[NCSG-EC] Fwd: [SOAC-Leaders-ICANNMeeting-Planning] Early ICANN86 communication to SOAC Chairs prior to ICANN85

[Rafik Dammak]

Hi all,

Some updates about ICANN86 and changes in timeslots.
The process to decide for community sessions will start  earlier.

Best,

Rafik


---------- Forwarded message ---------
Dear SOAC Leaders,



Whilst we have not yet met at ICANN85 in Mumbai, we would like to share the
following information with you regarding ICANN86 in Seville. Considering
feedback from the last ICANN meeting Production calls, as well as input
from our staff colleagues from the Meetings team, we would like your input
on the following items:



   1. *ICANN86 Schedule start and end times*

Following discussions with our Global Stakeholder Engagement and Meetings
team colleagues, a possible issue raised was that of our usual Policy
meeting day schedule with the local lunch and dinner times. Our sessions
usually start at 09:00, with a lunch break from 12:15 – 13:45, and a
day-end at 17:00, with Networking Cocktails finishing an hour later.

In Seville however, given the venue is a little outside of the city center,
the restaurants in the venue neighborhood adhere to opening times around
13:15 – 13:30 with lunch ending between 15:00 and 16:00. Whilst there will
be some food served at the venue, community members often take the
opportunity to network during lunch and seek out restaurants in the
vicinity of the conference area. Our Global Stakeholder Engagement
colleagues on the ground have confirmed with our local host that a later
lunch break will make finding a meal a lot easier. This will also
positively impact the dinner choices too, given that mealtimes in the
evening are a little later than we are used to at other ICANN meeting
locations.

With this in mind, we built the time blocks of the Policy Forum schedule
starting at 10:00 (instead of 09:00) and ending at 18:00 (instead of
17:00), to then enjoy an hour of Networking Cocktails at the venue, before
leaving for the hotels and dinner. If sufficient advance notice is
provided, this is not an issue for Meetings or MTS. The updated proposed
time block is below for your review.







*Deadline for input on this point:  Friday 13th February 2026*





   2. *Community Session Agreement*



As you may remember, there have been discussions regarding a formal process
for coming to agreement about the number and topics of the Community
Sessions. We would like to propose the following timeline, noting that for
this to be fair and transparent, all deadlines will need to be respected.
The timeline is tight given there are only twelve weeks between ICANN85 and
ICANN86.



Form circulated for Community Session topic submission: *11 February 2026*

Deadline: *20 February 2026*

Vote for Community Session topic: *23 February 2026 - 13 March 2026*

Circulation of vote results by order of preference: *16 – 20 March 2026*

ICANN86 Production call: *Week of the 23  March 2026*



*Deadline for input on this point: Tuesday 10 February 2026*



Please let us know if you have any objections or concern regarding these
topics, please see deadline for input in red above.



Thank you all!



Nathalie & Mary
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