Dear Community Members:

At last Thursday's Board meeting, the Directors considered a number of issues related to GNSO Improvements, and made significant progress towards seating the new GNSO Council in Seoul.

Specifically, the Board adopted resolutions that: (i) approved all of the Stakeholder Group Charters as recommended by the Structural Improvements Committee, and (ii) approved the ability of the Contracted Party House to select Board Seat #13, and the ability of the Non Contracted Party House to select Board Seat #14.

The Board also discussed pending new Constituency applications, and acknowledged that Staff is posting a complete set of Bylaws Amendments for public comment. The Amendments, which have been posted, reflect the Board's recent decisions and other GNSO restructuring matters necessary to seat the new Council.

Please note that these Bylaw Amendments (Version 2) address a number of issues that impact the work of the GNSO Restructuring Work Teams. Because these proposed Bylaws include provisions that the GNSO Restructuring Drafting Team did not review during its work, Staff posted two documents to assist the community in its review. One document highlights the differences between the GNSO proposed Bylaws proposals (<http://icann.org/en/general/proposed-gnso-council-bylaw-amendments-notes-comments-03aug09-en.pdf>) and the other is a Staff Explanation for some of the more substantive amendments included in Version 2 (<http://icann.org/en/general/proposed-gnso-council-bylaw-amendments-explanation03aug09-en.pdf>). These include a discussion of issues such as: changes to Annex A; additional voting threshold for certain contracting parties; and procedures for adopting the GNSO Operating Rules and Procedures.