Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: December 5, 2023

Board of Publications Chairperson Penny Reeder called the December 5, 2023, meeting to order at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time. No additions were made to the previously shared agenda.

Board members present: Penny Reeder, Cheryl Cumings, Cachet Wells, Jeff Bishop, 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 Dan Spoone, ACB’s Interim Executive Director.

A motion was made by Cachet and seconded by Jeff to approve the corrected November minutes. Minutes were approved.

Mary from Massachusetts said she enjoyed the articles in the December ACB Braille Forum. She expressed concern about the content of a recent email posted on the email list. She shared interest in the agenda topic of email list moderation. Penny brought her attention to the recent Dots and Dashes and the invitation it contained for us to share what we like about the ACB Braille Forum.

Anisio expressed his thanks and appreciation that the BOP meetings are open to all.

Jamaica requested help to open up and comment on blog posts. Penny asked Jamaica to email her for some individual help.

Announced that they will be moving upstairs to Suite 660 in the New Year and will be packing boxes soon.

Currently working on ACB Braille Forum issues from January through September 1980.

Reported that there will soon be a Dots and Dashes page on ACB.org.

Statistics

November 2023

Issue type: hard copy
Page count: 64
Braille distributed: 496
Braille returned: 2
Return rate: 0.4%
Braille received: 494
Cartridge distributed: 366
Large print distributed: 2,095
Large print returned: 14
Return rate: 0.67%
Large print received:
Email distributed: 5,436
Electronic bounces: 50
Spam: 0
Unsubscribes: 3
Return percentage: 0.92%
Email received: 5,386

December 2023

Issue type: electronic
Page count: 48
Email distributed: 5,433

January 2024

Braille to be distributed: 514
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print to be distributed: 2,113
Email to be distributed: TBA

Deadlines for the Next Issues

February 2024 (electronic): accessible voting, civil rights, and black history; deadline: December 22, 2023

March 2024: ACB Women with International Women’s History Month; deadline: January 26, 2024

April 2024: Multicultural Affairs Committee; deadline: February 23, 2024

December’s Table of Contents

President’s Message: The Ups and Downs of Holiday Traditions, by Deb Cook Lewis

Snapshots from Jacksonville, by Janet Dickelman

The Winners of the 2023 Audio Description Awards Are …, by Tabitha Kenlon

Defining DEIA, by Regina Marie Brink

An Unexpected Journey, by Maria Kristic

English Language Teacher Privileged to Work with Students from Across the Globe, by Audrey Schading

My Brother’s Gift, by Rodney Stanford

Bermuda, by Toni Eames

The Gift of Community, by Cindy Hollis

Seven Ways We Can Get Paid in a Volunteer Organization, by Amanda Selm

Braille Matters, by Denise Colley

Texas Puts the Fun in Fundraising, by Jan Gray

Affiliate News

Passings

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

High Tech Swap Shop

January’s Table of Contents

Announcing Our 2024 Convention Tours, by Janet Dickelman

Call for Nominees for 2024 ACB Awards

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

Announcing the Call for Nominations for the 2024 ADP Awards, by Tabitha Kenlon

Lights, Camera, Description!

It’s a Great Time to Get Connected and Build a Strong Leadership Foundation! by Kenneth Semien Sr.

Thank You from the Auction Committee, by Leslie Spoone

Affiliate News

Randolph-Sheppard Vendors of America Sagebrush 2024 National BEP Training Conference Announcement

Special-Interest Affiliate Spotlight: Guide Dog Users, Inc.

Passings

Summary of the Fall 2023 Board of Directors Meeting, by Penny Reeder

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

*****

I continue to put together the Dots and Dashes newsletter. One went out on Monday, December 4^th; the next one will go out December 18^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. I haven’t done much on that recently; I’m holding off until we move up to the sixth floor and unpack boxes. Some of the work involves digitizing board minutes – most of which are still in the moving boxes. 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 have finished 1981 through 1989. I have made Word and text files for all of 1980 and will do the braille files this week. Although I had scanned all the issues, I still had to type in some of the information when the page was blurry or faded.

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.

Additionally, I am updating the ACB Job Connection. I aim to have that finished by December 15^th and posted on the website on the 18^th.

I am also handling press releases, getting them to the newswire service, setting the distribution group, the time we want them posted, etc.

If all goes well, we should be able to move up to the sixth-floor office sometime in the new year.

*****

Braille

January 2023: 483
January 2022: 650
Percent increase/decrease: -25.69%

March 2023: 492
March 2022: 641
Percent increase/decrease: -23.24%

May 2023: 507
May 2022: 647
Percent increase/decrease: -21.64%

July 2023: 502
July 2022: 646
Percent increase/decrease: -22.29%

September 2023: 498
September 2022: 641
Percent increase/decrease: -22.3%

November 2023: 496
November 2022: 487
Percent increase/decrease: +1.85%

Total 2023: 2,978
Total 2022: 3,712
Difference between years (%): -19.77%

Large Print

January 2023: 2,114
January 2022: 2,159
Percent increase/decrease: -2.08%

March 2023: 2,081
March 2022: 2,145
Percent increase/decrease: -2.98%

May 2023: 2,154
May 2022: 2,145
Percent increase/decrease: +0.42%

July 2023: 2,151
July 2022: 2,160
Percent increase/decrease: -0.42%

September 2023: 2,114
September 2022: 2,165
Percent increase/decrease: -2.36%

November 2023: 2,095
November 2022: 2,128
Percent increase/decrease: -1.55%

Total 2023: 12,709
Total 2022: 12,902
Difference between years (%): -1.5%

Digital Cartridge

January 2023: 408
January 2022: 469
Percent increase/decrease: -13%

March 2023: 404
March 2022: 432
Percent increase/decrease: -6.48%

May 2023: 394
May 2022: 405
Percent increase/decrease: -2.72%

July 2023: 334
July 2022: 457
Percent increase/decrease: -26.91%
* Large decrease due to people failing to return cartridges, and Perkins canceling their cartridges until they return the ones they have out.

