On behalf of Donna Austin and Heather Forrest

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Dear Councilors,

The GNSO Strategic Planning session is currently scheduled for Monday 29^th, Tuesday 30^th and Wednesday 31^st January 2018.

As a reminder, this meeting is the result of a GNSO Council Additional Budget Request requesting a meeting in January 2018 to allow councilors to plan for the year ahead. This request was granted provided all main travel logistics (venue location and dates) be decided 5 months ahead of time to allow for adequate planning and availability of resources.

The approval for this request also specified that the venue location had to be an ICANN Office - capacity reasons meant that only the LA office could accommodate this session. Given the NCPH Intersessional is traditionally also scheduled for January – February 2018, it made sense to ensure both sessions were coordinated together to reduce travel for the NCPH Councilors who would be potentially attending both. The dates chosen were selected for the additional following reasons:

• The first week of January (1 – 5) is off-limits as it impacts a traditional holiday for some Councilors, and ICANN offices do not reopen until 2 January. It will also mean that NCPH Councilors cannot easily attend both the GNSO and the NCPH Intersessional events if they are not run consecutively.
• The second and third week of January (8-19) are too early taking into account potential visa issues for the Intersessional (which will have over 40 attendees) and potential incoming councilors. This may also be difficult for NCPH Councilors intending to attend the Intersessional if there is a week’s break in between the two events.
• The third week of January (22 – 26) – the facilities at the ICANN offices in LA are not available as a departmental meeting of 30+ members is already scheduled for those dates.
• Part of the fourth week of January (29^th-31^st January clashes with NamesCon, but enables the NCPH Intersessional to be scheduled right after the GNSO Strategic session.

Note that the NCPH Intersessional has been scheduled to take place immediately after the GNSO session to allow affected Councilors to attend both events and give as much time as possible for affected Intersessional attendees to obtain visas. In addition, switching the dates for the two events will still affect Councilors intending to attend both events, and potentially more people if Intersessional attendees are also planning to go to NamesCon.

The timing issue with NamesCon and the currently scheduled GNSO Strategic Session is unfortunate and we sincerely apologise; however, as we hope you will understand from the information provided above, options for January are limited and we believe it is important for the Council to meet during January so that we can set the path for 2018. We appreciate your understanding and hope that in completing the doodle poll you can take these factors into account.

The intent of this doodle poll is primarily to understand how many councilors would be affected by the clash with NamesCon; however, we also want to use this opportunity to identify folks that may be unable to attend for other reasons.

Please be so kind as to fill in the below Doodle poll by COB 1 September 2017.

Google survey: https://goo.gl/forms/mXMN0nmPwEM3icjG3

Kind regards,

Donna Austin & Heather Forrest