Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: January 2, 2024

Board of Publications Chairperson, Penny Reeder, called the January 2, 2024, 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; Katie Frederick, Member Lead on ACB Public Awareness Steering Committee and Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President.

Penny moved to approve the December meeting minutes. Cachet second the motion. Motion approved.

20 guests were present between Zoom and Clubhouse. No issues were brought forward.

Penny joyfully announced the ACB Board approval of the 2024 budget requested by the BOP for 10 issues of the ACB Braille Forum. All issues will be provided in all formats including Braille, Large Print, Email and NLS Digital Cartridge.

The Alexandria office staff will be busy moving this week, so they ask for your patience when trying to connect with them.

January 2024 Statistics

December 2023

Issue type: electronic
Page count: 48
Email distributed: 5,433
Electronic bounces: 58
Spam: 0
Unsubscribes: 0
Return percentage: 1.07%
Email received: 5,375

January 2024

Braille distributed: 514
Cartridge distributed: TBA
Large print distributed: 2,113
Email distributed: 5,379

February 2024

Braille to be distributed: 509
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print to be distributed: 2,085
Email to be distributed: TBA

Deadlines for the Next Issues

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

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

May 2024: TBA; deadline: March 25, 2024

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

This week, we’re moving up to the sixth floor, suite 660. You may not be able to reach us — either by phone or email — for a couple of days. As soon as we are able, we’ll get back to you.

I am working on the February issue of the Forum. I will get that to press as soon as possible after the move.

I continue to put together the Dots and Dashes newsletter. One will go out once we get up and running in the new suite; then we’ll resume our usual schedule. 

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. 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 the 1980s, and as soon as we’re set up in the new suite, I’ll tackle the 1970s. I will also pick up where I left off in the minutes from the 1980s.

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. It was updated December 19^th.

I updated the ACB Job Connection, which posted on December 15th. I will work on the January update once I get the February issue out the door.

In addition, I’m handling press releases, getting them to the newswire service, setting the distribution group, the time we want them posted, etc.

Zelda announced that the next editor’s Gathering is planned for January 12^th at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. Jeff shared that he and Michael Babcock from BITS will present information to the editors to inform them of the opportunity that exists for affiliates to obtain a podcast feed through ACB Media. Also, information will be shared about some options available to convert text newsletters to audio through platforms such as Eleven Labs.

Katie offered to schedule the Zoom session and send it to Zelda to include the link in the invitation to the editors.

Penny announced that a new Member on the Mic (MOM) blog post was posted this morning. She thanked Katie for the posting, Anthony for the great interview and the rest of the team for their efforts to make it a very interesting and informative blog post.

Penny also thanked Cheryl, Cachet, and Anthony for their work in compiling the Member on the Mic Process document. Penny wondered where we should keep it. Deb suggested attaching it to the Editorial Policy as an appendix. Both Zelda and Katie noted there were a few edits needing to be made to the document. Zelda offered to reformat it to meet the large print guidelines.

Anthony thanked Sharon for collecting the nominations for the Member on the Mic interviews and passing them along to the team. Cecilly Nipper is working with Lisa Brooks on the transcription. He offered to write an outreach invitation for others to join the team. He will share a draft with the BOP before posting it to the lists. Following that, training will be set up for those interested to attend.

When Anthony posts a blog post folder to Dropbox, he will also email Katie that one is in the que.

Reviewers of the submitted written blog posts are:

January Penny 1st, Cheryl 2^nd

February Cachet 1st, Jeff 2nd

To help fulfill our responsibility for member training, sessions in March and April have been planned for e-Reader training. Helping the BOP provide the training are the special interest affiliates of LUA and BRL.

Penny suggested that we host an ACB Community Call to highlight the ACB Voices blog. Discussion revealed the need to explain the purpose of the blog, how to subscribe, guidelines of how to submit a blog post complete with examples of appropriate subject matter.

Deb suggested that we address our various communication channels, including the blog and the ACB Braille Forum to clarify which might be more appropriate and effective for the various types of subject matter.

It was felt that part of the original reason for the blog was for outward facing communication. The format allows us to communicate through various types of media such as text, video, audio, and photos. It was suggested that we probably will need to populate with content to keep the blog flowing.

Katie manages a blog professionally and suggested that we take a very organized team approach doing regular and manageable posts - possibly weekly. Katie offered to work on this. Cheryl is interested also. A subcommittee or task force will be formed to investigate this further.

Jamaica Miller reported that she successfully subscribed to the blog. She asked about the affiliate podcast feed mentioned earlier in the meeting. She was told if Georgia opts to create a podcast feed, she should be able to get a link to it.

Carla Ruschival shared information from LUA that the e-Reader training will be held on March 11 as a cooperative event sponsored by LUA, BRL, and the BOP via a Community Call.

Zelda had sent the Editorial Policy Manual (last updated in 2019) as well as the current Large Print Guidelines to the BOP email list. The 2019 version was approved by the BOP but not adopted by the ACB Board. Zelda has been reviewing it and noting what she feels needs updating. She stated that in the document it refers to information in the appendices, but none are attached to the version she has and had shared. For instance, it referred to a Style Guide. Deb indicated that would be the standard AP Style Guide which could be attached or linked to the document for easy reference. Deb would like to offer some insight and history concerning this document. She is willing to meet with Jeff, Penny, Zelda, and anyone else who is interested in this project. A meeting date was set for Thursday, February 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern.

The Community-a-Thon happened during a 12-hour period from New Years Eve into New Years Day. There were 1546 listener hours which is about 125 people an hour. There were approximately 50 people in Zoom and 100 on Media.  Listening sessions average ¾ of an hour. Within an hour of the completion of the event the podcasts were up. So far there have been about 150 people listening to the podcasts. The entire event will be replayed at noon and at midnight for the next two weeks.

He announced the selection for the JPMorgan Force for Good to finalize the scheduling system and build a scheduled Community channel. There is a lot of demand to listen to the Community content in a replay mode. Some listen to podcasts, but some prefer to listen to them streamed. Currently, the Best of the Best is replayed randomly. This will allow a shift away from streaming things live to a prerecorded basis.

They are also working on another grant proposal for building an Alexa frontend for the Audio Description website. A new Audio Description website is targeted to be deployed in May.

Rick announced that January 4^th is the Louis Braille-a-Thon sponsored by BRL.

Tuesday, February 6 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard, Member
ACB Board of Publications