Plan LFX mentorship program 2024 Term 1: Mar-May

[nate-double-u]

Time to plan the next term: 2024 Term 1: Mar-May

Here's the previous timeline for term 1: https://github.com/cncf/mentoring/tree/main/programs/lfx-mentorship/2023/01-Mar-May#term-01---2023-march---may

[nate-double-u]

Proposed schedule:

activity	date
project proposals	Monday Jan 15 - Wednesday Jan 31, 8:00 AM PDT
mentee applications open	Monday Feb 5 - Tues Feb 13, 5:00 PM PDT
application review/admission decisions	Wed Feb 14 - Tues Feb 27, 5:00 PM PDT
Mentorship program begins with the initial work assignments	Monday March 4 (Week 1)
Midterm mentee evaluations and first stipend payments	Wednesday April 10 (Week 6)
Final mentee evaluations and mentee feedback/blog submission due, second and final stipend payment approvals	Wed May 22, 5:00 PM PST (Week 12)
Last day of term	Friday May 31

Notes:

• The gap between project proposals closing and applications opening is for CNCF/LF staff to load proposals into the LFX platform and get LFX approvals

Events of note:

• LF all hands meeting (Nate W., and other LF folk away): Jan 22-24
• Family day (parts of Canada): Feb 21
• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon: March 19-22
• Easter long weekend: March 29 - April 1
• Victoria day (Canada): May 23

[nate-double-u]

/cc @jaytiaki @Riaankl @aliok @jberkus @geekygirldawn @Swil78 @krook

[yurishkuro]

application review/admission decisions

Suggestion: it's not clear what this period include exactly, I think in the past this was "mentors evaluating applications and submitting decisions to LFX", after which there is another period where those decisions are entered in the system and the applicants are notified if they were selected or not. The latter is especially important since we've been receiving questions exactly about that, so I would add this explicitly as a row to the table.

Separately, I wonder if it's intentional that we're cutting the notifications so close to the start of the term, instead of say 2+ weeks ahead. I presume some mentees may want to make different plans depending on being accepted to the program or not, and we're giving them very little time. As a mentor, I don't think it matters much to me if the whole application process was shifted 2-weeks earlier, but it can make a large difference for the mentees.

[riaankleinhans]

@nate-double-u It look good. It look good, but I do have one concern: The application period has shrunk from 21 days last year to just 9 days this year. Do you think this shorter timeframe will be sufficient?