Dear GNSO Community members; As promised by Denise last week, the Staff has developed a timetable of key tasks and milestones that need to be addressed over the next two months to seat the new GNSO Council by the ICANN Seoul meeting deadline. Attached please find two documents. The first, entitled "GNSO Council Restructure Implementation Timetable," sets out the various topic areas that need to be addressed between now and Seoul including, among other things, Bylaws Amendment efforts, Council seat appointments and the approval of Council operating procedures. Where appropriate, Staff has provided specific "last-date" milestones to help Council, Stakeholder Group and Constituency leaders plan their internal activities in a timely manner. The second, document, entitled "GNSO Council Restructure Implementation Plan," is being provided as a draft first-step to help community leaders make the final detailed transition decisions necessary to have the new Council members take their seats in Seoul. The document, presented in draft form, provides one potential plan format and provides a table identifying each of the existing voting GNSO Council Representatives by name, organized by Stakeholder Group (except NCAs). The table includes the term-expiration of each seat, the potential disposition of that individual's Council seat, an action column indicating which seats appear to require an election or appointment, and the regional affiliation for the seats of Councilors whose terms are not expiring this year. As with all our previous Staff suggestions, the documents are intended to provide some initial guidance and to be used as tools to issue-spot and spark discussion and debate where appropriate. We hope they may prove useful at the upcoming Council and Restructure Drafting Team meetings. I am happy to field any questions or comments any of you have about specific dates or references in the documents. Best regards, Rob Hoggarth On 8/4/09 5:47 PM, "Denise Michel" <denise.michel@icann.org> wrote: 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 <http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/prelim-report-30jul09.htm> 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 <http://icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-200908.html#gnso-restructu...> , 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-com...>) 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-explanati...>). 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. We encourage the GNSO Restructuring Work Teams to review and discuss these materials at their next meetings, and to provide comments during the public comment period, which closes on 23 August. The Board expects to act on a comprehensive set of amendments at its 27 August meeting. . Additional information on GNSO Improvements follow-up actions that should be completed in the next few months will be posted shortly. Regards, Denise Denise Michel ICANN Vice President Policy Development policy-staff@icann.org <mailto:denise.michel@icann.org>