Proposed NCSG Statement of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group to the Proposed Dates for ICANN Public Meetings 2024-2028 and Revised Dates in 2022 Draft Report

[Caleb Olumuyiwa Ogundele]

Hello Joan, Muriel and Rafik,

Tried to access the document but having troubles with the Google doc app on
my phone so will post directly here on behalf of some NPOC members who have
raised some valid concerns.

However, see this as a contribution from NPOC members to this comment.
Please find below some observations from our members.

Some of the the dates do not put into consideration some religious
concerns. Such concerns such as Ramadan, sukkot/Shmini Atzeret /Dawil for
other years.
Further observations are stated below :

The main observations are that in moving the AGM Meeting from Late
October/Early November in an effort to put several weeks distance between
the IETF and the ICANN Meetings, they have created conflicts with Jewish
Religious Holidays where there had been none and also conflicts with DIWALI
and other holidays.  This time, late October/early November is usually a
good time free of conflicts and moving it up the middle of October runs
into many conflicts. While it would be desirable not to have the ICANN
meetings so close to the IETF ones, moving ICANN meeting dates up appear to
disregard important holidays and religious days. In any event, IETF meeting
attendees tend to travel immediately from the ICANN meeting to the IETF
Meeting as they have done in the past.

2) the March Meetings in 2024 and 2026 these are in conflict with the
celebration of Ramadan. ICANN Org needs to understand and note this conflict

3) There is a special call for attention to the Public Comments and
statements ICANN has made in the Multistakeholder Model Plan where they
acknowledge the difficulty in getting new people to join and engage within
ICANN and to increase the diversity of participants.  The Multistakeholder
Model Work Plan takes note of a concern about whether ICANN has developed
pathways to enable effective participation. One of the more practical ways
for ICANN to facilitate participation is for ICANN Org, to be more aware of
and to avoid clashing with important holidays and religious days observed
by volunteers who work countless hours to improve ICANN’s multistakeholder
advisory work. By avoiding these dates as much as possible it is showing
all volunteers that ICANN ORG understands their concerns and does its best
to avoid conflicts.


Some of their *recommendations* include the following :

For September 2022, we suggest that these meeting dates be moved a full two
or three weeks later, at the end of October when the AGM has traditionally
occurred in order to avoid clashing with a Jewish Holiday.

For October 2024, it is unclear why we are having the AGM during these
dates when they conflict both with a Jewish Holiday and with the EURO IX
forum. Moving these by one week would be considered ideal. Having the
meeting start on a Sunday instead of Saturday would be best as the Jewish
Holidays end the evening of Friday, October 25.

For March 2025, ICANN Org needs to consider that this meeting conflicts
with Ramadan, which lasts the entire month of March if these dates are to
be retained as is. Passover is Friday, April 11 and Good Friday is April 18

For March 2026, ICANN Org needs to consider that this meeting conflicts
with Ramadan which is from February 18-March 19 and moving it is tricky
because of the upcoming Passover and Easter celebrations, which are
Passover (March 31)/Easter periods (Good Friday is April 1). As an added
wrinkle, IETF is from March 14-20.

For October 2027, this meeting falls during the Jewish Holiday of
Sukkot/Shemini Atzeret (Eighth Day of Solemn Assembly/Simchat Torah) which
could be avoided by moving it two weeks earlier making it back-to-back with
the IETF meeting.



Caleb Ogundele

________________

Sent with thumbs from a small screen mobile device.

Pelase exsuce typos adn errosr.

On Thu, Feb 6, 2020, 5:01 PM Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Joan for the draft.
> @all please review the comment. it is quite short and it is about sharing
> any concerns about the ICANN meeting suggested dates.
>
> Best,
>
> Rafik
>
> Le ven. 7 févr. 2020 à 00:43, Joan katambi <joanhopek at gmail.com> a écrit :
>
>> Dear NCSG,
>>
>> Murie and I worked on a proposed NCSG input to the Proposed Dates for
>> ICANN Public Meetings 2024-2028 and Revised Dates in 2022 Draft Report  and
>> we would like to submit it for your review.
>>
>> comments and suggestions are well come till 8th February 2020.
>>
>> We created this google doc to be used during the drafting:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KGOp3xTZy89XwLy8vtljJzy4_zmE4z9fVMtwl5awaeI/edit?folder=0AMJI0CB4QegiUk9PVA
>>
>> Regards
>> Katambi Joan
>>
>
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