The meeting was called to order by Chair Denise Colley at 9:05pm EDT.
Members present: Denise Colley, Ron Brooks, Tom Mitchell, Doug Powell
Members absent: Judy Wilkinson
Ex officio members present: Berl Colley. Bob Hachey and Kim Charlson arrived after roll call.
Ex officio absent: Ron Milliman (resigned),
Staff and contractors present: Sharon Lovering, Annette Carter, Larry Turnbull
Guests: Sue Ammeter, Marcia Dresser, Kevin & Becky Frankeberger, Ken Stewart and Carla Ruschival
The agenda for the meeting was read and adopted
The July 13 minutes were distributed in advance and adopted without changes.
Doug Powell volunteered to be Secretary.
At the Pre-Convention Board of Directors meeting, the BOP was requested to circulate the meeting date, time, phone information, and agenda via ACB listservs to give members the opportunity to attend our open meetings. Denise did this for the August meeting and will continue to do so.
Review of Convention BOP activities:
First Town Hall meeting (Sunday) only drew one person and was cancelled. Thursday's Town Hall meeting was attended by approximately twelve people. The discussion focused mainly on enhancements to the content of the Forums. Paul Edwards offered to continue his articles on various technologies, and Berl Colley offered to do a periodic column on various aspects of travel. Paul also suggested that we revitalize the use of Board of Director bios to help members get to know them better. The Board also suggested a teaser in the Braille Forum to increase interest in the E-Forum. There was discussion of using emails to remind people that the E-Forum was now available. Also, on ACB Radio. BOP members will take turns writing up the email, and Tom volunteered to write up the spot for ACB Radio. NLS/BARD distribution of the Forums was discussed at the Town Hall and on the call. No action was taken on the subject, but consensus seems that the BOP is in favor of pursuing ACB's efforts for inclusion.
Candidates' Forum attracted about 30 people in the audience. There were 165 people listening online and 450 via phone. Kim suggested we discuss moving this event to earlier in the week. Ron moved and Tom seconded a motion to request of the Convention Planning Committee that the Candidates' Forum be held earlier in the week and that it be included in a General Session. The motion carried with no dissent.
Update on the BOP Readership Survey: we had 3 sessions where we made ourselves available to help people fill out the survey. 4 on Monday with Doug standing in the hallway and asking people if they'd filled out their survey yet, 2 on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday.There had been 120 submitted online. There were 28 outstanding needing inputting. There are some technological issues not attributable to the survey itself.
Editorial report:
We got more than average copies returned of the July issue. Someone suggested we put out a reminder email that if you are moving, don't forget to let ACB know. August numbers: 3608 subscribers for the E-Forum issue. September is on track. Sharon has received 15 surveys that she has input. She noticed that 13 of the 15 listed "Here and There" as one of their top three favorite content. The President's Message was also mentioned as a top three content item. Sharon mentioned she had trouble at the Convention with an internet connection on which to send out the daily newspaper. Without that, distribution was not as efficient as usual.
Listserv report:
Lists have been fairly quiet as they usually are in summer. There's still some GDUI traffic on Leadership, but GDUI Announce and Chat lists are being reinstated, so that should diminish. Bob agreed that there should be guidelines written up for the Leadership list (which has never been done before). He offered to draw up a draft for us. Ron reminded the Board that he was tasked with drawing up guidelines for Leadership, and he will do so. The question of who should moderate Leadership was briefly discussed, and the consensus is that the President should moderate the list or specifically designate a moderator in his/her stead.
Oral History/Leadership Training:
Leadership Training went very well. 15 participants, and 75 people listened to at least part of the training on the Convention archives. Larry didn't have numbers from Audionow yet. Oral History is working on copyright issues. The Board asked for sound bites for the website. Berl also mentioned that the Idaho affiliate is in trouble and he's working with some folks trying to save it.
No PR Committee report.
Doug gave a recap of the Convention session.
ACB Radio:
Larry has listener counts for July. He just received Audionow counts and the total for July was 7317. They averaged 600-700 per day during the Convention. Archive numbers will be out in a couple of days. Several members congratulated Larry on the Convention coverage and the number of sessions recorded and made available to all.
Social Networking:
Twitter followers by the end of the Convention, 775. Facebook followers, 575. Both have increased by about 100 in the last month-and-a-half.
Website:
Before migrating to the new website, Annette has been working on several current projects, including looking at old Resolutions and Braille Forums which were corrupted during past server crashes. She's looking for someone to reconstruct those files. Berl said his committee might be able to help her fill incomplete documents.
Policy position on Candidate's use of lists:
it was generally agreed that the Leadership list would allow candidacy announcements only, probably with a word count limit. The ACB-L list will allow issue oriented discussions including candidates. Chat was left more open. No official action was taken, but guidelines will be forthcoming.
Policy on Convention Newspaper advertising rates:
Denise and Doug will draft language for the Editorial Policy Manual that clarifies which entities pay which amounts, if any.
BOP Appointments:
Denise proposed herself to be the representative to the Board of Directors for a second year to bring the chronology back in line with Editorial Policy Manual specifications. This met with no opposition.
PR Committee: Tom Mitchell volunteered.
Internet Oversight Committee: Denise will offer this to Judy.
Website Task Force: Since Denise and Ron already serve on that Task Force, they will also represent BOP.
BOPEEP:
Someone to do quality control on each published format of the Forums
Braille: Denise with Marcia as backup
Cassette: Tom
Phone: Ron
Email: Ron
Website: Annette
Large Print: Annette
July: some print issues that Denise will talk to Annette about; Braille was generally excellent;
There was discussion of including term information of the Officers, Board of Directors, and Board of Publications on Cover 3 (inside back cover). It was noted that omitting this information would allow compliance with readability standards in the large print format and save a page in the Braille format. No formal action was taken.
Old Business
Doug acknowledged that he was supposed to rework Cover 2 (inside front) copy to try to make it more logical and readable. He will have it done before the next meeting.
No new business.
Date of next meeting:
Sept. 1 is Labor Day, so the BOP decided to move the meeting to Sept. 8.
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 12:10am EDT
Respectfully submitted by Doug Powell, Secretary