Call to Order
The American Council of the Blind (ACB) Board of Directors Meeting was reconvened virtually via zoom and was called back to order by President Dan Spoone at 9:04PM Eastern time.
Roll Call and Introduction of Guests: Denise Colley, ACB Secretary
The following Board members were present: Dan Spoone, Deb Cook Lewis, Ray Campbell, Denise Colley, David Trott, Kim Charlson, Chris Bell, Jeff Bishop, Donna Brown, Gabriel Lopez Kafati, 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: Eric Bridges, ACB Executive Director, Nancy Marks-Becker, ACB Chief Financial Officer and Rick Morin, Technical Director of ACB Media.
Contractors present: Bill Reeder, Acting Director of Development.
Approval of Agenda: Dan Spoone, President
Dan Spoone reviewed the unfinished agenda items from the August 31, 2022, Board meeting. Deb Cook Lewis has requested time on the agenda to have some clarifying conversation on next steps in our Code of Conduct Communication plan. Dan said he would like to add this item to the end of the agenda before adjournment. He would like to keep the Executive Session where it is because part of that session will be a guest presentation.
It was moved by Bell and seconded by Powell to approve the agenda as amended. The motion carried.
Election of the Budget Committee
For 2022, the Committee consisted of the Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer, President, who are all non-voting members, and three Board members selected by the Board. The three voting members were David Trott, ACB Treasurer, Kim Charlson, immediate Past President, and Deb Cook Lewis, ACB First Vice President. This year’s nominees were David Trott, Kim Charlson, Deb Cook Lewis and Jeff Bishop. By voting with a show of hands, the results were: David Trott, 14 votes, Kim Charlson, 6 votes, Deb Cook Lewis, 12 votes and Jeff Bishop, 9 votes. The three voting members elected to this year’s Budget Committee were David Trott, Deb Cook Lewis and Jeff Bishop.
Trott suggested recommending to the Constitution and Bylaws Committee that they take a look at adding the Board treasurer as an automatic member of the Budget Committee, and then still have three additional members with at least one officer and one Board member. This could either be two officers and a Board member or two Board members and an officer.
After more discussion, it was moved by Powell and seconded by Semien that we recommend to the Constitution and Bylaws Committee, for their consideration, that the wording regarding the Budget Committee be changed to read that the ACB President, Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer and ACB Treasurer are automatically members of the Budget Committee, and that the Board elects at least one additional officer and one Director as well as two additional elected members from among the remaining officers and Board members. The motion carried.
Election of the Chair of the Public Relations Committee
The Constitution also calls for the Board to select a Public Relations Committee Chair each year, and this last year Deb Cook Lewis was selected to serve in this position. This worked well because she is the Officer Liaison to the Public Awareness Steering Committee. Bell moved and Brown seconded a motion to elect Deb Cook Lewis as the Public Relations Committee Chair. The motion carried.
Dan also announced that the chair of the new ACB Media Support Committee is Rachel Schroeder. Additionally on the Committee are Deb Cook Lewis and Jeff Bishop representing the Board, Cecily Laney Nipper who is president of the Georgia Affiliate and very active with ACB Media, Cheryl Cumings from the BOP, and Mikey Wiseman who is very involved in ACB Media from a convention planning standpoint.
It was moved by Brown and seconded by Trott to move into Executive Session. The motion carried, and the Board moved into Executive Session at 9:25PM Eastern Time.
The Board moved out of Executive Session at 10:57PM and returned to the general meeting at 11:03PM. Dan reported that both personnel and legal issues were discussed in Executive Session, but no formal motions were made.
Per discussion in Executive Session, it was moved by Campbell and seconded by Brown that the Board approve the hiring of two additional positions as discussed during Executive Session. These positions would be a Resource Development Associate and an Audio Description Project Coordinator. For informational purposes, it was pointed out that these would be at no additional cost to the budget for this year.
There was much conversation around the transitioning of existing staff, and the formation of a Resource Development Team. This will involve the investment in ultimately three positions for our Resource Development initiative. This would include the contractor/consultant position that Bill Reeder fills, a Primary Grant Writer, and an other Resource Development Associate Position. The Audio Description Project Coordinator position will become a fulltime role. The intent of this action is to give ACB a true Resource Development Team that can raise the needed resources for ACB to allow us to continue our Strategic Plan for growth of the organization. The question was called for and the motion carried.
Reaching consensus Around the Code of Conduct and Next Steps for Engaging the Membership: Deb Cook Lewis
The ad hoc committee working on this project have found themselves somewhat challenged with what was happening, because they are actually operating with items from two motions that occurred. The first motion was the one passed in July which said that we would send out to the membership the Procedural Document that had been developed by the initial ad hoc committee to get their input, and that we would then try to finalize that document in October.
In August we passed an additional motion in which we agreed that before sending out the Process Document, we would potentially craft some additions related to a Grievance Process and a tiered arrangement around the Code of Conduct, so that we could essentially carry out some of what was really discussed in the Procedural Document.
Where we are right now in the process is that the week of September 12th, the committee will be meeting and working on incorporating the items from the document created by Chris Bell around the grievance process, and meshing the two documents together, so that the Code of Conduct Policy, the procedural document and the document on suggestions for expected behavior standards and a grievance process become one document. They expect to have a preliminary draft of the combined documents shortly, and the goal is, by mid-September to submit the draft to the membership with an explanation of the document, how the membership can engage in the process, and provide input. Deb will present it at the President’s Hump Day calls, hold two membership calls, where they can take input, and all of these opportunities for input will be publicized widely. They will also invite written input and will provide a place where that can be sent. All of the input received will be collected and compiled to identify any trends with respect to the process.
If all goes as planned, the 14th of October is the final date for being able to deliver a package to the Board, which will include the documents themselves, the summary of the feedback received from the membership, and a summation of any recommendations from the feedback. The Board will then have the opportunity to determine if there is enough information to proceed with either adopting or making further recommendations to the process document itself.
The one thing the committee was not able to do was a part of the motion made in July, to send out the interim Procedural Document to the membership. The reason this didn’t happen was because there was a sense that it would go out to the membership when we were asking for input. But in August, when we determined that we weren’t asking for input yet, at that moment that interim Procedural Document should have gone out because it is the Procedural Document in force until the finalized Document is adopted.
What the committee would like to do is go ahead and post that Document immediately as an interim procedure, and then be able to post it again when they are posting the draft for comment. Since this document is our existing process document that goes along with our Code of Conduct Policy for enforcing any new Code of Conduct claims that would come to ACB, Dan requested that the document presented to the Board at the July Board meeting, which was approved as our interim procedural document, be put up on the ACB website, right below the Code of Conduct Policy, and that this be done no later than Tuesday, September 20th. Nancy committed to doing this by that date. The Process Document is effective through October 22, 2022. Since this is not the document we will be seeking input on, concern was expressed about there being a lot of confusion by members because of the amount of information we are sending out, and we could get information back that could be partially invalid because someone is responding to the wrong document. The documents can be put up on the Washington Connection for those who don’t have any computer access, and Deb has a Google Voice phone number she can include in the information posted that members can use to leave their input. To clarify some of the potential confusion, Deb will put together a document outlining the process without dates. It would contain the plan that talks about what we are doing and the steps they can expect to see in the process. The plan document could state that the interim Policy, not for comment, will be posted to the website by September 20, and if there are any Code of Conduct issues between now and its expiration, that process will be enforced.
There being no further business, it was move by Campbell and seconded by Bell to adjourn. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 11:37PM Eastern Time.
Denise Colley
Secretary
Date submitted: 10/11/2022
Approved: 10/22/2022