Call to Order/Introductions
Adoption of Agenda:
Approval of November 7 Minutes:
Motion: Paul moved and Donna seconded adoption of the November 7, 2017 Minutes with minor edits from Ron. Motion passed.
Open Forum:
Michael Malver said that TuneIn Radio, which provides radio feeds to Amazon Alexa and other services, supports playing ACB Radio but does not play ACB podcasts. He noted that the registration process is not difficult, and doing this would potentially broaden the podcast audience. Ron will pass this information to Larry and ask that he look into adding the ACB podcasts to Tunein and to the Alexa service.
Update from the ACB Budget Process:
Deb attended the revenue side of the ACB Board budget discussions which also included the proposed convention expenses, and Ron attended the meeting covering the remaining expense categories. The budget adopted for the BOP is aggressive and less than requested, but is based on the anticipated number of people expected to access each format along with the slightly increased production costs resulting from implementation of the new large print guidelines. Ron reported that everyone was totally supportive of the revised guidelines and there were no questions from the Board.
The BOP also submitted budget proposals to increase the frequency and potentially the content for the Braille Forum. These proposed changes are based on receipt of grants earmarked for this purpose that have been submitted but not yet funded.
Leslie thanked the BOP once again on behalf of CCLVI for the excellent collaboration in developing and implementing the new large print guidelines. Ron clarified that the Guidelines will apply to all materials published by ACB.
Updating the Board of Publications Editorial Policy:
Paul and Deb will head the working group. It was agreed that Deb will propose a meeting time and send a note to the BOP email list. Deb will incorporate the large print guidelines into the policy. It is anticipated to have a solid draft by the midyear meeting with a preliminary report in January. Katie is interested in attending the task group meetings and reviewing the draft as it relates to the Communications strategies to avoid duplication of effort. Leslie asked if Zelda or Donna could be involved. Ron said this is more about the editorial policy and that work on the large print guidelines is finalized. Leslie thought they would still be interested and it was agreed to keep her informed as meetings are scheduled. There was discussion that the Editorial Policy is difficult to locate on the ACB site. It was generally hoped that this and other items would be easier to find after the web site update is complete. Ron said he’d like to see various things specified in the policy such as use of a particular Style Guide and the conventions for use of specific words or terminology—capitalization etc.
Revamping the ACB Candidates Web Page and Forum
Ron reviewed the previous decision for the BOP to host a candidates forum online and by phone a couple weeks prior to convention, and a town hall meeting at convention preferably the night before elections. Based on previous timelines for getting content and developing the candidates pages, it was agreed to move the existing schedule forward one month so that candidate submissions will be due May 1, the pages will go live by May 15 and the online forum will be held mid-June. Ron will verify these timeframes with Eric and Larry for web production. It was agreed that individuals wishing to provisionally announce their candidacy for positions that may become available as a result of elections should be allowed to do so, but the impact of this will not be significant until 2019 when officers are elected. Therefore, we will focus on the process change this year and invite provisional candidates to submit pages in 2019. It was also decided to include some open-ended questions so that candidates are encouraged to share more of themselves with the membership. Ron will lead the task group to develop questions and a process for the candidates pages and Forum and will write an article for the February Braille Forum. Susan and Donna expressed interest to work on this project. Ron will post to the list to get things going.
Sue Ammeter asked about campaigning on the ACB lists. Bob said that individuals often posted about their candidacy but no one has abused this. Paul said there was concern in the past that candidates posted to the lists but did not submit information for the candidate pages or that they put out messages to lists that were far longer than allowed on the candidate pages.
Items for Presentation During ACB Midyear Meetings
Donna, Susan, Deb and Paul plan to attend the Midyear Meetings. Ron will organize and circulate an outline. We need to determine who will present. Topics include: the revised candidate process including the Candidates forum; large print guidelines; Braille Forum changes--conversion to cartridge and elimination of CD Rom, new Braille Forum cover; role of the BOP and upcoming BOP elections; some key statistics from the KPI dashboard; update of the Editorial Policy; convention activities including awards, writer’s workshop, town hall candidates meeting; increased organizational collaborations and integration.
