Dear Councilors, As the September Council meeting was action packed and we didn’t manage to get to all of the AOB items, you will see a handful of email updates to cover the items we missed. 9.5 - Initiating the Standing Predictability Implementation Review Team (SPIRT) For Councilors that may be unfamiliar with the SPIRT, it is a GNSO Council mechanism to manage unforeseen change to the New gTLD Program that may occur after the Board’s adoption of Applicant Guidebook (AGB). With the Board potentially adopting the AGB at ICANN84, steps need to be taken to ensure the SPIRT is established and prepared to carry out its role. The Council adopted<https://gnso.icann.org/en/council/resolutions/2020-current#202408> the draft SPIRT Charter in August 2024. That tiny bit of background aside, the update is: * The Call for Volunteers for the SPIRT will be published soon; we expect the Call for Volunteers will remain open through mid-October. The SPIRT will likely kick-off shortly after ICANN84, presuming that the AGB is adopted by the Board during ICANN84. * As noted in the background above, the Council adopted the SPIRT Charter in draft form. This was because the Predictability Framework, upon which the SPIRT relies upon, was still subject to potential change. As far as staff is aware, there has not been any significant change to the Predictability Framework and as a result, staff plans to make minor and non-substantive adjustments to migrate the SPIRT Charter from draft to final. Please let us know if you have any questions. Best, Steve Steven Chan VP, Policy Development Support & GNSO Relations Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300 Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536 Email: steve.chan@icann.org<mailto:steve.chan@icann.org> Mobile: +1.310.339.4410