Re: [Mtgvenue] issue #3: Too many mandatory

[Fred Baker <[e-mail]>]

> On Apr 11, 2017, at 10:44 AM, Eliot Lear <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Lou,
> 
> 
> On 4/11/17 7:12 PM, Lou Berger wrote:
>> The text in question reads:
>> 
>>    The economics of the Venue allow the meeting to be net cash positive.
>> 
>> To make make it clear that it's not saying preserve the current model, how about:
>> 
>>    The economics of the Venue allow the meeting to not result in a net
>> loss.
>> 
> 
> What was said in the meeting, as I recall, was that even planning a loss
> at ONE meeting is okay, so long as the IAOC can see their way clear from
> a budgetary standpoint.  For instance, Jari was complaining about the
> cost of going to Japan.  Maybe what happens (and I don't know if this is
> the right thing to do) is that the IAOC decides to subsidize a meeting
> with Japan from somewhere else.  Should that not be allowed, and should
> the IETF community care?  And if we do, what precisely is it that we
> care about?

I think that is stated too tightly.

The IAOC has a budget for IETF operations 365 days a year, which includes the costs of the secretariat, IT expenses, yada yada yada, and OBTW, meetings. Meeting fees pay for part of the costs; we also have ISOC funding, which is primarily derived from organizational member fees and PIR profits (which Steve Crocker will tell you exist for exactly one purpose, which is the funding of the IETF), and we have funding from hosts and sponsors. The point is that the sum of the revenues meets or exceeds the sum of the costs.

So it's not "let's make enough in meeting X to pay for the loss in meeting Y", it's "let's fund the entire budget".