Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: March 12, 2024

The Board of Publications Chairperson, Penny Reeder, called the March 12, 2024, meeting to order at 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

No additions were made to the previously shared agenda.

Members present: Penny Reeder, Cachet Wells, Jeff Bishop, Cheryl Cumings, 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; Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President; plus, Dan Spoone, Interim ACB Executive Director.

No corrections were offered. The February minutes approved as presented.

Sharon Strzalkowski is having issues with the ACB Community Schedule when reading it with Voiceover. Jeff suggested that what she is experiencing is probably a Voiceover bug as it does not occur outside of Voiceover and the formatting is being done correctly.

It was noted that the list has improved. Discussion was held to explore ways to improve the moderation of the Conversation list. Suggestions included adding more moderators perhaps on a scheduled basis, utilizing moderators who are not in leadership positions or perhaps setting a time limit on subject threads to reduce the need for moderation. We decided to do some training to provide information about Groups.io lists and some of the features such as reply to sender and reply to group, etc. This should reduce the number of responses sent to the entire list. Rick, Jeff, and Penny will meet to plan and schedule an ACB Community training to include things like reminders to avoid “one-liners” and not posting to multiple lists at the same time. In addition to the overall training, we also decided to change the setting in Groups.io to limit threads to five days. The target start date will be April 1 and will be preceded by an announcement to the list.

Jeff mentioned the need for additional training to be developed for members on how to manage their personal Groups.io account and after that a training for those who own a premium account. The possibility of perhaps doing this during the convention was discussed.

Guest Input: 

Jamica Miller asked that keystrokes for Reply and Reply All be shared during the future member training.

Deborah Armstrong offered to help with the training. She has done two presentations about using Groups.io with NVDA and also one using the web interface. Rick will share the links to the podcasts.

Penny got a call from an individual requesting an announcement list. Because the individual is not on either the Leadership or Conversation lists, she misses announcements such as the BOP meeting and agenda. Currently ACB has an announce list but only staff may post to it. There is also a Media-Announce list which could be used for BOP meeting announcements. This subject will be revisited.

March 2024

Has finished doing the braille translations for all of the 1979 ACB Braille Forums. She also put together the list of the Freeman articles so far. The deadline for the BOP award nominations is April 1^st.

Statistics

February 2024

Braille distributed: 509
Braille returned: 8
Return rate: 1.6%
Braille delivered: 501
Cartridge distributed: TBA
Large print distributed: 2,085
Large print returned: 27
Return rate: 1.3%
Large print delivered: 2,058
Email distributed: 5,368
Electronic bounces: 25
Spam: 1
Unsubscribes: 3
Return percentage: 0.48%
Email received: 5,342

March 2024

Braille distributed: 457
Cartridge distributed: TBA
Large print distributed: 2,045
Email distributed: 5,550

April 2024

Braille to be distributed: 471
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print to be distributed: 1,233
Email to be distributed: TBA

Deadlines for the Next Issues

May 2024: theme TBA; deadline: March 25, 2024
June 2024: theme TBA, deadline: April 26, 2024                                                 
July-August 2024: theme TBA; deadline: May 24, 2024

March’s Table of Contents

Learn About Continuing Education and Professional Development Hours, by Janet Dickelman

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

It’s Time to Get Ready for the 18^th Annual Summer Auction, by Leslie Spoone

ACB Women’s Committee Breast Cancer Support Group

Blind Women in Employment, by Lynne Koral

A Celebration of Life and Love: Linda and Tom Go to Hawaii, by Linda Samulski

A Loving Or Hostile World — What Do We Want Our World to Become? It’s Our Choice, by Larry Johnson

Meeting Rick, 1968, by Michael Moran

Join Us at the Interstate Auction, by Pat Tussing and Cecily Laney Nipper

Spoken Word Ensemble, by Annie Chiappetta

BITS and Pieces That Make Affiliates Strong, by Jeff Bishop

Affiliate News

Here and There

High Tech Swap Shop

April’s Table of Contents

Jacksonville 2024: How to Get Certified for Paratransit, Order Dog Food, and Learn about Pre-Registration, by Janet Dickelman

Wear Those Walking Shoes, by Katie Frederick

“Four” Ever Framily: Four Years of Camaraderie and Connection: Celebrating Special Friendships in the ACB Community, by Belinda Collins

