Page History

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Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         Is it your fruit-based machine that is acting up again?

Wiki MarkupMatt Ashtiani:                                    Yeah it's a little bit of waking up at 5am \[inaudible Ashtiani:                                    Yeah it's a little bit of waking up at 5am [inaudible 00:04:57\].  

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         Juan's fruit based machine also acts up, goodness.

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Juan Ojeda:                             Thank you Mr. Olivier and thank you members of the ALAC and the other members of finance for joining us on this call.  This form which is slightly revised or somewhat updated for FY’13 is again intended to capture as much information as possible for all the community requests from the stakeholder organizations and advisory NACs. unmigrated-wiki-markup

For requests for projects for inclusion into the FY’13 budget, the top section the request information that’s pretty generic, we will give it a title so that when we have \ [inaudible 00:10:21\] phone calls we know exactly what project we’re speaking about \ -\- the name of the community requestor, the name of the person who is making the request, the chair of the respective SO and AC, as well as the name of the respective staff liaison, the same thing for description.    

What type of activity is it engaging in?  Is it outreach, training, travel support, research and study and so on and so forth?  The proposed time line, this came as a result of some input from last year’s request template in terms of it's a recurring activity do we indicate that as such or if it's a one time, this is the space to do so under the request description section.  Under the request objectives, this is probably one of the more important areas, first the specific request which item in the strategic plan, which area does this - is this in support of? unmigrated-wiki-markup

The demographics, what audience and what geographical areas does this project intend to target?   What are the    What are the deliverables, just from a measurable perspective to ensure that this project has been completed to fruition?    And last but not least the metrics, what measurements can we use to determine how successful this project was.  What \was.  What [inaudible 00:11:44\] the implementation should this specific project be approved?  

The resource planning is a little bit more of a build up from what we had in last fiscal year, in terms of staff support needed, in terms of equivalent head counts, how long and what type of FTE (Full Time Equivalent) do we need in terms of which area, if it's finance, if it's policy, if it's compliance and what have you.  And for fiscal year budgeting purposes, for planning purposes, we’re also this time asking for some time line in terms of when these resources are expected to be incurred. 

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Juan Ojeda:                             I think Aba is going to -

Wiki MarkupAba Diakite:                            Yes, that is correct.  That is in case there is \[inaudible Diakite:                            Yes, that is correct.  That is in case there is [inaudible 00:20:44\].

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:              I can't hear.

Juan Ojeda:                             Aba did you get cut off?

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Juan Ojeda:                             Aba did you get cut off?

Aba Diakite:                            [Inaudible Wiki MarkupAba Diakite:                            \[Inaudible 00:20:51\] organization.  \  [Inaudible 00:20:52\].

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         I think we are not getting Aba very well at the moment, can't hear anything.

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Juan Ojeda:                             When he gets better reception I will let him expand on it, but that’s a cost that’s - if ALAC as part of their study or their participation in a particular research program or what have you, requires a cash contribution or any kind of planned contribution to whoever is holding the event per se, that would fall under this section.unmigrated-wiki-markup

Janice Douma Lange:              And Juan this is Janice, I think I've had such a case with the Fellowship Program such as \[inaudible Lange:              And Juan this is Janice, I think I've had such a case with the Fellowship Program such as [inaudible 00:21:31\] he came forward and said as a sponsor they were going to put a certain amount of money towards getting additional participants from the Asia region to the meeting.    And we had to work it through the meeting team and sponsorship guideline in order to work that.    But it's the same principle of it.    If you have something on the outside you just need to document how that money will apply towards that request.    But again, I would leave to Aba from a financial standpoint to clarify when he can come back online.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:              Especially since you just said two different things.

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Aba Diakite:                            Yes the point that I was making is sometimes we have some of those requests to sponsor events or some of activity in a different part of the region and that item is to cover that type of request. 

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         So this would be a contribution, a cash contribution to an external event that is not an ICANN event that would require sponsorship from ICANN, is this correct?-LeBlond:         So this would be a contribution, a cash contribution to an external event that is not an ICANN event that would require sponsorship from ICANN, is this correct?

