Board of Publications Meeting Minutes for November 5, 2019

The November 5 meeting of the ACB Board of Publications was called to order at 9:03 p.m. Eastern. Penny called the roll as follows: Deb, Penny, Zelda, Paul, Susan, Sharon, Jeff, Debbie Hazelton, David, and Katie were all present. Bob was not present, but he had shared his report. Dan was unable to attend. Guests included Ken Stewart and Doug Hunsinger.

The agenda, distributed in advance of the meeting via e-mail, was approved and adopted unanimously, following a motion made by Paul and seconded by Zelda.

There is one correction to the minutes from October’s meeting, i.e., Susan was not present. The minutes, as corrected were approved unanimously, following a motion made by Paul and seconded by Zelda.

Doug thanked Jeff for his assistance which allowed him to stream the Pennsylvania Council’s convention.

Sharon reported that the December issue of the Forum is on theme and ready to go. The board expressed appreciation to Susan for sharing the themes for coming issues on ACB lists, and Susan said she will send out a reminder of coming themes to the BOP.

Deb said that ACB received competing bids for the large print and braille production of the Forum, and one bid (from Perkins) for cartridge production. Winning bids, which remain the same as for our most recent prior contracts, have been selected, and Sharon has sent the projected expense amounts to Nancy in Minneapolis, for insertion into ACB’s budget.

 

All of the contracts are for two years with an option for a third year, and each bidder included bids for third year production.

 

When Eric comes back to the office and can sign the contracts, Sharon will send them out appropriately.

 

Sharon reported that she had sent a note to Kim requesting an update on the cartridge return situation, but she has not heard back from Kim yet. We will get more information for our next meeting. Zelda said that the message encouraging readers to return cartridges makes the requirement for returning cartridges sound somewhat optional. She suggested firming up the language. People might not realize the importance of returning cartridges because there was no similar requirement for returning audiocassettes. Zelda will create a revised script for the message and distribute it to the BOP for approval.

 

Perkins monitors the cartridge situation and sends out reminders to people who fail to return their cartridges in a timely manner. When a second cartridge is not returned, Perkins sends the reader a reminder, and if a third cartridge is not returned, the subscriber receives no further issues, until missing cartridges are returned. We will ask Kim for an update on how many cartridges are lost so that we can evaluate how serious the problem of cartridges unreturned over time may actually be.

 

Continued discussion of BOP 2019-20 work Plan. Update from Paul’s work group on seminar planning. Update from Dan on ACB reorganization plan. Finalization of other work plan items. Paul’s group had not had a chance to meet, but Paul, Zelda, Debbie, and Susan were able to schedule a meeting for discussing plans for future BOP seminars.

 

Deb encouraged the group to think about planning for next summer’s in-person BOP seminar as well, and on that topic, Katie suggested the possibility of partnering with Next Generation to offer a program on making social media presentations more visually appealing. Deb said that all of the other aspects of the BOP’s expected work plan for the year remain the same, and once Paul’s group has presented their plans for membership outreach to the whole board and the board has agreed, she will add that information to this year’s work plan and that plan can be finalized.

 

Dan was not able to attend the BOP meeting, so, instead of Dan, Deb reported on the board’s day-long discussion of Dan’s proposed work flow reorganization. She said that, after some discussion with Eric, she expects our process for managing all of the aspects of public awareness that the BOP already handles to remain the same for the time being, with managers of ACB e-mail lists, social media, web site, public relations, publications, and ACB radio reporting to the BOP as they already do.

 

David, who was also at the ACB board meeting (as a board member) agreed and said that, in his discussions with Dan, it appears that the restructuring of public awareness seems simply to legitimize the process we already follow. 

 

Deb pointed out that the BOP is not actually a committee, we are a board, and so the BOP already functions essentially as a kind of steering committee, overseeing all of the other aspects of public awareness. She added that, over time, the BOP has moved into a more collaborative role than an administrative role – to meet the goals of assuring excellence in the media that facilitate the public’s awareness of ACB.

 

Katie said that she is working with Eric and Dan to develop talking points to describe proposed reorganization with respect to the committees, to share with ACB committee chairs when they meet later in the month, and also to include in an article for the Braille Forum, and possibly to be covered by ACB Radio programming and podcasts.

 

Deb said that her report on the Fall Board Meeting which will appear in the January Braille Forum will cover the board’s day-long discussion of committee/goal reorganization, and she will coordinate with Katie, Eric and Dan to make sure that information in both articles won’t be redundant.

Deb said that she attended the Fall Board Meeting and will report on that in the January Forum. She has also participated in the usual meetings with ACB staff. She still hopes to meet with Bob regarding the Leadership and ACB-Announce e-mail lists.

