via conference call
The meeting was called to order by Chair, Denise Colley at 9:10pm EST
Members present: Denise Colley, Ron Brooks, Tom Mitchell, Judy Wilkinson, and Doug Powell
Ex Officio members present: Bob Hachey (IOC), Kim Charlson, President and Nolan Crabb (PR)
Editor: Sharon Lovering
Contractors: Annette Carter (Website),
Absent because he couldn’t get into the phone system: Larry Turnbull (Internet and ACB Radio)
Guests: Carla Ruschival, Sue Ammeter, Ken Stewart, Dan Spoone
The agenda was approved as distributed.
The December 1 meeting minutes were approved as distributed.
Guest Comments:
Sue Ammeter thanked us for adding the navigation tone before the Table of Contents in the audio format.
Dan Spoone from the RDC Committee relayed to us that part of the Ross Pangier gift was designated to pay for two issues of the ACB Braille Forum. Dan came to the BOP to request that an appropriate acknowledgement of this gift was published in the March and May issues. After some discussion, we requested that Dan contact Tom Tobin for the wording of a short acknowledgement that would appear right before the President’s Message (tone indexed) in the March and May issue. Kim would work with Tom to develop an article about a wider acknowledgement of contributors to ACB for the May issue.
Sue Ammeter asked if we had ever solicited sponsorships for the ACB Braille Forum. Washington does this successfully for their newsletter. Judy suggested we table that discussion until a later meeting. Denise suggested it would be appropriate after hearing the report on the Readership Survey. Ron is getting some possible dates for that verbal report from Matt Wiesler at NIB. Kim suggested that there is a new Committee whose mission is to coordinate marketing, advertising, and sponsorship efforts, so whatever we come up with should be submitted to them for their suggestions.
Editor's Report
Sharon mentioned she is very busy with the Mid-Year meeting preparation, and that she is also responsible for more phone coverage with the departure of Francine from the staff. She went through the Feb. numbers with a promise that the January numbers would follow shortly. That email was received and is copied below:
January Nutshell Report
January issue
Issue Type: ACB Braille Forum
Print Page Count: 48
Large Print Issues Mailed: 3,315
Date Large Print Issues Mailed: 12/26/2014
Braille Issues Mailed: 735
Date Braille Issues Mailed: 1/21/2015
Cassette Issues Mailed: 1,392
Date Cassette Issues Mailed: double checking on this
CD Rom Issues Mailed: 162
Date CD-ROM Issues Mailed: 1/21/2015
Date Posted to Website: 1/5/2015
Date E-mail version sent: 1/5/2015
E-mail issues mailed: 3,640
# Of Large Print Copies Returned Undeliverable: 23 +
# Of Braille Copies Returned Undeliverable: 5 +
# Of Cassette Copies Returned Undeliverable: 6 +
# of CD Rom Copies Returned Undeliverable: 1 +
# Of Miscellaneous Copies Returned Undeliverable: 16 +
February issue:
Issue type: E-Forum
Print page count: 64
Date posted to web site: 2/3/2015
Date e-mail version sent: 2/2/2015
E-mail issues mailed: 3,642
# Of Miscellaneous Copies Returned Undeliverable: 20 so far
The March issue is at the presses, and I made sure to note in the letter to the cassette producer that they should include a beep before the acknowledgement.
I’m working on the April issue, and on the affiliate lists, changes, additions and deletions that come in via mail and e-mail. I’m also working on the braille and large print for midyear. Hope to see many of you there!
There was another discussion of the coordinated release of the different formats including the podcast and Audio Now formats. The BOP is somewhat divided on the necessity of this coordination. Denise offered to pull together information she has received in the past concerning work flow deadlines so that we all can take a look at the scheduling and see if any kind of consensus can be hammered out.
Committee Reports
PR Committee, Nolan Crabb/Tom Mitchell
Email list difficulties led to low attendance at the January Committee call. They’ll be back on track for the February call. They are looking at an Affiliates and Social Media theme for their Conference session. Nolan is also looking at bringing more information on the podcast project to our March meeting.
Oral History/Leadership, Berl Colley
Berl was not on the call and submitted no report.
ACB Radio, Larry Turnbull
Larry could not get on the call and submitted the following report via email.
Here are the listener counts for the month of January 2015.
Listener counts obtained from the server:
Mainstream average 23 per day total listeners for January 713
Café average 7 per day total listeners for January 217
Trove average 72 per day total listeners for January 2232
Interactive average 24 per day total listeners for January 744
World News and Information average 10 per day total listeners for January 310
No listeners on Live Event for the month of January.
Listeners by phone:
Average call per day 134.
Average listen time 35 minutes per call.
We had a total of 4154 calls for the month of January.
35% of the callers listened to mainstream
50% listened to treasure trove
5% listened to interactive
5% listened to café
5% listened to World News and Information
0% listened to Live Event
Web hits:
We had 3400 hits for the month of January
Downloads:
MainMenu archives 2700
Speaking Out for the Blind Archives 145
We picked up 3 new subscribers for the Braille Forum and 1 subscribers for ACB Reports for January.
Stream Licensing has changed its interface and the tuning hours are currently unavailable.
ACB Braille Forum, E Forum and ACB Reports
We had 215 calls for the month of January.
This averages to 6.9 calls per day for that month.
Social Media, Carla Ruschival
Twitter page has 925 followers
FaceBook has 1097 followers, and a “reach” of 4180
They are working on linking the FaceBook and Twitter accounts, and are working out the glitches.
Lists, Bob Hachey
Two flair-ups on L this month. After Bob intervened, the list quieted down. He issued one one-week suspension, which turned into a two-week suspension after the offender tried to continue the altercation privately. The suspension is over and the offender is back on.
A member suggested to Bob that there ought to be term limits for the IOC Chair and for moderator of the ACB-L list. We suggested that Bob work with Kim on that since Committee and moderator appointments are the purview of the President.
Website - Annette Carter
Annette has been organizing various pages to be ready for insertion into the new website.
Apparently, there was some question whether the Cover 3 copy (Officers, BOD, and BOP) had been included in the downloadable versions of the last two monthly Forums. Sharon and Annette will make sure this text is included in the future.
Old Business
Editors’ Workshop at this year’s Conference
Denise mentioned that we need to establish a topic, and that it needs to be attractive since we are charging attendees for the first time this year. There was extensive discussion, and we agreed that the topic should be what content will grab readers of today.
Dan Spoone brought up a topic about how do we use our different communications outlets to the best advantage; molding the message to the medium. We agreed that this was a great topic, but for next year.
E-Forum: How Is it Different?
Some of the possibilities that a larger electronic publication could support:
Bi-monthly columns
Longer pieces — thought-provoking
Reprinting articles from state and local newsletters
Sharon does not get most affiliate newsletters, so it was suggested that we ask to see affiliate and chapter newsletters in an article in the May ACB Braille Forum. Judy offered to write that article.
Denise acknowledged that she has not yet met with Larry and Lane about the use of email addresses in Donor Perfect.
New Business
The Editorial Policy Manual is supposed to be updated in odd numbered years. Denise mentioned that this is supposed to be the responsibility of the elected members. Sharon offered to send the current edition out to the BOP for us to look at and respond to, perhaps at a separate meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:23pm EST.
Respectfully submitted,
Doug Powell, Secretary