Better late than never I suppose – the agenda for today’s auDA Board Meeting was published earlier today.
More interesting to me though was the simultaneous publication of the Board Minutes from the 14th November (see further below). Of particular note, it seems as if we have a new Independent Director and Chairman by the name of Mr Benjamin Stuart. I wonder what happened to Stuart Benjamin – did he get fired? Or name change by Deed Poll? 😉 Bottom of Page 6; and top of Page 7.
- Looks like the CEO flagged concern over the manner in which the Board went about appointing restructuring itself etc (middle Page 6). But that didn’t seem to bother the Board – bit of self-justification, and it was all over. 😉
- The AusRegistry situation concerns me – read from bottom of Page 3. When I say I am concerned, that does not relate to their efficiency as a Registry. As I’ve written before, I think they do a good job. What I’m worried about is that the auDA Board may try and get out of going out to tender this time around (as they previously committed to do). Perhaps I’m worrying about nothing though?
- According to 9.g of the Minutes, the Board is not accepting any more Membership Applications in the interim. For an organisation that is looking to broaden its membership base, that is simply ridiculous imho.
Here are the Minutes as published – I have highlighted (to me) what are the interesting bits.
As always, what do readers think?
PDF: Board Meeting Minutes 14 November 2016
Disclaimer
“g. Membership Applications
The Board agreed the new Membership applications should not be approved until a better process for assessing the applications has been developed.”
Hahahaha. These people are a bigger joke than we thought. Which flogs are behind this. I’d really like to know.
@David – according to the “official line”, there is one party they know of who they’re not happy with. This party is a member in both Supply and Demand; and they were allegedly involved with the 1000+ sites that were recently taken down.
I’m publishing a piece on this over the next couple of days. It’s just overkill which will piss any aspiring new member off imo. Not what auDA needs.
If they are unhappy with a current member, then it’s got nothing to do with stopping new members joining.
Oh wait, there’s a horde of pissed off small business owners ready to descend and ruin the party. Got it!
I do hope this is not the new “open, consultative, transparent, legally and fully Corporations Law compliant” auDA…
Everyone may wish to remember and watch George Orwell’s Animal Farm
“Four Legs Good….. Two Legs Better” ??
https://youtu.be/BbLdAWef9C8
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/animal-farm/summary-and-analysis/chapter-10
Let’s see;
1. If auDA goes to Registry open tender or not.
2. If Deloitte or auDA actually contacts the existing 3 million registrants about the un needed additional .au extension and provides them far more information and properly worded surveys not affected by Registrar / resellers ‘s “Yes Only Vote” stacking again.
3. auDA membership should be open to all Australian domain name registrants and it should be free! http://member.cira.ca/
4. All 3 million existing Australian domain name registrants deserve far more “transparency” where their money is going and what policies auDA if using or seeking to bring in.
5. Where does the $millions of profits from the Australian domain name registrant income really go each year?
6. What has really changed with the new management, new service providers and new board. Is it better or is it worse?
@Sean – that Animal Farm clip has some good similarities! I had a good chuckle.
I’m just wondering who at auDA would be “Napoleon”?
There’s more than one Napoleon; the small group of people who are placing their own conflicted interests and greed before what would be best for the wider community
The Ausregistry contract discussion doesn’t sound good, this needs to go out to tender and with some new blood in at AUDA you’d expect that finally it would. AUDA says they are running short of time (blaming an acting CEO who has left) but they have actually delayed things another month by negotiating with Ausregistry.
Secondly how far is the buck going to get passed? Given it was left in the hands of an “acting CEO” surely the board should have been chasing this up?
None of this helps the perception of AUDA facing industry “capture”.
Thanks for the updates Ned.
Item 10.a is another area that was of interest to me.