November 27, 2009

Present: Pete, Luca, Simone, Camilo, Bertha, Riff, Sophie, Natalie, Ana Maria and Lucie

1.Overview of potential venues

• Hold the Bologna! (until 2011)
• Seattle taken out of the running by Nancy
• Syria not really a contender as it was only discussed at the Brussels workshop
• Virginie has not said anything online about the UNV-Bonn option (yoo-hoo! Virginie, are you there? LL to follow up)
• New option on the table: IFAD in Rome

See Google docs file for details: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmBgYE3lLWz7dGF1eXpnVGlkVm9qWnZEREtINnFnaGc&hl=en&invite=CKjTv44E

2.Discussion - pros and cons

Riff - Addis

• ECA expressed interest but they need to know about thematic thrust of the workshop and needs to fit in w/ programming. They are waiting from us.
• 2nd Addis venue: ILRI - Peter B is the contact. ILRI has campus outside Addis - no more than 60 people
• Nice venue but still doubts about connectivity
• Possibility of follow-up to Share Fair involve ECA and ILRI
• Dates - October 2010? Acknowledge Africa (Share Fair) not before June
• If option 2 - only 60 people? yes, even if people are off-campus, main room only contains 60

Simone - Cali

• We tend to concentrate a lot on Africa, would be nice to take the meeting to Latin America
• Language would be an issue, would need to be bilingual... we'd have to think about that when designing (e.g. all in Spanish one day before to enable participation from people from the continent)
• Sula Batsu already said they'd like to be involved. Camilo, could also be involved in the organization, if interested
• CIAT has campus with 90 rooms, there are rooms and apartments, everything is included
• Could also double up on rooms
• Catering on site, day care centre, also in the tropics so we can work outside
• Swimming pool (what, no spa? :-0)
• Direct flights to Bogota from Miami , NYC, Washington, Madrid, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Barcelona, then 1 hour flight connection to Cali
• How much are flights from Europe? 700- 800 euros (Luca: end of May price from Rome is around 1,011 Euro. Prices get higher end may
• What about security? OK if not going alone, CIAT is a well secured site but Cali is not most secured place in the world
• How to deal with the language issue? Translators can be available.. what cost? maybe support from CIAT, for these issues such as translation and interpretation... the new DG is keen on KM

Ana Maria - Chambery, France

• Big room, 60-80 people + one small room - we can get more rooms if needed
• Hotels walking distance
• Held meetings there before and organization went well remotely (from Nepal)
• Trained people can handle logistics
• Not having a KM4dev member on site is not optimal, though

Rome - IFAD

• Roxy and Willem proposed the venue in IFAD for free (which is outside Rome and can be cheaper)
• Do they absolutely want to do it at IFAD? no hotels around there
• Think they want it on site for extra exposure in the organization, they have money to do this
• Luca to talk to Roxy to see if their bid is really tied to the venue

Question/issues to consider:

• Do we want to have community life? i.e. like Zeist (all on same site)
  • I like to have community life because this is for me the most interesting
  • In Rome people will all be sleeping in different places - will not eat togehter at night = less networking - community life
  • IFAD may be enough outside Rome to do community building, no?

• Exclusion/inclusion: who gets to go to workshops in our community?
  • Would be hard for independents to go if outside of Europe... going so far would be costly and not everybody can afford these expenses in this moment
  • Often easier to get people form other parts of the world to Europe, rather than go to different continents
  • So far we haven't been able to get many people from South America and Asia to Europe, only some Africans (all have been sponsored)
  • We have to make the step to go outside Europe and if we go far from Europe and "in the field", we have to think about an occasion to go to visit the "field" (Simone: this is also possible in Cali, we have for ex. a very interesting telecentre experience that lasts for almost 10 years now)

• The main issues should be more about cost (low) and connectivity (high)

3. Tour de table

Can we could pick our top 2 or 3 each, in order to try to bring forward 2 or 3 venues, which could be explored in further detail?

• Sophie - 1. Cali, 2. Addis, 3. Europe (either Rome or Chambery)
• Simone - 1. Cali, 2. Addis
• Luca - 1. Cali, 2. Addis, 3. Rome (I could help out if in Rome)
• Pete - 1. Addis, 2. Cali, 3. Rome or Chambery... what's important = connectivity, clear sense of costs
• Riff - 1. Addis, 2. Cali, 3. Rome... because I do think Africa would be a better idea than LAC other things being equal. I think outside of Europe is a good idea, the actual best venue would be a matter of combining local champion, cost and connectivity to see how it works out. If too expensive, europe is ok too.
• Camilo - a lot of us working in Europe ... would prefer 1.Rome, then 2. Cali, 3. Addis... composition of group, where we are based is important
• Bertha - 1. Cali (but costs will be high), 2. Europe (either Rome or Chambery), 3. Addis
• Ana Maria - 1. Cali, 2, Chambery (costs compared to Rome - cheaper)
• Natalie - 1. Addis, 2. Cali, then either Rome or Chambery... depends on what kind of meeting we want to attend, who participates
• Lucie - 1. Cali, 2.Rome... also would be hard for me to go if outside Europe but would love to. My concerns with Addis are that we need to fit thematically in with what ECA wants (could work, could not) and that ILRI is too small/connectivity still uncertain. I agree that having a KM4dev member on site is important, which is why I'd say Rome instead of Chambery for Europe. Also IFAD would cover all the venue costs, which is substantial in Chambery (even though accommodation would be cheaper).

4. Next steps

Lucie will tally up the score and send a message to the Core group.

Here is what I have done to tally the scores: I gave 4 points for each number one choice, 3 points for the second choices and 2 points for the third. If two options were selected in any of these, I split the points (n.b: I am not an expert in doing this so the methodology might not be perfect!).

Here are the results:

1. Cali: 36 points
2. Addis: 25 points
3. Rome: 15.5 points
4. Chambery: 7.5 points