Thank you for sharing this, Heather, and for confirming the dates well in advance. I do appreciate this. And I am pleased to hear that this meeting will stretch for three days now. That was a good length this year. Best wishes, Ayden Férdeline On Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 10:59, Heather Forrest <haforrestesq@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear 2018/19 GNSO Councilors,
We are very pleased to inform you that the FY19 Additional Budget Request for the GNSO Council Strategic Planning Session has been accepted for a 2-day face-to-face meeting. It has been decided to combine the Strategic Planning Session with the annual provision for a GNSO Council Development day. The latter is traditionally scheduled in conjunction with the Annual General Meeting, but as this extends an already lengthy public meeting, it will be moved to January 2019. This allows for a 3-day face-to-face meeting in January 2019 to allow the GNSO Council to induce new Council members and to conduct a focused and dedicated strategic planning session in order to develop a work plan for the year ahead and beyond, factoring in the existing workload as well as new and ongoing initiatives (such as PDP 3.0). Our efforts in January 2018 to catalogue all ongoing projects (the "scary spreadsheet") and discuss budget priorities have quickly become a model for other SO/ACs; we have here an invaluable opportunity in this upcoming 2019 session to improve upon our inaugural SPS and take even bigger steps towards making the work of the Council more efficient and effective.
To maximize the funding received, the Strategic Planning Session will be held from Wednesday 23rd to Friday 25th January 2019, not including travel, at the ICANN office in Los Angeles.
One of the requirements of the pilot program is that the session be based at an ICANN office location for logistical and financial purposes. Full travel support (i.e., airfare, hotel) will be provided to all 21 GNSO Councilors (2018/2019 Council members) as well as the GNSO Liaison to the GAC. Meeting space as well as AV support will of course be provided, as well as GNSO Support staff for facilitation.Further details will be circulated shortly with information about travel.
We hope that all incoming/continuing Councilors will prioritise this special opportunity to come together as a new Council, set priorities, and work out strategies for delivering upon and communicating these to the wider ICANN community.
Best wishes,
Heather Forrest, Donna Austin, Rafik Dammak