English

The ICANN Board met by teleconference on April 30th and discussed the issue of ICANN's international meetings at some length. Cairo was officially designated as the host city for the third and final ICANN meeting of the year.

Budgets were also discussed at length. The Paris meeting budget, which stood at USD 1.54 million when I last mentioned this topic, has now grown to USD 1.81 million. Cairo promises to be even more expensive with the Board approving a USD 2.03 million budget.

The Board also spent some time on the proposal to cut the number of annual ICANN meetings to 2 per year from the current 3. The minutes make fascinating reading. ICANN VP Paul Levins providing some clear and sensible explanations as to why this is being considered. ICANN clearly understands that with so many in the community devoting a fairly large amount of time and money to attending meetings, it might be a good idea to look at alternatives.

When asked if cost reduction was the main motivation, Paul Levins is quoted as saying that this is partly the case, but that it "was mainly about reform to the meetings process and the investment of time and anecdotal information received from the community that up to 20 days per year is a big investment in community time in meeting time, especially for a volunteer community many of whom had to rely upon their place of employment to support them."