Board of Publications Meeting Minutes for August 7, 2018

The August meeting was called to order by Chairman Ron Brooks at 9:05 p.m. on August 7, 2018.

Members present: Ron Brooks, Chair; Deb Lewis; Penny Reeder; Susan Glass; Paul Edwards.

ACB employees and contractors present: Sharon Lovering; Larry Turnbull.

Ex officio members present: Kim Charlson, ACB President; David Trott, ACB Treasurer; Katie Frederick, ACB Public Relations; Bob Hachey, ACB Email List Moderator.

Guests: Ralph Smitherman; Denise Colley; Ken Stewart; Jeff Bishop.

Ron reviewed the agenda.

Motion: Deb moved and Penny seconded adoption of the agenda. Motion passed.

Motion: Paul moved and Susan seconded adoption of the June 30, 2018 minutes. Motion passed.

David expressed concern that the entire ACB logo is not printed on “The ACB Braille Forum” cover, and the board requires that the entire logo be used at all times. He wants the logo removed or printed in its entirety. He plans to raise this issue at the fall ACB board meeting. Kim described the logo explaining that the logo, all of its elements, and the tag line are copyrighted. ACB’s logo is similar to those of Perkins and AFB. Kim explained that it is common to use only the iconic part of a logo (the letters “ACB” in print and braille) on a name tag or a souvenir where the entire logo and tag line might not fit. She agreed with David’s concern, however, and encouraged the BOP to request that Kelly and Sharon include the entire logo on the ACB Braille Forum cover. Sharon reported that this is under way. David then requested that the BOP work with Eric and Kelly to develop policy on use of the logo. Ron said the BOP is directly responsible for approving the cover design of the ACB Braille Forum and will put this on the next agenda. He believes, however, that use of logos, trademarks etc. other than in ACB publications are the responsibility of the marketing and communications committee. Paul recommended that any decision made by communications regarding the visual style guide be incorporated into the Editorial Policy Manual because he believes the BOP is responsible to oversee all communications. He made a motion, but there was no second. Kim reminded us that the BOP has representation and input on the marketing and communications committee. Penny said the BOP policy should reflect that of the board, and if it was clear that the logo should always be represented in full, it should be our responsibility to ensure this occurs. Ron and Kim said they believed the intent was to allow the flexibility needed to use the logo and tag line in a variety of settings, including those where all elements would not fit or look good. Ron concluded by stating that the BOP is not bound by everything the ACB board does, although we work closely with them and do not contradict them for the most part. We are an independent board and do not report to the ACB board.

Ron proposed the following work plan items:

Motion: Paul moved and Susan seconded adoption of the proposed work plan. The motion passed.
 

Deb will continue as BOP secretary. Sharon will manage and distribute KPI data. Ron will appoint a lead for each themed issue but everyone will have responsibility to develop content. Sharon noted that the Education issue was extremely well received by a variety of people and everyone agreed that this is excellent outreach. Ron said that additional assignments will be made for work plan leads as the year progresses

Concern was raised on the Leadership list regarding an article from the NFB Braille Monitor aired on a program obtained from a Radio Reading Service. Larry explained that several third-party programs are carried on Mainstream, this one features articles from a variety of sources. Larry checks the programming for production quality, general interest etc. but does not thoroughly review each episode and they provide only very sketchy show notes. He did remove this program from the rotation until a decision is made. Ron suggested there should be a standard for content and a policy which could be enforced as needed stating that we would not knowingly air content that is adverse to ACB. Larry said there is a disclaimer which states that ACB does not necessarily endorse the content of programs that are aired, and broadcasters sign an agreement which prohibits inappropriate conduct in order to maintain a family-friendly atmosphere. There were comments that it is impossible to micromanage third party content and that a disclaimer should be adequate. Kim said that the ACB Radio Management Team has taken action in the past regarding inappropriate content. Jeff and Paul emphasized that ACB Radio has a world audience and that we should be a team player with our programming which might occasionally include items that are adverse to ACB. It was agreed that third party programs should be encouraged to offer balanced content, and that we could replace third party content with our own at any time. Kim offered to contact this provider to encourage them to include articles from the ACB Braille Forum as appropriate and to introduce them to the themed E-Forum.

The Membership committee is interested to increase communication with Spanish speaking communities to develop membership and has expressed interest in producing ACB publications in Spanish. They asked Penny to follow up on the status of this. Ron said that in the past it as determined that we did not have the personnel or infrastructure to meaningfully reach out in Spanish via our publications or other aspects of ACB. Penny thought we might identify third party content for ACB Radio to meet some of this need. It was generally thought that the problem is much larger than producing publications in another language. The BOP will take no formal action at this time except to encourage airing third party content in Spanish on ACB Radio.

The article Paul submitted will be the lead article. Bob will work with Doug to profile the rehabilitation task force and will emphasize involvement in the state rehabilitation council. Katie will work with Eric to cover the USBLN. Ron will write an article about the Seattle Lighthouse with information from Kevin Daniel. Susan will profile IVIE with Carla Hayes. Ron thought it would be great to get an article on opportunities for youth such as Junior Achievment. Ron will send out notices to the lists inviting additional content. We also need to begin including the reader survey and Ron will draft the questions.