Board of Publications Writers Workshop
Ron has identified a qualified individual who may be available to present the personal branding workshop in St. Louis that we were unable to offer last year. Everyone agreed that this topic has universal appeal. Ron will follow up with his contact, and will send a bio and the blog link to the BOP list.
BOP Chairman’s Report: Ron Brooks
- Attended the November 30 ACB Board Meeting and with assistance from Deb Cook Lewis and draft minutes from the ACB Secretary, drafted a Braille Forum article summarizing the October and November ACB Board meetings.
- Submitted the proposed BOP budget for 2018 and worked with ACB staff to answer questions and make refinements. The Board made modifications to working assumptions about the number of hard copies of the ACB Braille Forum to be distributed in each hard copy format, but the basic production assumptions (including a 64-page limit made necessary by the new large print style guide) were accepted by the Board. Thus, the adopted budget assumes those formatting changes.
- Worked with the ACB Executive Director, the ACB Braille Forum Editor and the ACB President to develop a plan to transition CD recipients of the ACB Braille Forum to other formats.
- Working with the Chairperson of the Communications and Marketing Action Planning Committee, developed revised text for the “About Us” page on the ACB website which is currently under development.
- Provided November data for the 2017 BOP KPI Report.
Motion: Deb moved and Susan seconded acceptance of the Chairman’s report. Motion passed.
Editor’s report: Sharon Lovering
November 2017 Issue type: hard copy; Print Page Count: 48
December 2017 Issue type: electronic; Print page count: 53
Electronic Distributed: 5,368
I am currently working on the January 2018 issue. I continue to work on the national office photo/video inventory; I am writing descriptions for the 2002 convention photos. Good news – Digital Commonwealth has accepted our application and will be scanning the non-digital photos for us! I expect Kim will share more information with us.
I have also sent emails and hard-copy letters to those who receive the CD version of the Forum, notifying them of its discontinuation after the January issue. I have gotten a handful of responses from people who want to switch to email, podcast, cartridge and download. This information will also go on the January CD.
Another big project that I’ve started is the annual affiliate membership updates. I’ve heard from more than a dozen affiliates already. Once I get the AMMS training dates from Nancy, I will begin sending out the memo, certification schedule, and AMMS training information.
The Awards article printed last year was revised and will be included in the January issue of the Braille Forum. Sharon will send copies to the BOP.
Kelly has redesigned the Braille Forum front cover to include the new logo. Sharon described the options and recommended the one she thought has the most balanced effect.
Motion: Paul moved and Deb seconded adoption of cover sample A. Motion passed.
Motion: Susan moved and Donna seconded acceptance of Sharon’s report. Motion passed.
Other Reports
Email Lists Stats: Bob Hachey
Email list Statistics, November, 2017
ACB-L Membership: 321; Posts: 143
ACB-Chat Membership: 137; Posts: 105
Bob discussed an issue on one of the lists where a poster expressed concern that staff legislative updates reflect a party bias. Ron said that the positions ACB takes may appear partisan in the current political environment where there is little middle ground. Staff is obligated to represent the position of the majority of our members as expressed in resolutions and voting. As the BOP, list moderators or staff it is important that we keep our personal political views out of the picture as we send the message of the organization.
Social Media
Ron reported that Twitter has 2140 followers. There were over 3100 likes on Facebook. Other information as not available for the Minutes.
Social Media and PR: Katie Frederick
The PR committee did not meet in November and will not meet in December. They plan to begin work on publicizing the convention previews.
Other Business and Announcements
There was no other business.
Next Meeting:
The next meeting is scheduled for January 2, 2018 at 9:00 PM eastern. On January 1, the meeting was rescheduled by consensus to January 9 at 9:00 PM.
Adjourn
Donna moved and Deb seconded adjournment. the meeting adjourned at 10:48 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Deb Lewis, Secretary