Nominet’s election and agm

Well, Nominet’s annual general meeting finished an hour or so ago in London and thanks to Rob, we have a clear rundown of what happened.

In a nutshell: a change of accountants because Nominet is getting bigger; another bit of vote chaos that may blow up tomorrow when the result from the Board election is announced; Nominet is making too much money for its own good; a tentative move forward on another EGM to let Nominet get at ENUM and other registry services (maybe.eu, they say).

As for the Board election, well according to a poll I quickly knocked up on this site and which an extraordinary 15 people voted on, the winners are due to be Gordon Dick and Lord Erroll.

Actually I was surprised in talking to each of them how plausible each person was for the role. And from the people that I’ve spoken to, they were struck by the same thing. Gordon is very capable and approachable and knows Nominet; Lord Erroll knowledgeable and well-connected; Andrew Bennett has a perspective that Nominet needs to understand; Fay Howard is very experienced; Angus Hanton is also very experienced, especially as a Board member; and Peter Gradwell knows the business side of things.

I’ll predict that Andrew Bennett won’t get it because he’s too young and a domainer – but I hope that Nominet members and staff sit down with him and try to pull him into Nominet’s processes. Peter Gradwell is viewed with suspicion because of Pipex and the recent aborted EGM. I’m not sure Angus Hanton is well enough known within the voting Nominet community. And I suspect that Fay Howard will lose out because people want to have at least some kind of change in the Board and Lord Erroll is clearly very capable.

So that’s my weak prediction – which of course aligns with the poll on this blog :-). Of course, if it’s a close run thing, Nominet may be forced to re-run the whole shebang after some discussion about confused voting procedures.

The vote is now on my “polls archive” page, and I’ve stuck up another one about what the most pressing issue on the Net at the moment is. Please feel free to vote. I’ll be able to run this one a little longer than two days (Nominet really has to change its incredibly short voting process).

Poll result

Who gets your vote in the Nominet board elections?

* Gordon Dick (33%)
* Lord Erroll (27%)
* Andrew Bennett (20%)
* Fay Howard (13%)
* Angus Hanton (7%)
* Peter Gradwell (0%)

  1. I accept that I might not get it because of the reasons you give.

    However I maybe 25 but if you look at the other people there you will soon see:

    Peter Gradwell is 27, Gordon Dick is 29, Sebastien Lahtinen is 27, Mark Dranse is 27 (Demon/Thus), Abhinav Agrawal is 27 etc.

    Therefore I will try again in a few years…..

    As for being a “domainer” standing for the Nominet board…. how do you feel being called a “journalist” standing for the ICANN board ? You have enough experience and knowledge to do ‘other things’ just like I do.

  2. Andrew,

    You shouldn’t take offence at my words, I was just dispassionately outlining the logic behind why I think who will be chosen. It was not intended as personal criticism.

    Kieren

  3. Kieren,

    I’m not offened and sorry if it seemed that way. I am very greatful for the chances you have given me to put my points across on sites like “theregister”.

    Andrew

  4. Many people see “domainers” as being a big issue with the domain system – domainers may feel that its their right to buy domains and sell them on much more expensively, but its very annoying for your average company or person who wants a domain and has to pay a large amount of money to someone else who is just squatting on it.

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