Aba Diakite:                            That is correct.  It can be cash, it can also be in kind, those are usually [inaudible 00:23:10 Wiki MarkupAba Diakite:                            That is correct.  It can be cash, it can also be in kind, those are usually \[inaudible 00:23:10\].

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         We are losing you again.

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Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         Yes, welcome back.unmigrated-wiki-markupback.

Aba Diakite:                            If there is an event and you \[inaudible Diakite:                            If there is an event and you [inaudible 00:23:28\] volunteers to sponsorship to provide for example interpretation during the meeting that would be a type of sponsorship contribution.

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         I think we've lost Aba again.

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Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         Okay thank you but I think just as a - for the record the event in Dakar did have all of these metrics, so we have those and I think they have been transmitted over to ICANN, so we have a full set of return of investment on that.   any other questions on the template itself? 

Wiki MarkupCheryl Langdon-Orr:              I seen that you also accept additional sheets of paper, \[inaudible               I seen that you also accept additional sheets of paper, [inaudible 00:36:14\] plans or whatever or do you just want it chip and cheerful like it is now?    In other words do you just want the numbers of do you care about the concepts?

Juan Ojeda:                             No the concepts are definitely important and if the space doesn’t allow you, you can certainly attach a sheet.  I know that the - I think I communicated this I think it was in san Francisco that the ALAC was probably the SO and AC that presented the best requests in terms of the detail they provided.  Additional sheets or additional information can certainly be included; however we do request that the template be completed as much as possible for each specific request. 

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Cheryl Langdon-Orr:              Okay we've now got 10 days, the Finance and Budget Subcommittee has 10 days in a perfect world to gather who knows how many, let's hope it's no more than 30 or 40 or 50 or 100 and rank them, right?  No problem at all because we don’t have anything else to do of course, do we?  We work fulltime for our organization, not.  We will deal with it the best way we can this time around. unmigrated-wiki-markup

Next time around to make this manageable and more successful and easier and do something out at the regions earlier, will we be assuming that the templates will be the same for the next financial year?    And will the timing on requests, the windows for input, etc be the same in the next cycle built out of \ [inaudible 00:47:22\] planning or not?

Xavier Calvez:                        It's difficult to say.  I would intuitively want to say yes, but having not yet received - because we are at the beginning of it, feedback across everyone of the format, the time lines and so on, I can't for sure know whether everyone is happy with it, everyone is unhappy with it and there is an obvious amount of changes to apply to the process or it's time line that everyone would want to come up with.  My only direct answer to your question at this stage is I think we would want to try to provide more time for their requests than the basically month and a half or seven weeks that we have provided this time around.  Because I think the information -

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Xavier Calvez:                        And I do expect that the discussions this year will go on basically until Costa Rica, right?  Because the deadline that we have provided of December 20 is if you calculate it it's about the 45 days of public comment between that date and Costa Rica.  And we wanted to make sure because we have to ensure that there is a public comment opportunity that we had to put the deadlines together a time line that allows the community to have the public comment period being offered.  And as a result we didn’t have much of choice then this time. 

Wiki MarkupNow the original deadline was to be the 9 December or 15 December, I don’t remember that’s what we had discussed in Dakar.    And we pushed that out because we took longer to come up with the template on one hand.    And to also try to disconnect the \ [inaudible 00:52:27\] feedback from the framework publication which is on 17 January so that we don’t force the - you all to provide information so that it can be included in the framework because that would make it more of a constraint for you guys as well as for us.  

