Dear Council Colleagues, I wanted to suggest an additional topic during our meeting with the Board: The Next Round Date. I have raised concerns immediately after the publication of the Tripti Sinha’s 1 August blog on behalf of the Board regarding the aspirational April 2026 target. In my view, as I shared it privately with Becky Burr and Matthew Shears as our Board appointed members within a day or two of the publication, this does not constitute a firm date and is very likely to end up being a goal post that will slip. Firm dates not only mark clear goals but trigger reactions such as additional efforts and funds when deemed to be at risk of missing; aspirational targets don’t, they get missed and rescheduled. I note here the private nature of this exchange, I was at the time still hopeful that this was not the Announcement of a Date I was told we would have prior to Hamburg, and I wanted to make sure I was leaving all the room needed not to botch the announcement. As time goes, the likelihood of a more precise date is evaporating. The same point was made last month in our Leadership call with Sally Costerton and in fact took our entire conversation. There were admittedly concerns raised, but our point was confirmed to be clearly undertood. I won’t dwell too much on the fact that to me April is too late as it will run the 12-15 weeks Application Phase into the summer. The point has been made before, including to Sally, Becky and Matthew in our exchanges. I will note – and admittedly I still need to go through this week’s transcripts for accuracy – that on a number of occasions I have heard in Staff presentations hints that April 2026 is already slipping into June 2026. “Q2 2026” is still the expression used, but we are talking in 2-3 cases of activities to happen in late 2025 or early 2026 quoting them as “6 months before the launch”. I would like for Council to be able to express both its understanding of the complexity of the task ahead and the difficulty to commit this far ahead to a date, and the imperative necessity to do so early to allow the rest of the world to plan for a Next Round with the confidence that is will now happen in the next 3 years. Kindly, Sebastien Ducos GoDaddy Registry | Senior Client Services Manager [signature_2437175996] +33612284445 France & Australia sebastien@registry.godaddy<mailto:sebastien@registry.godaddy> From: council <council-bounces@gnso.icann.org> on behalf of DiBiase, Gregory via council <COUNCIL@gnso.icann.org> Date: Tuesday, 10 October 2023 at 7:25 pm To: COUNCIL@GNSO.ICANN.ORG <COUNCIL@gnso.icann.org> Cc: gnso-secs@icann.org <gnso-secs@icann.org> Subject: [council] Follow up on GNSO Council related meetings at ICANN78 Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Forward suspicious emails to isitbad@. Dear Councilors, I’m following up on the email below regarding the working document<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a3plNvimEJjpSUhahQPtpJU6BUXBkUKiQruv...> which includes the agendas for the various Council related meetings, such as the GNSO working sessions and joint meetings. I’d like to highlight a couple portions below (but please comment on any section of the document). First I would like to confirm the single topic suggested by the Council for the joint meeting between the ICANN Board and GNSO Council. The topic is: Preliminary discussion of Board Statement not-adopting certain SubPro recommendations. The Council’s topic(s) must be communicated to the Board by 11 October. Note, this engagement is expected to serve as at least the first meeting to discuss the Board Statement as required by Annex A, Section 9 (c) of the ICANN Bylaws, referenced in Tripti’s letter<https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/policy/2023/correspondence/sinha-...> to the Council. Holding this meeting would not preclude additional discussion at a later time, as deemed necessary. In order to support this topic, the Council’s SubPro Pending Recommendations small team is concentrating on a working document<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bumhCtJ1C3PatdsSHsl435Kk11mxGJXQ/edit> that first and foremost, identifies clarifying questions to discuss with the Board. In addition, the working document identifies which of the non-adopted recommendations that the small would like to try and modify in order to address the Board’s concerns, as well as a high-level understanding of what that modification could look like. The second reason for follow-up is to draw attention to the second GNSO Working Session where the GNSO will meet with staff from the Global Domains and Strategy (GDS) team. While the GDS team will come prepared to provide an update, it will be helpful if Councilors identify questions/comments in advance, in order to better support an active dialogue. Thanks, Greg From: council <council-bounces@gnso.icann.org> On Behalf Of Steve Chan via council Sent: Wednesday, October 4, 2023 4:51 PM To: council@gnso.icann.org Subject: [EXTERNAL] [council] GNSO Council related meetings at ICANN78 CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you can confirm the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Councilors, For your planning purposes, please find this working document<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a3plNvimEJjpSUhahQPtpJU6BUXBkUKiQruv...> which includes the agendas for the various Council related meetings, such as the GNSO working sessions and joint meetings. In particular, I’d like to draw your attention to the tab for the GNSO Council/Board session which currently has one potential topic for the Council to suggest, and one Board proposed topic. The deadline to communicate topics for that Board/Council session is 11 October. The other quick comment is that the latest and greatest Council/GAC proposed agenda is included. Jeff, apologies for potentially stealing your thunder! If you have any questions or comments on any of the agendas, please share them on this list. And for the Council/Board session, please also consider whether additional topics are needed for the 60 minute session. Best, Steve Steven Chan VP, Policy Development Support & GNSO Relations Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 Email: steve.chan@icann.org<mailto:steve.chan@icann.org> Skype: steve.chan55 Mobile: +1.310.339.4410 Find out more about the GNSO by visiting: https://learn.icann.org/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__learn.icann.org_&d=DwMGaQ&c=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM&r=DRa2dXAvSFpCIgmkXhFzL7ar9Qfqa0AIgn-H4xR2EBk&m=jLNFXvpu9gNdUeHi-G6sjWNCF9w4_AwhzzUDFZy2elE&s=o7Auz997kA-HPv9PHJCjFVZw7Pgo8krw4MxfqCwBrIU&e=> Follow @GNSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ICANN_GNSO<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__twitter.com_ICANN-5FGNSO&d=DwMGaQ&c=FmY1u3PJp6wrcrwll3mSVzgfkbPSS6sJms7xcl4I5cM&r=DRa2dXAvSFpCIgmkXhFzL7ar9Qfqa0AIgn-H4xR2EBk&m=jLNFXvpu9gNdUeHi-G6sjWNCF9w4_AwhzzUDFZy2elE&s=kWw4fQPNjw2lVKy1UjTxS2F0BmjEAzaDFWNmsYywbmE&e=> Transcripts and recordings of GNSO Working Group and Council events are located on the GNSO Master Calendar <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__gnso.icann.org_en_group...>
