I was in Oxford on Thursday for the Nominet EGM. There were a variety of changes that they wanted to make and while in general the principle behind them seemed good the detail was a bit worrying, and I believe had been badly communicated. However I was still surprised to find that the vote was defeated; I'd expected a narrow victory. There are some more details on The Register, who were the only people to send someone I believe.

What's scary is the percentage of members who didn't vote. Nominet has just under 3000 members. I wouldn't have said more than 60 people turned up to the EGM, and some of them were Nominet staff or multiple people from the same member organisation. Only 10% of members actually bothered to vote. That's quite a pathetic number. Even if you don't take on the view point that Nominet are a member run organisation (and I do and I think they work very well in general and try to do the right thing and promote good practises), this was a vote that would have given the board the right to modify pricing as they wished. Surely that's something you're interested in even if all you do is treat Nominet as a normal supplier? There's more to the changes than that obviously, but I would have thought price changes were something that might at least make beancounters sit up and take notice.

Do you work for an organisation who's a Nominet member? Were you aware there was an EGM taking place? Did your organisation vote? Are you aware there's a PAB election starting from this Friday? Are you planning to vote? Have you ever been to an AGM? If not, why not? What about the members lunches?

It's somewhat disappointing to see such a low level of member involvement. Nominet do seem to try to talk to people and get their opinions, but you have to actually turn up for that to happen...