Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: December 3, 2024

The Board of Publications Chairperson, Katie Frederick, welcomed those present and called the December 3, 2024, meeting to order at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Board members present: Katie Frederick, Jeff Bishop, Cheryl Cumings, Bel Collins, and Zelda Gebhard.

Ex-Officio members present: Sharon Lovering, ACB Braille Forum Editor; Rick Morin, ACB Media and IT Manager, Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President and Scott Thornhill, ACB Executive Director.

Katie read the agenda. Zelda moved to approve the agenda. Agenda approved.

Zelda reported a correction to the spelling of Cheryl’s last name. Cheryl moved to approve the November minutes as corrected. Sharon 2^nd the motion. Minutes were approved.

No comments were offered.

Katie sent a draft of guidelines. Discussion was held including the following:

• Rotating the moderation among three BOP members
• Having a team of three moderators, one being the chair and the other two being BOP members who consult with each other to make decisions.
• The lead will provide consistency with others rotating in on a monthly basis with the two not editing the Blog being the moderators of the list.
• Respectful communication includes all people and all things. Expressing your opinions without judgment. Individual and group attacks will not be tolerated.
• Conversation should be about issues and facts and not about people.
• Posts should be relevant to blindness and low vision
• Do not share someone’s private information on the list without their consent.
• Events on the Community Daily Schedule should not be reposted on Conversation unless information has changed.
• Forwarding emails from publicly available lists is discouraged.
• Is there a need to create a job announce list to reach those looking for employment? Perhaps we could collaborate with the employment committee.
• Guidelines will be sent to the list on the 1^st of the month.
• Those not following guidelines will be suspended from the list for a defined period and may result in suspension from other lists as well.
• Those suspended for 30 days or more or removed from the list may make appeal to the remaining two BOP directors not involved in the disciplinary decision.

Katie will reword list guidelines and distribute the draft for review and input by the BOP for expected adoption during the January 7th meeting and possible implementation by January 15^th. 

Blog Editors

November – Cheryl and Bel

December – Jeff and Bel

Sharon reported that the Braille Forum contract with Ironmark had not been signed. She has sent a couple of issues to Fox Tracks, the company who prints the Convention program. She will keep us informed.

Deb reported that the contract for the printing of the large print Braille forum will be moved to the Minneapolis office.

Sharon is pleased with the January issue. In her work with archiving the past issues she found a great article she plans to share. Her goal is to be done with the 60’s sometime next year.

Editor’s Report - December 2024

Statistics

November-December 2024

Braille distributed: 458
Braille returned: 1
Braille return rate: 0.22%
Braille delivered: 457
Cartridge distributed: 414
Large print distributed: 1,185
Large print returned:
Large print return rate:
Large print delivered:
Email distributed: 5,489
Email bounces: 21
Email spam: 0
Unsubscribes: 2
Email return rate: 0.38%
Email delivered: 5,468

January 2025

Braille to be distributed: 451
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print to be distributed: 1,039
Email to be distributed: TBA

Deadlines for the Next Issues

February 2025: theme: love and proposals; deadline: December 20, 2024

March 2025: theme: spring into action/Get Up and Get Moving; deadline: January 24, 2025

April – MCAC: How your cultural background, race, ethnicity, and/or vision loss affected your education; deadline: February 21, 2026