The theme for December will be traditions. We will include profiles of the ACB history committee and ACB Families.

Braille Distributed: 681; Returned: 5; Return Rate: 0.7%; Received: 676

LP Distributed: 2,580; Returned: 12; Return Rate: 0.5%; Received: 2,568

Cartridge Distributed: 886; Returned: (1 old cassette from November 2017); Return Rate: 0; Received: 886

Electronic Distributed: 6,369; Returned: 6; Return Rate: 0.1%; Received: 6,363
 

Electronic Distributed: 6,368; Returns thus far: 3
 

Braille to Be Distributed: 678

LP to Be Distributed: 2,566

Cartridge to Be Distributed: 886

The September issue is now at the presses. I’ve received a number of compliments about our August E-Forum back-to-school issue, too. I had to hold Here and There, High Tech Swap Shop, Letters to the Editor, the walk article, a feature story about Crystal Bridges museum in Arkansas, Darian Slayton Fleming’s piece about John Fleming and skydiving, cut Affiliate News to the bare minimum of dated items, and a couple of other articles. I’ll have plenty for October and November!

All the items from the communication center came back, have been unpacked and put away in their cupboard to wait for next year. People began calling to ask for the dates and the information for 2019 on July 9th. A couple of them actually wanted to register for next year’s convention the day they called us!

I received the following letter from a Forum reader; it’s something we need to consider.

“I was taken aback when carefully reading the latest issue of The ACB Braille Forum because there is information given that perpetrators could use to conduct identity theft. I am referring to the inside back cover of the magazine.

On the inside back cover personal addresses for ACB officers is presented. If you have any concerns about home break-ins, or fraudulent accounts being opened - providing this information in the magazine clearly is helping the perpetrators. Since ACB is a well-established organization, in support of all the individuals involved - Officers, Directors, Committees, etc. - it is in yours and their best interests to provide mailing address service in order for them to maintain their personal information as private. In the effort to avoid identify theft, best practice encourages making this a mandatory standard. Considering how well the magazine has dutifully avoided printing personal email addresses and personal telephone numbers for its governing organization, it was surprising to see this oversight.

Vic Clifford, Treasurer and Webmaster, Silicon Valley Council of the Blind - svcb.cc”

Another thing we need to think about is the contracts for the Forum. Our current contracts wrap up on January 14, 2019. Do we want to extend them a year, or send out RFPs this fall?
 

Listener counts for June and July 2018:

ACB Radio Mainstream 2140 for June and 2362 for July

ACB Radio Cafe 327 for June and 374 for July

ACB Radio Treasure Trove 2281 for June and 2246 for July

ACB Radio Interactive 1062 for June and 1083 for July

ACB Radio World News and Information 719 for June and 745 for July

ACB Radio Live Event: 145 for ACB workshop coverage; 215 for general session coverage
 

Phone: 8641 calls for June and 9285 for July.

Web hits: 18,739 for June and 23,652 for July.

ACBRI on demand visits 3321

Downloads: MainMenu Archives 239; Speaking Out for the Blind 15; ACB Braille and E Forum 859; ACB reports 553; Legendary Insights 541
 

We picked up 25 subscribers for the ACB Braille Forum and E Forum podcast.

We picked up 23 subscribers for ACB Reports.

We picked up 32 subscribers to the Main Menu podcast.

We picked up 4 subscribers for Legendary Insights.

We did not pick up any subscribers for any podcast feed during the month of July.

We had 1432 tuning hours reported by Stream Licensing for the month of June for ACBRadio Interactive.

We had 1432 tuning hours for the month of June for ACBRadio Café.

We had 1463 tuning hours reported by Stream Licensing for the month of July for ACBRadio Interactive.

We had 1463 tuning hours for the month of July for ACBRadio Café.

We had 257 calls to the ACB Braille/E Forum hotline for the month of June.

We had 310 calls to the ACB Braille/E Forum hotline for the month of July.

Larry and Rick are working on recordings from the convention; there are quality problems but they hope to be done in the next two weeks. Jeff reported that MainMenu Live is returning. He is also working on the cartridge content from convention. The final version of ACB Link for Android is ready for release. Paul asked if the cartridge version of convention coverage which is laid out by event rather than by day could be included on the web site. Larry said this would not be possible during convention, but could be done for archives.
 

June: Members: 328; Posts: 183

July: Members: 331; Posts: 132

June: Members: 141; Posts: 138

July: Members: 147; Posts: 253

Ron will request Facebook stats from Kelly.

Photography and video occurred throughout convention along with Facebook live coverage of some events. Katie and Kelly presented about use of social media at the BOP Writers Workshop on Wednesday. The next major project will be Giving Tuesday.

There was no other business.

The next meeting is scheduled for September 4, 2018 at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Deb moved and Susan seconded adjournment. The meeting adjourned at 11:08 p.m.
 

Respectfully Submitted,

Deb Lewis, Secretary