Proposal #59: Same AIM.
I propose that from 2010 the AIM is hosted always in the same country. It should be a major European airport-hub and tickets-costs should be shared among NAs/Participants.
Rationale
Having AIMs being hosted every year in one continent is quite fun... We get to travel every year to a different country, and usually take some time to travel around the area. Fun - but not worth it.
Keeping in mind that an AIM (including tickets) probably cost to the Organisation and its volunteers more than half a million Euros (yes.), think about it:Changing AIM hosting country makes the staff change every year. With that, it’s impossible to have relevant quality increase at the AIMs themselves.A lot of time of the planning of AIM is spent in actually giving information (“what do you need”, “is this fine?”, “not sure we can make it”). If this part was taken care of by itself, we could actually focus on improving the content.People say we change where AIM is hosted to “give a change to develop every NA”. This is a joke. With the money we save by having AIM at the same place, we could host at least 10 additional chapter workshops every year. No development project costs half-a-million.
So, I suggest CISV hires one full-time employee to work to organise the conference with a team of volunteers. This could be either in Frankfurt, Paris, or wherever is cheapest to fly to. We would host it every year in the same site, what probably can make things more adequate and cheap.
Maybe not at many people will go (since many are more attracted to the scenario than to the work), but well - it could be good.
Respectfully submitted, Marcos (BRA)
{ Background: Annual International Meetings take place every August following a rotation scheme: Every other year the conventions takes place in Europe, in between the location switches between Asia and the Americas. In the next years the AIM will be hosted in Guatemala 2009, Germany 2010, Indonesia 2011 and probably France 2011 }
4 Comments:
I agree
on a smaller scale it's the same direction where JB italy is going to decide how to organize our NJBMs:
We have 3 of them every year and they are quite expansive. We are suggesting to organize them always in the same place. (Its easier to get special discounts if you make a deal to bring every year a lot of people in the same structure).
It's nice to think that changing every year a lot of people could have the experience to organize AIM.
But in my opinion we should give priority to have as many people partecipating, not organizing it, and the way to achieve it is to keep prices low and reasonable.
The only flaw i see in this idea is that having AIM every year in the same place, we would loose the "promotional chance" that we have each year in a different country.
But i guess that saving money from the AIM maybe we could invest them in better promotional material/events...
Dario
It's quite funny, actually, as the direction many of our chapters want to go for our NBM is the opposite of what you suggest. The argument behind this is that (eventually) the cost of travel will even out for all chapters/regions that host these large events. This is fairly true--I was able to travel to Colombia in 2007 for a little over $600 from the USA. Travel to Italy this year was over $1500, and I booked my ticket from a major US hub in Atlanta! Yes, sharing the cost of tickets would be an option, but I question its ability to be effective when so few attendees are covered by CISV International for their travel to AIM. It would also be interesting to hear whether or not hosting an AIM strengthens a chapter. I know it did in the USA back in 2001.
An additional argument for hosting AIM in the same place is similar to the argument for keeping our National Board Meeting in Cincinnati: the rates we get for rooms, meeting space, and food are significantly lower by signing long-term agreements with a hotel.
A complaint I have (and have fielded from our JBers) is the (seemingly) excessive cost of IJBC and AIM. Many of our "older" JBers find themselves near or with easy access to the cities that are hosting AIM because of Seminar camps or other summer adventures, but are dissuaded from attending IJBC particularly due to its cost, especially when compared to ARMM.
I think that this is a bigger issue, at least for those of us in the USA--participation costs, and not travel costs need to be reduced significantly.
Alright! Let's start the discussion!
Martin - you have some great points.
It is true that the "cheapest place on earth" might not be in Europe. So let be it -- and I can amend my proposal to make it on "the cheapest place to fly on earth".
Furthermore, ticket-sharing is basically a sine-qua-non condition for this proposal, as it is the only one to make it fair.
I have no doubt that it is possible that hosting AIM has boosted some NAs. The simple fact that the NAs that host AIMs get paid (by the AIM budget) to send people to the 2 or 3 AIMs before that one already helps. Unfortunately - it is common that is chance is used pretty badly. And to be honest, I didn't see much change in the performance of any NA that I've seen because of AIMs.
But still - even if does: is it worth the cost of a few thousand Euros? I know it can be boring (I've been to the Drawbridge), but - as an organisation - does it make sense to keep going around the world and continue making the same organisation mistakes for many years?
I don't think so. Keep coming with thoughts, maybe this can be a motion.
ps - important to add - also - that most NAs that hosted AIMs recently actually made a profit out of it.
I have a few more points to add to the discussion:
- I would like to see somebody dig into the statistics of AIM-hosting conutries in the five years following an AIM: How have their activities developed? Is there an increase in participation or hosted activities? I tend to go with Marcos: The boost in motviation doesn't always translate into real increase in quality and quantity of programmes. On the other hand I think it is fair to say that the international involvement of hosting countries does increase, simply through more presence at AIMs. A reason to keep AIM rotating.
- Having looked into the AIM structure a few years ago, I'm not convinced that hosting AIM at the same place every year will really yield some benefit. What we really need are structural changes to AIM: Let's make AIM smaller and more compact. A meeting for trustees and committees full stop. Send observers to reional meetings and why no scrap the IJBC altogether and have the IJB-Team meet at AIM only. Let's have gigantous regional meetings (EJBM, ARMM, JEMM) - at the same cheap place every year?
- I find it sad to see that apparently the true costs of AIM are still not a major decisive factor when chosing the location. Even worse, the costs are hardly ever calculated fairly - all kinds of tricks are applied with exchange rates and number of double rooms, and nobody ever seems to be able to calculate if the nearest airport is a cheap hub. Furthermore, since the rotation system was introduced about 10 years ago, there's hardly any competition left, because hosts are already decided during regional meetings beforehand.
- I'd like to see a motion, that shares costs of all (or make it 50%) trustee travel through IO. This will create an item in the overall budget that is impossible to oversee.
Summing it up, I'd say, yes, Houston, we have a problem with AIM costs. But kicking out the rotation system won't do the trick.
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