the FY19 Budget when the bulk of the budget is being spent on personnel costs and professional services. I understand that some staff support the community, but (and I am speaking in my personal capacity here) I think the SCBO has an obligation to look at ICANN's overall patterns of spending for effectiveness and efficiency. We should hold ourselves to this same standard, too, and make sure we as the GNSO (and the Council) similarly are effective and efficient with resources.

Thank you,

Ayden Férdeline
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