You Asked, We’re Answering: Let’s Get to Work!, by Brooke Jostad

Blind Court Reporter Has Storied Career, by Shelley Keeland

Building a Mindset of Gratitude in Challenging Times, by Christie Varga

Miles Apart, Close at Heart: Keeping Up with My Daughter’s Appalachian Trail Hike, by Jennifer Harnish

Advocating with My Whole Self, by Cheryl Cumings

A Better World, by Regina Marie Brink

Layer Plus Layer Equals Me, by Gabriel Lopez Kafati

What Is Jewish Identity?, by Lynne Koral

Blindness and Aging: What Can These Old Eyes See?, by Rev. Michael Garrett

Affiliate News

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

High Tech Swap Shop

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As I write this, I’m putting the finishing touches on the April Braille Forum. Huge thanks to the Multicultural Affairs Committee for their fantastic articles.

I’ve been brailling like a madwoman to get ready for the leadership conferences. The stacks of braille and large print completely filled our conference room table, and the overflow went onto some of the chairs around the table.

I continue to put together the Dots and Dashes newsletter. The next issue will go out on March 11th; the one after that, the 25th.

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 nearly finished 1979; all I need to do is make the braille files for November and December.

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. We will probably update it after the leadership conference.

I updated the ACB Job Connection, which posted on February 24th. I will work on the March update next week.

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

Sharon Lovering, Editor
ACB Braille Forum

May – Aging and Vision Loss. Will approach AAVL for contributions.
June - Hearing and Vision Sensory Loss and Juneteenth with possible involvement from SASI.
July/August – With deadline the end of May, it will feature Convention information.

We did not get a notice in the April ACB Braille Forum about the Candidates’ Pages. Instead, announcements will be sent to the email lists, Dots and Dashes (April 8 and 22) and the ACB Community Schedule about the Canidate’s Pages giving those interested in running for office an opportunity to provide information by May 10^th to be posted on the website the end of May. That will give members time to review before the Candidate’s Forum scheduled on June 19^th. Penny asked if the information could also be placed on Washington Connection as well for those who don’t use email. Sharon agreed that it could. It could appear in the May ACB Braille Forum, on ACB Media 10 and social media as well.

Guest Input:

Amanda Selm asked where she could send a BOP Awards nomination. All nominations should be sent to Sharon Lovering at [email protected].

Janeen Lea asked what topics would be appropriate for the ACB Voices Blog and where to submit them. Penny explained that a variety of topics are welcome. Janeen also wanted to know more about the Member on the Mic. Both blog posts and nominations for the Member on the Mic should be sent to Sharon Lovering. She will pass it on to Anthony Corona and his team.

Member on the Mic Update  

Anthony has a scholarship winner ready to post and then in two weeks a DKM award winner. He also has three others who are scheduled at the end of the month. He will ask Sharon to post the plea for nominees for the MOM to stimulate future nominees.

BOP Blog Editors:

March – Zelda and Penny

April – Cachet and Cheryl

Penny, Jeff, Zelda, and Deb will schedule a preliminary meeting to work on the update. They plan to meet on Tuesday, March 26 at 10 AM Eastern.

Rick sent some statistics about the D.C. Leadership Meetings both with ACB Media and Zoom. ACB Media showed strong listenership of the board of directors meeting at 688 total listener hours with 223 unique listeners for an average of 3 hours per listener. For both the president’s meeting and the legislative seminar the total listener hours for Media and Zoom combine for a total similar to the board of director’s meeting with Media at 475 and Zoom at 200 hours with hours per user of 2-1/2 hours.

Spanish hours were 12.5 total hours for the presidents meeting with seven users. Five users listened to the legislative seminar for an average of 2.5 hours per listener.  

Podcasts will be up this week. There is a survey being conducted to evaluate the Leadership Meetings.

Penny asked a question about BOP oversight of ACB communications as directed by the ACB Constitution. She was wondering if we are meeting our obligation when it comes to ACB Media and ACB Community. Deb replied that Jeff is the BOP representative on the ACB Media Support Committee and Cheryl is the BOP representative on the ACB Community Support Committee. Penny asked that we add reports from those committees to our future BOP meeting agendas.

Jeff announced an ACB Link for android version has been added.

Penny suggested that we return to meeting at 9 p.m. Eastern. There were no objections.

Guest Input:

Agnes had a suggestion for ACB Community that all events be held via Zoom Webinar because of some privacy concerns. It was suggested that she contact Cindy Hollis at [email protected].

The next meeting of the BOP will occur on April 2, 2024, beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard, Director
ACB Board of Publications