May – Older Americans, AAVL; deadline: March 21, 2025

June – All things Convention; deadline: April 23, 2025

November-December’s Table of Contents

President’s Message: The Gift That Will Soon Stop Giving, by Deb Cook Lewis

Convention 2025: More about the Dallas Hotel, by Janet Dickelman

Advocacy in Action, by Claire Stanley

Summaries of the August and September 2024 Board Meetings, by Katie Frederick

Holiday Auction Just Around the Corner, by Leslie Spoone

Short Stories from Our Readers

Holiday Recipes from Our Readers

Affiliate News

Pine Tree Guide Dog Users Publishes Brochure for Health Care Providers

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

High Tech Swap Shop

Summary of the 2024 Resolutions

January’s Table of Contents

2025 ACB Leadership Conference, by Claire Stanley

Advocacy in Action: All About Technology, by Swatha Nandhakumar

Thank You from the Auction Committee, by Leslie Spoone

Touring Texas, by Janet Dickelman

Take the Next Step in ACB, by Zelda Gebhard

Call for Nominees for 2025 ACB Awards

ACB’s Board of Publications Seeks to Award Excellence in Writing, Media

Announcing the 2024 Audio Description Awards Gala Recipients

Announcing the Call for Nominations for the 2025 ADP Awards

November 2, 2024 Board Summary, by Katie Frederick

What Is an Area Agency on Aging And What Do They Offer?, by Larry Johnson

Affiliate News

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

High Tech Swap Shop

***

As I write this, the January issue is in the hands of the producers.

I continue to put together the Dots and Dashes newsletter. The next issue is December 16^th; the one after that will be January 6^th.

I’m still working with the archives/history committee on preserving and digitizing old recordings and documents from ACB events and identifying people in photos. Some of the work involves digitizing board minutes. In the old minutes, I have worked my way through the ‘80s and am working on the ‘90s.

Another part of the work includes cleaning up and modernizing old issues of the Forum to current large print standards and organizing them on our SharePoint drive. I finished the 1970s and started the 1960s. So far, I’ve finished 1968 and 1968 and am working my way through 1966 and 1967.

I continue to record the Washington Connection, and some of the other boxes on our phone system, such as the national convention box, the scholarship information, and the state convention box. I will be updating the Washington Connection within the next week or so.

I have also updated the Job Connection; the new one posted on November 15^th. I will update it again this month before taking some time off during the holidays.

Sharon Lovering, Editor

February – Stories about love and proposals

March – Spring into Action, Get up and Get moving

April – MCAC How your cultural background, race, ethnicity, and/or vision loss affected your education?

May – Older Americans, AAVL

June – All things Convention

The candidate’s forum Is scheduled for June 11 to allow other groups to hold theirs following ours.

Rick acknowledged the work that Leslie and her Auction Committee did to make the ACB Media Holiday Auction possible. He also thanked all the donors and bidders for their generous support.

In addition to the submitted written report, Rick shared the following: The listener hours went up 2.3% in the month of November. This was expected because of the AD Gala and the Friendsgiving event. We have moved Karaoke over to Media 4. The New Years Eve Community-a-thon will be on Media 4. Media 8 was used for affiliate conventions and the Spanish version of the AD Gala which revealed no growth in listener hours over last year. Perhaps we need to promote it differently. Media 3 Old Time Radio gets a lot of listeners so he is wondering if we could monetize it in some way.

The podcast numbers were down in the month of November due to fewer podcasts being posted (59 hours vs 103 hours).125 individuals subscribe to the Community podcast feed and the listener hours fluctuate according to the total hours posted.

Cheryl asked if there was any way we could trace which podcasts are most popular and if there is, should we be promoting and/or creating similar programing for our members? Rick assured her it is possible, and he agreed that perhaps some time should be devoted to doing this.

Jamaica asked when the auction recording was going to be replayed as she would like to know the bidder who won the ornaments she made and donated. She was assured that Leslie would let her know.

The next Communicator’s Gathering is scheduled for Friday, January 10 at 8:30 PM ET.

Jeff will present on how to help affiliates produce an audio newsletter with things such as chapter markers. We will invite WCB to share their experiences working with NLS in April.

Jeff has written an uplifting heartfelt holiday message, and he would like the BOP to read and provide input.

Katie mentioned that some had trouble with the Zoom link she provided with the meeting invite. She will check into this before our next meeting.

Cheryl moved to adjourn. Sharon seconded. Meeting adjourned.

Next BOP Meeting: January 7, 2024, at 9:00 PM, ET.

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard, Director
ACB Board of Publications