Call to Order: Deb Cook Lewis, President
The April 30, 2024, virtual meeting of the Board of Directors of the American council of the Blind was called to order at 7:00PM Eastern by President Deb Cook Lewis.
Roll Call: Denise Colley, Secretary
At the call of the roll, the following Board members were present: Deb Cook Lewis, David Trott, Ray Campbell, Denise Colley, Michael Garrett, Kim Charlson, Chris Bell, Donna Brown, Gabriel Lopez Kafati, Cecily Laney Nipper, Terry Pacheco, Doug Powell, Rachel Schroeder, Kenneth Semien, Koni Sims, and Jeff Thom. Board of Publications Member Penny Reeder was present representing that body.
Staff present: Scott Thornhill, ACB Executive Director and Nancy Marks-Becker, Chief Financial Officer.
Guests: Janet Dickelman, ACB Conference and Convention Committee Chair, Pat Sheehan, Voting Taskforce Committee Co-Chair
Review and Approval of Agenda: Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President
It was moved by Bell and seconded by Semien to approve the agenda as presented. The motion carried.
Review and Approval of Minutes: March 2, 2024 (DC Leadership): Denise Colley
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Brown that the minutes be approved with one slight correction. Gabriel’s name was incorrectly recorded in the section on Approval of Minutes. The motion carried.
Mission Moment: Deb Cook Lewis; Scott Thornhill
This Mission Moment celebrated the success of the Leadership Conference and the great work done by all. This included staff, committees, and all those who presented throughout the weekend.
The survey results are still being sorted because the survey period just ended. Those results will be presented at the July Board meeting.
President’s Report: Deb Cook Lewis
- Meeting Date Reminders: Deb began her update with some date reminders. July 5 is the hybrid preconvention Board meeting in Jacksonville. Whether or not we’ll have an executive session is yet to be determined. Reports that need to be given at general convention sessions will be given then, but the rest will be given at the Board meeting. The fall Board meeting is still scheduled for November 1-2 in Dallas.
- Process for Resolutions and Constitution & Bylaws: The process will be similar to last year. Resolutions will be read, debated, and voted on, on June 25-27.
The first reading of the Constitution and Bylaws will be on Tuesday, June 25 with the second reading, debate and voting on June 28. Zoom sessions will be held by both committees in May to review all resolutions and constitutional amendments and bylaws submitted, and allow for questions and feedback. Once this is completed, around the end of May, recordings will be generated, along with the written documents of all those coming to the convention floor. This year, all record voting required for resolutions and constitutional amendments and bylaws will take place virtually on July 1. The hope is that this will significantly reduce the need for any of this business to have to take place during the in-person part of convention, since it is so much harder to manage those kinds of meetings when half of those participating are in person and half on Zoom.
- Convention Parliamentarian Hired: ACB has hired a new parliamentarian. Her name is Julie Palm, and she lives in Florida. She will be with us online during all the proceedings during the week of June 24th, and in person on July 9 -11 in General Session.
- Membership input to the Board: While we get a lot of member in-put on our email lists and from individual emails and phone calls, it has been suggested that we come up with a more formalized process. A resolution will be coming forward on this topic.
Deb is proposing that we use the same process we did when soliciting feedback on our most recent round of discussion with the Code of Conduct process, where a gmail address and a phone number with voice mail were set up especially to allow members to email in or call in with their feedback. This feedback was collected and summarized, and a report sent back to both the Committee and to the Board, which helped in shaping the process and the decisions that were being made. This process received a lot of positive feedback. This process could be used to be able to take input on items on upcoming agendas, past agendas, and anything else they might want to discuss, and we could use this same process to first get feedback on peoples’ thoughts about this process.
It was decided to wait to see the outcome of the Resolution, but in the meantime, Deb will set up a system for right now that may not be what we ultimately end up doing, but will allow us to have a process in mind. She will need to research with staff how this ultimately can be done, allowing for several people to directly interact with the data.
- Review of Introduction to ACB Board Service Document: Feedback provided has been incorporated and the document has been recirculated. Deb is proposing that we officially endorse the document, and that Kenneth Semien, as the author of the document, be encouraged by the Board to circulate it, and modify it as needed. It should be shared in the Board documents folder and posted on the website.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Powell to accept the President’s report. The motion carried.
Executive Director’s Report -- Scott Thornhill, Executive Director
- Vision Serve Alliance and CSun Assistive Technology Conferences: Claire Stanley and Kolby Garrison attended the CSUN Technology Conference and met with Amazon and Vispero. Claire, Dan Spoone and Scott attended the Vision Serve Alliance Conference. Great networking took place at both events and a lot of good information was shared.