September 2023: 362
September 2022: 438
Percent increase/decrease: -17.35%

November 2023: 366
November 2022: 436
Percent increase/decrease: -16.05%

Total 2023: 2,268
Total 2022: 2,637
Difference between years (%): -13.99%

Email

January 2023: 5,045
January 2022: 4,998
Percent increase/decrease: +0.94%

February 2023: 5,105
February 2022: 5,026
Percent increase/decrease: +1.57%

March 2023: 5,215
March 2022: 4,987
Percent increase/decrease: +4.57%

April 2023: 5,365
April 2022: 5,139
Percent increase/decrease: +4.4%

May 2023: 5,359
May 2022: 5,105
Percent increase/decrease: +4.98%

June 2023: 5,434
June 2022: 5,151
Percent increase/decrease: +5.49%

July 2023: 5,373
July 2022: 5,149
Percent increase/decrease: + 4.35%

August 2023: 5,362
August 2022: 5,132
Percent increase/decrease: +4.48%

September 2023: 5,364
September 2022: 5,136
Percent increase/decrease: +4.44%

October 2023: 5,367
October 2022: 5,159
Percent increase/decrease: +4.03%

November 2023: 5,436
November 2022: 5,160
Percent increase/decrease: +5.35%

December 2023: 5,433
December 2022: 5,058
Percent increase/decrease: +7.4%

Total 2023: 63,858
Total 2022: 61,200
Percent of increase: +4.34%

Sharon Lovering, Editor

In response to an email from Regina Brink expressing her concern about recent email posts on ACB-Conversation, Cheryl asked if there is something else or something more that we can do to more quickly respond to language that is offensive?

Deb explained how the current list moderation occurs. The list contains both ACB members and non-ACB members. Several people are currently moderating the list. When an incident occurs, they confer and decide how to proceed. Any subsequent post contributes to the problem. It is not okay to refute a post because that leads to yet another post. Offenders may be blocked, suspended, or removed.

The best way to help the moderators is to notify them by going to the bottom of the email and clicking on the Group Owner. Katie, Penny, and Deb as the current moderators will be notified. An additional moderator might be helpful. List guidelines are shared with individuals when they subscribe and are posted to the list once a month. Zelda offered to send the guidelines including the moderation process to the BOP email list for our review.

The Member on the Mic (MOM) Process Report will be done in January.

Nominations for MOM Interviews: 

Anthony reported that he has received several responses to the plea for MOM nominations. December is done and recording is being done for January. Cecily will be doing some transcribing. Looking for some interviewers and editors. Lisa Brooks wrote some great notes on the transcription process, and they will be included in the MOM Process Report.

Anthony suggests we do two community calls about the blog – what we are looking for and how to submit and how to access and comment. Penny will add this topic to the January meeting agenda.

Anthony will be meeting with Kenneth Semien after the holidays about including the First Timers and ACB JP Morgan Chase recipients in the MOM.

Reviewers for December Jeff 1^st, Zelda 2^nd

January Penny 1st, Cheryl 2^nd

February Cachet 1st

Editorial Policy Manual Updates 

Penny, Jeff, and Zelda will individually review this document prior to the meeting. Deb offered to contribute the history of this document.

Training via community call will occur at the end of March.

The ACB Media Holiday Auction was a tremendous success. The media team is appreciative of all who contributed to the success.

We have 38 podcasts, 10 of which represent 82% of the listenership. Comparing the statistics from 2022 to 2023 reveals 249,049 listens and downloads in 2023 down slightly from 249,717 in 2022. Whatever we do live, we get 10 times the number of people listening later via podcasts.

The #1 podcast is Community with 38.6% of the total listens, up 10% from last year. Top ten podcasts include: Community, Events, Main Menu, Convention, Braille Forum, Advocacy Update, Tuesday Topics, Sound Prints, Technology, and Sunday Edition. He will share the spreadsheet.

Our first quarter’s major objective is to get off the current infrastructure and update our scheduling system.

On the IT side - acb.org, acbmedia.org and the mini mall websites are under a new hosting platform which should give us good stability.

Penny brought up Jane Sheehan’s concern about the convention thumb drive. He is aware of this concern and has made some inquiries.

Jeff announced an updated version of ACB LINK was released with lots of improvements which corrected some iOS 17 issues, the streaming is much more reliable, there have been some UI corrections, color changes and some logo changes in the app as well. If you double tap on a stream or podcast it remembers where you were. The android version is being worked on.

Guest Janet Wright had a question for Rick about ACB Media. He explained that ACB stations are not currently labeled with names but with numbers. He will take this topic to the ACB Media Support Committee.

Zelda requested moving the Editor’s Gathering from December 8th to January 12^th, the 2nd Friday in January. She will contact Jeff for a topic idea.

Because of the holidays, Penny suggested moving our regularly scheduled meeting to the 2^nd Tuesday in January. Zelda had a conflict on the 9^th. We explored moving it from Tuesday to Wednesday but that resulted in a conflict for Jeff. It was decided to meet on our scheduled meeting date of January 2^nd at 8:30 p.m.

Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard, Member
ACB Board of Publications