Minutes 16 December 2014

Public Version

Meeting of the .au Domain Administration Board

16 December 2014 – 1.30pm

RACV Club, 501 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Present:

Tony Staley (Chair), Chris Disspain, Erhan Karabardak, George Pongas, Graham McDonald, Joe Manariti, Josh Rowe, Julie Hammer, Kartic Srinivasan, Simon Johnson, Stuart Benjamin

Observers:

Derek Whitehead (Item 1), John Higgins (Nexia Australia), Peter Nettlefold (DoC), Adrian Kinderis (Item 7), Maggie Whitnall (Item 7), Jo Lim (auDA), Jacki O’Sullivan (auDA–Minutes)

Apologies:

Paul Levins

1.    Continuous Disclosure

  • New Director, Simon Johnson disclosed that he is a director of Kikabink International Pty Ltd, a domain services company, and that he holds a portfolio of domain names registered in multiple TLDs including .au.

2.    Confirmation of October 2014 Minutes

The minutes of the 27 October 2014 Board meeting were confirmed.

3.    2015 Names Policy Panel

  • The 2015 Names Policy Panel list of membership nominations and recommendations were circulated for Board review.
  • The Board approved the 20 recommended panel members along with Joe Manariti and Erhan Karabardak who also volunteered as panel members.
  • Monthly Panel meetings will commence in February 2015 with a final report expected to be provided to the Board at the December 2015 meeting.

4.    Election of Chair

The Chair handed over to the Deputy Chair for this item.

The Deputy Chair called for nominations for the position of Board Chair

Nominated:  Tony Staley (moved G McDonald, seconded E Karabardak)

Elected: Tony Staley

5.    Election of Deputy Chair

The Chair called for nominations for the position of Deputy Chair


Nominated:  Julie Hammer (moved E Karabardak, seconded J Rowe)

Elected: Julie Hammer

6.    Reconstitution of Board Committees

The Board agreed on reconstitution of the sub-committees with the following members:

Finance & Audit Committee:
• Graham McDonald (Chair), Kartic Srinivasan, Stuart Benjamin, Joe Manariti and Josh Rowe

Governance, Board Succession and Remuneration Committee:
• Tony Staley (Chair), Julie Hammer, Paul Levins, Joe Manariti and Erhan Karabardak

Strategic Risk Committee:
• Julie Hammer (Chair), George Pongas, Kartic Srinivasan, Graham McDonald and Simon Johnson

7.    AusRegistry Presentation

  • Adrian Kinderis-CEO and Maggie Whitnall-Client Services Manager .au, attended from AusRegistry and gave a presentation on retention rates in the .au namespace, other .au statistics and Registry plans for 2015.
  • The Board noted that approximately 40% of .au domain names have been registered for less than two years.  AusRegistry will investigate this statistic further and report back at the February 2015 Board meeting.

8.    Finance

  • The Board noted the November 2014 accounts.

9.    CEO Report

  • The CEO report was noted.
  • J Manariti provided the Board with feedback on the Reseller ID System launch.

10.  auDA Foundation  

The final list of successful auDA Foundation grants agreed by the auDA Foundation Board was circulated for the Board's information.

11.  Board Committee Updates

Finance & Audit Committee:

  • The Chair advised the Committee had met on 10 October 2014 and minutes would be circulated in due course.
  • The Board was advised that previous financial reporting had a moving forecast due to a large number of variances/timing issues.  The Committee have now agreed to restore the original forecast as per budget in monthly reporting.

Governance, Board Succession & Remuneration Committee:

  • The Chair advised the Committee had met on 11 October 2014 and minutes would be circulated in due course.
  • The 2014 Board Self-Assessment results and recommendations were circulated for Board information and decision.  Results were discussed and the Board approved the Committee recommendations.  In relation to the recommendation to conduct a critical review of the Board self-assessment document and associated processes, the Chair proposed that the review be led by Stuart Benjamin, who agreed to accept that role.  In addition, it was also agreed to investigate using Survey Monkey for future responses/reporting and the CEO KPI's would be circulated to the Directors list in future.

Strategic Risk Committee:

  • The Chair advised the Committee last met on 25 August with the next meeting scheduled for February 2015 to include the outcomes of the December 2014 Board retreat for review.

12.  Membership

The following membership applications were approved in the classes indicated.

Name of Applicant  Class
Information Brokers Pty Ltd Supply
Patrick Brown Demand
Liz Williams Demand
Craig O'Toole Demand
Anthony Campbell Demand
Brendan Fitzgerald Demand

 

13.  Board Correspondence

The Board was advised correspondence had been received from a member regarding the AGM Proxy voting process; the member's 2014 voting form had been posted prior to the deadline but not received at Maddocks  until after the deadline and therefore it was not counted as valid.  The Board discussed the need to review the proxy voting process, including the possibility of introducing online voting.  It was agreed S Benjamin and J Lim would investigate options and report back to the Board in due course.

14.  Other Business

There was no other business.

15.  2015 Proposed Board meeting dates

The 2015 schedule of proposed Board meeting dates will be circulated via email with Board members asked to advise of any conflicts.

16.  Next Meeting

The next Board meeting will be held on Monday 23 February 2015.