- Hiring of personnel: Kaitlyn Herrera is leaving ACB to take a full-time position working with post-partum mothers from a social work standpoint. Hannah Park is the new Administrative Assistant in the Alexandria Office, having just started the same week as the Board meeting.
CFO Report: Nancy Becker
Audit: The in-person portion of the audit was March 25-28, and the audit review with the Budget Committee was recently completed. Once again, this year ACB received a clean audit, which is the highest rating you can receive. The Office is still finalizing some minor details on the Financial Statements and the ACB and ACBES 990s.
Membership Certification: The initial certification just wrapped up and the deadline for all dues was the same day as the Board meeting. Affiliates can now start adding new members again, and all new members added before the end of the day on May 24th will be eligible to vote at the Convention. There appears to be an increase in the number of members who have been certified this year.
Scholarships: All scholarship applications have been reviewed and interviews conducted. The list of AFB scholarship awardees has been provided to AFB for approval.
ACB Walk: We now have the ACB Walk link on the website on one of our quick links. We will be using the same platform used for the Community-a-thon. The only difference is that, for the Walk we will be creating teams. One thing that has changed for this year is that we are not having people register for the Walk to create a team or to create an individual page. A select individual from the affiliate will create the team, and once the team has been created and a donation made to the team, a person can go to Top Donors on the Walk page to see the team.
It was moved by Bell and seconded by Powell to accept the staff reports. The motion carried.
Convention Report: Janet Dickelman, ACB Convention Committee Chair
Registration will be up on the ACB website shortly with member registration opening on May 13 at $45, and non-member registration opening on May 20 at $60. Pre-registration closes June 17. If registering at Convention the cost is $55 and $70 accordingly.
The banquet speaker is Judge David S. Tatel, Author of Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice. He served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1994 to earlier this year.
It was moved by Bell and seconded by Semien to accept the Convention report. The motion carried.
Convention Standing Rules: Pat Sheehan, Jeff Thom; Voting Taskforce Committee Chairs
Jeff Thom went through the proposed changes to this year’s Convention Standing Rules. The first is a minor one that relates to the 20-minute debate period. It now specifies that if you want to debate during a specific period you have to let the chair know at the beginning of the period when hands are raised. If there is a subsequent period, you are eligible to raise your hand and debate.
A second change is that each debatable issue before the convention shall now be limited to approximately 20 minutes with a two-minute time limit per speaker.
The major changes to the standing rules relate to the process for amending proposed resolutions and Constitution and Bylaws.
The first change relates to the making of friendly amendments. Friendly amendments have no real place in Parliamentary Procedure, so the rules have been changed. If a person is merely going to bring up a non-substantive amendment, and it isn’t doing anything to change the meaning of the Resolution or Constitutional amendment or Bylaw, it can be raised on the floor and adopted without objection immediately, or raised on the floor and voted on, if necessary.
In the case of proposed amendments that have a substantial impact on a resolution, Constitutional/bylaw amendment or Bylaw, it needs to be submitted to the Resolutions Committee Chair before the opening of the session at which that resolution is scheduled to be debated. It does not have to be submitted in writing. This is not to preclude people from making amendments, but the Constitution and Bylaws Committee needs to have them ahead of time.
The final change is that on amendments to resolutions and the Constitution and Bylaws, there will be no record voting. Since almost exact totals of votes can be determined on Zoom there is no need for record voting.
Koni Sims then read the Standing Rules in their entirety.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Thom that we recommend the Standing Rules for adoption by the membership.
Doug Powell had submitted to the Board for consideration a paragraph that could serve as a preamble to the Standing Rules that lays out what we’re hoping our members will do and why we’re asking to do things that way. Powell then submitted this as an amendment to the Standing Rules. Sims then read this document to the Board.
The Board voted unanimously to adopt the amendment with a couple of minor language changes for clarification.
Lopez-Kafati requested a friendly amendment that the word affirmative in #1C be changed to supporting. This was accepted.
A second friendly amendment was requested to #1B to add a two-minute time limit for the maker of that resolution to be given an opportunity to address the assembly on the merits of the resolution. This, too, was considered friendly.
The motion carried to recommend the Standing Rules, as amended, for adoption by the membership.
Adjourn
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Pacheco that the meeting be adjourned at 10:05PM Eastern time.
Denise Colley
Secretary
Date submitted: 6/17/2024
Date approved: 7/5/2024