No one would really benefit from it and it's not extremely useful that we have the requests in the framework especially if no one has really the amount of time to produce them.  That’s why we pushed it out.  I recognize that it then went over the year end vacation period which when we add five or six weeks to the process there is one or two weeks taken out of it because of the holidays and at the end of the day we’re going to have to find ways to deal with the fact that there are holidays and that holidays are different across the world. unmigrated-wiki-markup

It's going to be - if I take out all the holidays’ time of the year we’re going to be left with four months to work on a budget that takes 10 months to do.    We will have to try to accommodate that one way or the other but certainly to Cheryl's point.    I think what we are going to try to do next year to publish the calendar much earlier and try to stick to it.    But publishing it much earlier so that people know what the deadlines are, know how they can work and with which tools and then publishing the deadlines earlier so that people understand.    And exactly to Cheryl's point the work on the \ [inaudible 00:54:15\] request doesn’t have to start in January it can start in September.

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         Okay thank you very much Xavier.  I understand we are running out of time.  I just had one last question for you which was that of multiple year budget requests.  Is this something which you can speak about now, or is this not ready yet?requests.  Is this something which you can speak about now, or is this not ready yet?

Xavier Calvez:                        Well I think that we should look at it in terms of activities.  So if an activity [inaudible Wiki MarkupXavier Calvez:                        Well I think that we should look at it in terms of activities.  So if an activity \[inaudible 00:54:48\] you would like to bring up for the FY’13 is actually an activity you would like to recurring I think we should - you should try to formulate that in the request.    If you and have been exchanging emails on general assemblies and so on, if there are some kind of meetings that you would like to formulate as recurring activities with one or two or three meetings per year on a continuing basis in that the request only makes sense when you look at the multiyear period that covers the full rotation for example of meetings, I think you should do that.  

What I'm asking is not that you formulate a request for 2014-2015 but that you formulate requests on a multiyear basis for those on which multiyear perspective makes sense.  Is that helpful?

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Xavier Calvez:                        Absolutely and I would expect that a number of requests are much more specific to 2012.  And I think as part of the exercise of prioritization that we will have to do, when we look at a request formulated during this current exercise then we will look at a multiyear schedule, we can all try to work together. 

Wiki MarkupMaybe we can insert the 2013 portion of this into the \ [inaudible 00:56:35\] request envelop process and at the same time trying to formulate this as therefore a pilot for next year and then look at this activity as a permanent activity and success determination that we've worked it out for the following year.  

I think it's useful to have to the full perspective of the requests if you perceive that this is something that would be looked at on a permanent basis.  And I recognize that sometimes all the requests we would like them to be permanent but I think we have to make the distinction between those that are structurally recurring like a rotation of meetings for example.  Or that can be defined within a given timeframe and leave it at that even if later we can consider making them permanent.

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Xavier Calvez:                        The request of a summit, I think it's best that you can formulate it as part of this exercise with the understanding that it would probably match or exceed the entire envelop but I have the impression that this specific request is something that we need to be able to address - to take out of the overall envelop approach because to your point this much more structural.  This is much bigger than what we are looking at on an annual basis. unmigrated-wiki-markup

And by the way, I'm sure you would like it but I don’t believe you would be suggesting having a summit every year.    So by definition that request needs to be looked at on the multiyear basis.    And so I think that if you can formulate it today as part of this process we should and what I suggest we do for that specific request or for any request like this that would be of a magnitude that takes it out of the \ [inaudible 00:59:16\] envelop that we’re talking about right now that we just take it - you formulate it. unmigrated-wiki-markup 

You give it to us.    We look at it.    And we take it out of this specific process and we look at it on a specific basis.    And when I say look at it, I suspect that this type of expense is large enough that we should look at it at the Board level because that’s really a structural decision that needs to be made by the Board if only because of the magnitude of the amount.    And that in my view would be the most logical approach.    But I would rather that it does come to us in the same process as the \ [inaudible 00:59:58\] request if you feel comfortable doing it like that because at least we will have the information and we can bring that information through the budgeting process.

Olivier Crepin-LeBlond:         Xavier thank you very much for this information.  We have run out of time.  We are actually six minutes over time and we have other calls that are following up right after this one.  Thank you very much for joining us.  Thanks to Juan, Janice and Aba and thanks to all of the Finance and Budget Subcommittee to have attended here.  Thanks bye.