Sharon had submitted her report in advance of the meeting to the BOP e-mail list, as follows:

October 2019

Issue type: electronic
Page count: 96
Electronic distributed: 6,786

November 2019

Issue type: Hard copy
Page count: 80
Braille to be distributed: 682
Cartridge to be distributed: TBA
Large print to be distributed: 2,444
Electronic distributed: 6,794

December 2019

Issue type: Electronic
Page count: 96
… … …

I am done – early – with the December E-Forum. I had a lot of really good material come in from the international relations committee, plus one from Judy Presley, and a couple of articles from the Audio Description Project. To allow maximum space for the international theme, I had to hold Ardis’ article.

 

I have completed the work to make the Word file of “People of Vision.” I’m waiting for the flash drive to arrive so that I can put the file on it and ship it back to Carla.

 

I will resume my work on identifying people in ACB photos after I return from competition. I will be out of the office Nov. 8-11.

 

Sharon Lovering, Editor
American Council of the Blind

Debbie reported that she has been working with others to plan for the reintroduction of Tuesday Topics, Library without Walls, and B.R.L. in January. In addition, Friends in Art will be producing a show called Art Parlor. Cindy Van Winkle will be launching ACB in Action, which will be similar to Affiliates in Action, in January. Each of these will be monthly shows.

 

Debbie and Jeff are involving their broadcasters, as well as ACB leaders, in rebranding ACB Radio, e.g., in coming up with slogans and other aspects of production that unify programming under the ACB Radio umbrella and explain ACB Radio’s purpose and goals.

 

Jeff reported that ACB had been using a derivative of MailChimp to handle all lists, at a cost of around $200 a month. Without notice, they turned off our account in mid-October, and ACB is in the midst of negotiation with Groups.IO, with a plan to move all lists to Groups.IO. This will save us at least 50 percent of what we’ve been spending to provide and manage our lists. Groups.IO will allow us to have an unlimited number of e-mail lists and Groups.IO makes lots of additional features available. Groups.IO will allow our affiliates and committees to have lots more flexibility in managing their lists.

 

We will probably migrate ACB Radio lists to Groups.IO first, and then spend a weekend where we take all ACB lists down and migrate them all at once. At a cost of $1,100 a year, Jeff says that Groups IO represents an amazing value.   

 

They would like to accomplish this move by the end of the year, and they are currently considering migrating everything during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, under the presumption that it won’t inconvenience most members to have their lists down during that week.

Bob Hachey distributed his report regarding e-mail to the BOP e-mail list in advance of the meeting, as follows:

Statistics for October, 2019

ACB-L
Members: 351
Posts 104

ACB-Chat
Members: 167
Posts: 79

Deb had received Kim’s report regarding statistics for the Leadership list and distributed to the BOP e-mail list in advance of the meeting, as follows:

Here is the Leadership Report for October 2019:

Number of Subscribers: 284
Number of Messages: 108 

Deb said that we will discuss the Leadership and the ACB-Announce lists at our next meeting in terms of possibly redefining their relationship one to another and their shared or divergent purposes. She wanted to wait until our next meeting so that we can be assured that Bob will be able to attend and participate in the discussion.

Deb had forwarded Kelly’s social media statistics report to the BOP e-mail list in advance of the meeting, as follows:

Here are the social media stats for October:

Facebook:
4,653 likes

 

Apple introduces disability related emoji on iOS 13.2 ( ACB and Apple collaborated on the blindness related emoji)
3,058 people reached
112 likes and loves
119 shares
 

2,749 people reached
79 likes and loves
40 shares
 

2,319 people reached
86 likes, loves, and wows
36 shares

 

2,894 followers
 

ACB’s 2018 annual report
1,244 impressions
18 engagements
 

765 impressions
12 engagements
 

742 impressions
17 engagements
 

Kelly Gasque
Executive Assistant & Multimedia Design Specialist
American Council of the Blind

Katie reported that she had been traveling recently and, although she has been working on updating the Wikipedia page, she isn’t finished. She wants to share what she has written with Kelly and Eric and see if Kelly can help her identify any photographs that we might use.

 

Deb pointed out that much of what we want to communicate can be done with links that are already available on ACB.org, and we want to keep the content on the ACB Wikipedia page as simple (and updatable) as possible. Deb and Penny both offered their assistance with this project since Katie is so busy.

 

Katie said that there are two new people on the PR Committee.

 

Penny asked about the process for proofing materials before we put them up on the web or include them in the advocacy update or other ACB announcements. Katie said that she doesn’t write everything, it’s often a group effort involving Sharon, Kelly and Eric, and, of course, we want to assure that anything we produce is grammatically correct, spelled correctly, etc. Deb said that as the reorganization takes place, one of the things we may want to look at is the process for releasing information and assuring that more than one person has looked at materials before they are uploaded or distributed.

 

The next BOP meeting will take place on Tuesday, December 3. Penny moved and Paul seconded the motion to adjourn the meeting. The motion carried, and the November meeting of the ACB Board of Publications adjourned at 10:43 p.m. Eastern time.

 

Respectfully submitted,
Penny Reeder
BOP Member