[WSIS CS-Plenary] meeting rooms during the interssession (issue of common interest and concern)

Thu Jul 10 17:19:55 BST 2003

Dear all,

In addition to Bertrand's message please find room reservations, confirmed
below by Natascha Denossova.

YJ, you will find the lunchtime reserve on the 16th.
Best Renata

...<Dear Renata,

As discussed by phone, here is the recapitulation of the space I reserved
for you:

- Plenary Civil Society: 15-18 July, 18:15- 19:15, Room IV, Fontenoy

- 16 July, 13:15-15:00, Room IX, Fontenoy (under condition that Mr de La
Chapelle agrees to start his meeting at 3:00)

- Bureau Civil Society: 15-18 July, 9:00-10:00, Room IX on 15 July,
Fontenoy, and/or Room XIV, Bonvin

- Civil Society Drafting Group: 15-18 July, 9:00-18:00, Room A 12, Fontenoy

For other meetings which will come up we will decide on ad hoc basis. Most
probably you will be allocated either room XIV or XV, Bonvin.

Regards,

Natasha...>

Renate Bloem
President of the Conference of NGOs (CONGO)
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CH-1211 Geneva 10
Tel: +41 22 917 1881
Fax: +41 22 917 0373
E-mail: rbloem at ngocongo.org
Website: www.ngocongo.org
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The Conference of NGOs (CONGO) is an international, not-for-profit
membership association that facilitates the participation of NGOs in United
Nations debates and decisions.  Founded in 1948, CONGO's major objective is
to ensure the presence of NGOs in exchanges among the world's governments
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membership email-network has become a major source of information for NGOs
active within the United Nations and seeking collaboration/partnerships with
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-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of Bertrand de LA CHAPELLE
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 11:47 PM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] meeting rooms during the interssession (issue
of common interest and concern)

Dear all,

I unfortunately missed the recent debate on rooms during
the intersession. So let me add a few comments

The situation is the following :

1) the UNESCO has two main facilities, at less than five
minutes walking distance but still in a different building.

2) the conference itself will take place in the main
building (place de fontenoy)

3) in this building, two large rooms are reserved for the
governmental process (plenary and possible drafting
group)

4) only two other rooms are available in this building
furing the intersession : one is reserved permanently for
the private sector; the other one (room 9) should be a
natural fit for civl society plenaries : medium size, with a
podium. The Unesco told me they try to WiFi-enable the
whole venue, so this room should be WiFi as well if
signal goes through the thick floor. But there is no
translation available and getting our own translators in
would have required previous screening by the
translation office of Unesco (the corporation is very
protective as you know).

5) The main problem is : as no general reservation was
made by anybody from either the civil society bureau or
the CS division of the executive seretariat, 2 1/2 days on 4
were already reserved on a first-come, first served basis.

6) Two reservations (total 1 day) were :
- for the full afternoon of the 15th, by an organization
called "Observatoire National de l'Internet des
professions liberales" (web address :
http://www.apipl.org, contact : Thierry Bouchard at : 33
(0)6 82 14 25) who will be organizing a series of
"auditions of experts" on the role of "professions
liberales" in civil society
- for the full morning of the 16th, by the organizers of the
Local Authorities Summit on the Information society to be
held in Lyon on Dec 4-5 (contact Véronique Kleck : 33
(0)6 75 61 26 08)
As there were no rules established, it seems difficult to
prevent them from holding meetings they already have
advertised and are legitimate to hold.

7) This leaves the  pb of the remaining 1 1/2 day (the
morning of the 15 th and the whole day of the 18th) where
the only appropriate room for Civil Society as a whole is
reserved by our friends from .....Webforce. I leave to the
Civil society bureau the question of how to handle this in
the most appropriate manner. But it certainly raises
some concern.

8) as a matter of security, I reserved the afternoon of the
16th and the whole day of the 17th to make sure it would
not be taken before we decide what to do. These time
slots are therefore at the disposition of all civil society but
I would keep 2 hours on the 16th (ideally 3 to 5) and 2
hours on the 17th (at a time to be determined).
They will be used for a presentation of the OpenWSIS
web site and an illustration of its methodology, but also to
allow some other actors to present the processes they
have launched : this includes CRIS, but also the Unesco,
the ICT4D platform and the VirtualWSIS, initiatives that
can be of interest to civil society.

9) additional - very - small spaces (not really rooms,
more like openspaces with high separations) are
available near the room 9 and we may use them for light
drafting, but they will be close to the offices reserved for
the executive secretariat

9) the Unesco is very keen on providing additional
meeting rooms and enough space is available in the
second building, which is really close. Internet
connexions can be available but no projector nor WiFi.

10) the contact person for rooms is :
Natasha Denissova
Information Society Division
UNESCO
1, rue Miollis - 75732 Paris
Tel.: + 33.1 45 68 43 27
Fax: + 33.1 45 68 55 83
E-mail: n.denissova at unesco.org

She is very cooperative and will really try to accomodate
the needs we may have. But they did not have any
mandate to regulate who reserved what and should not
be held responsible for us not having made a general
reservation beforehand.

I hope this will clarify the issues.  And anyway, we'll
manage. The key question is : shall we wait until the
afternoon of the 16th to have a first plenary meeting ?

Best to you all

Bertrand

Bertrand de LA CHAPELLE
OpenWSIS Initiative
lachapelle at openwsis.org
tel : 33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

About OpenWSIS
The OpenWSIS Initiative is an open consultation and
cooperation process for all categories of stakeholders to
jointly identify and formalize Issues of Common Concern
or Interest (ICCIs), to facilitate implementation of the
WSIS Action Plan between  Geneva and Tunis.

A propos de l'OpenWSIS
L'Initiative OpenWSIS est un processus ouvert de
consultation et de coopération permettant à toutes les
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ensemble des sujets de préoccupation ou d'intérêt communs
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