Ray, I found the information in your note (including especially the information that the "hold out for special people" block has reached 28% of rooms available) very helpful and hope others did too. Others may disagree, but I think I've heard clear support in the community of people who actually do work for treating what Melinda described as "getting work done" as the first priority. I also think this discussion have been going on long enough that "we have to work three years in advance" is no longer an excuse for not being able to adjust planning policies. Empirically, we aren't working that far in advance anyway: I note that the schedule at http://www.ietf.org/meeting/upcoming.html shows "TBD" from IETF 98 onward, so, regardless of our aspirations, we are working less than 18 months out, not 36. We have also, IIR, moved at least one meeting on relatively short notice (less than two years), so that is feasible when the powers that be judge it important enough. I also note that, when the community is asked questions about advanced planning in this area, the questions would often qualify -- in the language of professional opinion research -- as "rigged" to produce the results desired by asking. In the case of the IETF, I assume the problem is lack of experience rather than malice (I suspect that the number of active IETF participants who are professionally trained as opinion researchers and survey instrument designers can be counted on the fingers of one hand) but we end up getting questions like "should the IETF go to Latin America" and not ones that would even attempt measure how much disruption and impediments to getting work done active IETF participants consider acceptable. Finally, before making that suggestion, I note that the arguments some years ago for contracts with particular hotel chains and working three years in advance included favorable treatment on room block sizes and similar arrangements as well as rates. That doesn't seem to be working out and, if there has been a policy review about it, I don't think the community has been informed. My sense from all of this is that the IAOC (or at least the meetings committee which I presume is accountable to the IAOC and am told serves at the IAOC's pleasure) isn't taking "get work done" seriously enough as a priority, perhaps because its members are insulated by those "hold outs" from feeling the actual pain. So I want to suggest an experiment, effective for IETF 95 - 98 (to be sure we pick up at least one North American meeting). The suggestion is that no member of the meetings committee, no member of the IAOC, and no individual whose organization is represented on either the IAOC or the meetings committee be treated as part of a "hold out" block or otherwise allowed to book a room at the main hotel during the first 30 days after booking officially open. "Organization is represented" excludes all of the IAB, IESG, and all ISOC employees because they have ex-officio representatives on the IAOC. I think exceptions for special circumstances, such as needing to be in the meeting hotel because of some critical meeting-running function, should be allowed. but only if the individual and circumstances can be made public. If the hotel situation really isn't interfering with getting work done and the regular rounds of complaints are just the usual community complaining (in lieu of cookies), then the experiment shouldn't be particularly burdensome or harmful. If any of the affected parties consider their "hold out" reservations to be an important perk of their positions, the community (and, where relevant, the Nomcom) should know that. And, if it helps focus attention on the community's real priorities, the accountability (including membership selection processes) of the meetings committee, etc., that would be, IMO, a definite win. best, john --On Thursday, December 17, 2015 06:57 -0500 Ray Pelletier <rpelletier@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >... > The block contracted was: >... > 95 rooms (840 total rooms - 28% of the total block) were held > out for a sub-block at the $209 rate for NOC Vols, Verilan, > AMS, IESG, IAB, IAOC >...