Community,
  KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America is just NINE weeks away! It seems super far right now, but it will creep up on us.  As such, the TOC will be freezing applications for incubation and graduation beginning AUG 26th and ending OCT 31st. We want to ensure that TOC members and the community can focus on preparations for the event and not rush this process as there is often scarce availability by members of the community essential to successful commencement around that time.  Moving forward, we would like to leverage a similar timeframe for all KCCNs moving forward, invoking a graduation freeze 8 weeks before the conference, lifting the week after.

Speaking of graduation, we want to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of positive, transparent, and kind community relations which is absolutely essential for maturing projects and activities.  In recent weeks we’ve noticed increased tension within the community around sustaining and growing maintainers and leadership within our ecosystem.  A thriving project and group must be capable of demonstrating stability and sustainment in maintainership and leadership as well as a consistent application of stable governance processes no less than 1 year prior to applying. We’ve opened the following issue (#907) on the repo to capture your thoughts, views, and experiences prior to applying this change to the graduation process.

Issue: https://github.com/cncf/toc/issues/907

Thank you all for your considerations and passion in continuing to make our community one of amazing people and amazing projects.