Dear Working Group members, On behalf of Heather Forrest, Chair of the GNSO Council, Kathy and Philip, Co-Chairs of the RPM Working Group, we are informing you that J. Scott has decided to resign as Co-Chair effective Friday, 02 March. We are all very grateful for J. Scott’s dedication and thoughtful leadership of this Working Group since its inception. At this time we are asking Working Group members to consider the importance for this group to continue to have a third Co-Chair to assist in the administration of its large and complex agenda and encourage members to immediately begin consideration of volunteering or nominating someone else. We also would like to suggest that the Working Group could reserve time during our face-to-face meetings on Saturday, 10 March at ICANN61, to discuss the Co-Chair selection process; based on our recent survey these will be the full WG meetings with the greatest member participation. For your guidance, please see below the relevant sections of the GNSO Working Group Guidelines on how Working Group leaders are selected. Note that holding an election is not mandatory. It is up to the Working Group to determine whether and how it wishes to appoint an additional Chair. In addition, although (as noted below) the GNSO Council must confirm the appointment via its consent agenda, in the meantime, if the Working Group agrees on an additional chair, he/she can begin serving as an interim appointee. We look forward to hearing from the Working Group on how best to proceed. Best regards, Mary, Ariel, Berry and Julie GNSO Working Group Guidelines: https://gnso.icann.org/en/council/annex-1-gnso-wg-guidelines-30jan18-en.pdf[gnso.icann.org] 2.1.4.2 Election of the WG Leaders Unless a Chair has already been named by the Chartering Organization, normally a Chair will be selected at the first meeting of the WG. Until that time, the Chartering Organization’s liaison may fulfill the role of interim Chair. A Working Group may elect to have Co-Chairs and Vice-Chairs. Under extraordinary circumstances, ICANN staff may be requested to perform administrative co- ordination of the WG until such time a Chair can be appointed. Once selected, a Working Group Chair will need to be confirmed by the Chartering Organization (CO). The newly elected Chair will act on a provisional basis until the Chartering Organization has confirmed the appointment. If there are any objections to the selected Chair, the CO will conduct a vote to establish whether there is sufficient support for the selected Chair according to the voting procedures of the CO. If not, the Working Group will be requested to reconsider their choice for Chair and return to the CO with a new proposal. In the unlikely event that the selected Chair is rejected by the CO, the CO must articulate its reason for the rejection and the WG must be able to ask for reconsideration of the decision. Section 2.2: A suggested procedure to conduct elections may be: • Nominations or self-nominations; • Statements of qualifications from candidates, which sets forth the qualifications, qualities and experience that they possess that will serve the particular WG; • Vote by simple majority; • Notification of and subsequent confirmation by the Chartering Organization of results of actions”.