Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: January 7, 2025

The Board of Publications Chairperson, Katie Frederick, welcomed those present and called the January 7, 2025, meeting to order at 9 p.m. Eastern.

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. Jeff moved to approve the agenda. Zelda seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Jeff moved to approve the December minutes. Bel 2^nd the motion. Minutes were approved as presented.

ACB Communicators’ Workshop

Zelda thanked Katie for scheduling the Zoom meeting for the Communicator’s Workshop on Friday, January 10 at 8:30 PM.

Katie asked Zelda to give a brief history. Zelda explained that the group began as a special group for the Editors and has transitioned into a broader group to include others who have the responsibility to communicate with their affiliate members on various platforms including newsletters. Quarterly workshops are hosted by the BOP to share ideas and address topics of support and interest to the group. If individuals would like to be added to the Communicator’s email list, they may subscribe to the groups.io email list at

[email protected].

On Friday, Jeff and Michael Babcock will be sharing information about services that allow you to put your content on a podcast feed, economical ways phone services may be used and also ways to get summaries of your material made.  There are many technical options available.

None was shared.

In addition to the written report, Sharon shared that she got the February Braille Forum out the door today. There was a great response to the February theme of Love. She also included a couple of articles from previous Braille Forum issues.

FoxTracks is now printing the large print issues. Interactions with them have been positive, and she looks forward to working with them.

Deb also mentioned that FoxTracks is the company already printing the convention program. We hope to be able to merge the two contracts together at some point in the future because a lot of the requirements for both are similar. She thanked Nancy and Sharon for their work coordinating the new contract. She stated that though we want members to receive the format of their choosing, we would like members to choose paperless formats, and they are moving in that direction.

Editor’s Report - January 2025

Statistics

January 2025

Braille distributed: 451
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print distributed: 1,039
Email distributed: 5,457

February 2025

Braille to be distributed: 452
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print to be distributed: 1,037
Email to be distributed: TBA

Deadlines for the Next Issues

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, 2025

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

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

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

February’s Table of Contents (subject to change)

President’s Message: Is “No” Your Final Answer?, by Deb Cook Lewis

Big Dreams, Bold Ideas, by Janet Dickelman

Keep Advocating, by Claire Stanley

The ACB Constitution and Bylaws Committee Wants to Hear from You, by John McCann

Introducing the BADIE Blog!

Are You a Leader Searching for More?, by Zelda Gebhard

Join Us in the March 29th Multi-State Auction!

What Is Love, by Larry Johnson

Meeting Ed, by Toni Eames

An Unexpected Love, by Abbie Taylor

A Conventional Couple, by Anthony Corona and Gabriel Lopez Kafati

I Found My True Love in a Newspaper Article, by Tammy Robbins

Ship Shaped or Ship Shocked: There Are None So Blind as Those Who Are at Sea!, by Janet Di Nola Parmerter

A Visionary for the Blind for 45 Years, Nun Taught Children to Have Faith in Themselves, by Annysa Johnson

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

***

As I write this, I am working on the February issue.

I continue to put together the Dots and Dashes newsletter. The first issue of the year will go out January 6^th; the next one will go out on the 20^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 have finished the 1970s and started on the 1960s. So far I’ve finished 1966, 1968 and 1969, and am working my way through 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 updated the Washington Connection on December 12^th and will be updating it sometime in the near future.

I have also updated the Job Connection; the new one posted on December 15^th. I will update it again this month.

Sharon Lovering, Editor

*******

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, 2025

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

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

Over the holidays there were a lot of issues with metadata that Rick was able to solve. He is working on a grant proposal with Jo Lynn and Dan to bring more money in for ACB Media.

Rick and representatives of the JPMorgan Force for Good met with the President of Live 365 about helping Live 365 become more accessible.

Live 365’s reporting engine is down, so there are no stats currently available for it. 2024 end-of-year stats reveal the total podcasts are similar to 2023 though listens are down.

In talking to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) they have made the observation that we have lots of content and are looking to build up the ability to distribute it for a greater reach where others are typically lacking content.

Claire and Kolby are currently attending the Consumer Electronic Show (CES).

The staff holiday audio message positively embraced by the membership.

The number one podcast for 2024 with 1500 listens was the broadcast about the eclipse done by Rick and Maryann in a collaborative effort with Harvard.

Scott shared some 2024 social media information provided by Mike Johnson:

On Facebook, the post with the highest reach was the eclipse event with light and sound description and the post with the highest engagement was the eclipse event with light and sound. The number of unique people that were displayed at 150,600 (167 percent increase from 2023). The number of times our Facebook profile was visited was14,500 (35 percent increase from 2023)

On Instagram, the post that had the most reach was the deaf-blind awareness week and the post with the highest engagement was the ADA anniversary.

On LinkedIn, the post that had the most reach was Scott Thornhill Announced as New Executive Director with the post having the highest engagement was the Exhibitor Showcase at the National Conference.

January - Zelda and Cheryl

February - Bel and Cheryl

In order to stimulate more content, Cheryl was wondering if we should direct invite others to write. Public submissions are to be sent to [email protected]  Deb suggested that we reach out to the affiliate editors to ask if they have some content we can reprint or ask for possible new content as well.  Bel offered to reach out to known writers to invite them to contribute. Cheryl plans to reach out to a writer’s group also. She also commented that writings about personal experiences are very popular and may well help us expand our reach.

Jamaica asked where a submission should be sent. Katie asked her and others to send their submissions to [email protected].

The discussion continued and included feedback about the draft Katie sent. Cheryl suggested we continue working on the document and address it again in February.

After last month’s discussion, Cheryl took the idea of an Employment/Jobs email list to the ACB Employment Committee. Cheryl reported that Peter and the committee are interested and excited about a dedicated place for sharing information about employment. Once it is created, we will initially promote this new list on the other lists. We will try it as a 2-way communication platform.  Katie, Deb, Peter and Cheryl will meet and work on the development of the new list.

Member on the Mic

Cheryl asked where we are with Member on the Mic. Katie Cheryl and Bel will check into where this is at present.

The meeting was adjourned.

Next BOP Meeting is scheduled for February 4, 2024, at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard, Director
ACB Board of Publications