via conference call
The meeting was called to order by Chair, Denise Colley at 9:01pm EDT.
Members present: Denise Colley, Ron Brooks, Tom Mitchell, Judy Wilkinson,
Absent: Doug Powell
Ex Officio members present: Bob Hachey (IOC),
Absent: Nolan Crabb (PR), Kim Charlson (President)
Editor: Sharon Lovering
Contractors: Annette Carter (Website), Larry Turnbull (Internet and ACB Radio)
Guests:Rob Hill, Ken Stewart, Sue Ammeter, Carla Ruschival
The agenda was approved as distributed.
The May 4 meeting minutes were approved as distributed.
Guest Comments: Rob thanked the BOP for their work.
Editor's Report
Nutshell Report for June 2015
June 2015
Issue Type: email only
Print Page Count: 54 (if it had been printed)
Date Posted to Website: 6/1/2015
Date E-mail version sent: 6/1/2015
E-mail issues mailed: 3,067
# Of Miscellaneous Copies Returned Undeliverable: none yet
July 2015
Issue Type: hard copy
Print Page Count: 48
Large Print Issues To Be Mailed: 3,340
Braille Issues To Be Mailed: 780
Cassette Issues To Be Mailed: 1,325
CD Rom Issues To Be Mailed: 159
I just sent out the June issue this morning, and I’m putting the final touches on the July issue.
July contains all the last-minute convention information, plus a variety of articles on other topics, including “Facebook Accessibility for Users with Visual Impairments: What Facebook Wants You to Know” (by Bill Holton), Walter Spillum’s obituary in the Passings column, a goalball article from USABA, Carla’s article about Crossroads 2015, and many more. This issue truly has something for everyone!
The convention machine has started cranking into gear. Janet has sent me a number of menus, as well as a list of local restaurants, which I will be putting into braille and large print in the next few weeks. I’m also getting sponsor ads for the Lone Star Gazette and putting those together, along with a file that lets me know whose ad is supposed to run when. I will also be working on my editor’s report and my speech in the next couple of weeks.
I’ve also been getting a fair number of address changes and a handful of death notices over the last few weeks, and have been taking care of those. Remember that this Friday, June 5, is the last day to add new members and have them be able to vote at convention!
FYI, I will be out of the office Friday, June 12 through Monday, June 15, attending black belt camp in South Carolina.
Tom mentioned that he has missed the last couple of months of Forum teasers for ACB Radio and that he will get back in the habit. Larry said he’d be happy to run them.
Denise mentioned that her email version of June links to articles weren’t there, but others on the call said theirs did, so it may be her ISP or security software that is stripping the links out.
Website Report - Annette Carter
- June 2015 ACB E-Forum
- Performed module updates and security updates on sites as needed
- Affiliate and committee updates as needed
- Ongoing adding pages to new site and adding alias’ to URLs
- Job postings
- Washington Connections
- BOP meeting and minutes posted
- 2015 BOP Candidates’ page
- Individual Candidates’ pages
- Convention Sponsor page, links and logos
- Dallas Gem page, links and logos
- Open Pre-Reg connection
- Walk article and links
- Angels Tribute page
Committee Reports
PR Committee, Nolan Crabb/Tom Mitchell
Tom reported that the last call focused on the Convention session and Nolan’s goals for next year.
Oral History/Leadership, Berl Colley no report
ACB Radio, Larry Turnbull
There isn’t much to report for ACB Radio for the month of May.
We did add a new broadcaster who is doing a show every Wednesday night from 7:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. eastern.
His show is called “The Best of Yesterday and Today”. His name is Mike Bernard.
AudioNow has not sent in the listener counts yet so I don’t have the listener count report yet.
We are in convention mode now which means I am working on getting the list of sponsors together that are entitled to interviews on ACB Radio during convention.
Also I will be interviewing MD support for Main Menu this week. MD support is the company that will be installing beacons around the hotel where the convention is taking place. These beacons will transmit signals to IOS and android devices letting you know where in the hotel you are and what rooms are near by. Also I am working with the education committee to rescue their webinar that didn’t go so well a couple of months ago. My dad passed away back on May 6, 2015 so I have been dealing with family issues for a couple of weeks in May.
That is my report for now.
Here are the listener counts for the month of May: - received 6/8/15
Server:
ACB Radio Mainstream 775
ACB Radio Cafe 310
ACB Radio Treasure Trove 1860
ACB Radio Interactive 558
ACB Radio World News and Information 310
ACB Radio Live Event 35 for the FCB convention
Phone:
We had 3872 calls for the month of May.
AudioNow did not give percentages on what callers chose to listen to during the call this month.
They are changing their interface so I don’t know if those stats will come back.
Web hits:
We had 2800 web hits for the month of May.
Downloads:
MainMenu Archives 1800
Speaking Out for the Blind 95
We picked up 1 subscriber for the ACB Braille Forum and E Forum podcast.
We picked up 2 subscribers for ACB Reports.
We had 4743 tuning hours reported by Stream Licensing for the month of May.
We had 187 calls to the ACB Braille/E Forum hotline for the month of May.
The BOP expressed their condolences for the death of Larry’s father, and thanked him for his continuing work.
Judy asked if the Florida Convention streaming went well, and Larry said it did.
Tom noticed that the articles in the Forum on ACB Radio were running together with practically no space between. Larry responded that Perkins leaves too much space, so he took it out,and his software took out all of it. He will watch that in the future.
Lists, Bob Hachey
Nothing to report. Denise mentioned that candidate posts were following the guidelines. Bob mentioned that the announcements had not yet been posted to the L list, and Denise offered to Post them.
Social Media, Carla Ruschival
FaceBook: 1270
Twitter: 1041
Goal 1 meeting discussions:
Facebook progress is good, but they needed to revamp the team.Kelly Gasque has been a great help. They’re looking forward to a strong presence at the Convention.
At the Convention two years ago, there were 441 Twitter followers, now 1041; FaceBook started two years ago, and is now almost 1300.
A couple of Kelly’s posts have garnered over 3000 reaches (followers + sharing).
Judy asked if our Convention stuff was going to be put on YouTube, and what is the BOP responsibility in that matter? Denise and Larry responded that the Board of Directors has not really endorsed that approach yet, and folks are still in discussion with Google to decide what and how to proceed.
Old Business
Candidate Pages
The deadline is passed, one candidate for each of the offices have submitted their information, and it is ready to go live as soon as Carla finishes submitting to Sharon. Denise asked Larry if we could put the text files on AudioNow. Larry said that we can, but the quality will not be great. Ron mentioned that we still need to do it to make something available to those who don’t have computers.It was suggested that Larry give the candidates the opportunity to read their candidate page answers and Tom read those that the candidates didn’t want to read themselves. Tom is going to test whether he feels he can commit to doing this for candidates. Otherwise, those who don’t record their own answers will be synthesized speech of not very good quality.
Candidate Forum Questions
We need to come up with some questions in case audience questions are slow . We’ll share our ideas via email (short list). There were several ideas expressed about how we can improve the Forum in subsequent years. One suggestion we can implement this year is to have people at home email questions up to some deadline before the Forum for screening and inclusion.
Award Presentations
Denise The Freeman and Liggett awards will be awarded Monday morning, and the Henley will be awarded to Comcast Wednesday as part of their sponsor recognition.
BOP meeting at the Convention
We should put together possible edits to the Policy Manual for discussion at the meeting. There was discussion about how to include Tom and Ron since they will not be on site. We’re ging to try to Skype them in.
New E-Forum
We should discuss our ideas on how to change the E-Forum in Dallas also. Judy and Ron felt that this topic would be more interesting than the Policy Manual so we should go 50/50 on time with the E-Forum first.
Denise will meet with the Editor’s Workshop presenters soon over the phone to work out last minute details.
Writing up General Session Notes for September Forum Convention Recap
Sunday – Ron
Monday – Judy
Tuesday – Denise
Wednesday – Tom
Thursday – Judy
Friday – Tom
New Business
There was none.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:05pm EDT.
Respectfully submitted,
Doug Powell, Secretary