via conference call
The meeting was called to order by Chair, Denise Colley at 9:05pm EST.
Members present: Denise Colley, Ron Brooks, Tom Mitchell, Judy Wilkinson, and Doug Powell
Ex Officio members present: Bob Hachey (IOC), Nolan Crabb (PR), Berl Colley (Oral History), and Kim Charlson (President)
Editor: Sharon Lovering
Contractors: Annette Carter (Website), Larry Turnbull (Internet and ACB Radio)
Guests: Sue Ammeter, Dan Spoone, Carla Ruschival, Ken Stewart, Rod from Oklahoma
The agenda was approved as distributed.
The November 3, 2014 meeting minutes were approved as distributed.
Guest Comments:
Sue Ammeter requested that a beep be inserted right before the Table of Contents of the audiocassette version of the Forums. Kim didn’t see why this would be a problem and would check with the production people at Perkins.
Dan Spoone asked if the BOP had considered when we should move from the audiocassette format to digital cartridges. There was an extended discussion of various aspects of this conversion including Kim’s acknowledgement that she has thought about pulling together information for a “wish list” grant proposal for start-up expenses, and general discussion of NLS’s unwillingness to include the Forum in their system. Dan requested the BOP put together a white paper or similar document discussing when and how we saw the conversion taking place. Florida and Washington have already started distributing their newsletters on digital cartridges, so we can use their experiences to inform our decisions moving forward.
Ken Stewart asked how far back records of ACB resolutions go, and if there is documentation of how those resolutions were implemented. Sharon told Ken that Resolutions are available from 1962, but she had no record of implementation. Ken asked the BOP if they thought implementation verification should be part of our responsibilities. Kim verified that as long as the Resolutions were available on the website, that was the extent of the BOP’s involvement with the Resolutions. Other responsibilities would be with the Governmental Affairs office.
Editor's Report
December counts
Print Page Count: 64 (if it had been printed)
Date Posted to Website: 11/23/2014
Date E-mail version sent: 12/1/2014
E-mail issues mailed: 3,638 (+3.94% from 2013)
For November, I received 35 large print returns, 3 braille, 1 CD and 11 miscellaneous returns.
I am currently working on the January 2015 issue, hoping to go to press Friday. I have enough articles in hand currently for two full issues, and more items arrive every day for Here and There, High Tech Swap Shop, some for Affiliate News, and some for the Passings column.
I’m incredibly frustrated by the young man who’s trying to start the affiliate for those with cerebral palsy. He sends me multiple copies of the announcement every day, and changes his address frequently. I’ve told him several times now that he doesn’t need to send me that many copies every day, and most recently have asked him not to contact me again unless his address changes again. I don’t know what more to do! When he calls to make sure I’ve corrected his address, I always check, and I usually have already corrected it to whatever the day’s “update” is. He’s turning into the new Melody Edwards. Frankly, I’m not sure this affiliate is ever going to get off the ground, especially if he really holds four-hour conference calls as he stated in the original announcement.
I am also working on the annual affiliate membership list updates. I have sent out one list, and am working on getting the rest of them ready to send out in large print, Word and Excel for those who requested them. Anyone using the AMMS system is requested to hold off on making changes, additions, deletions, etc. until the first of the year, when all the fixes to AMMS have been made, the system has been tested, and everyone has been trained in the new AMMS. Any changes made before that may be lost during the system upgrade. If you know other AMMS users, please pass the word to them!
There was a discussion of contacting members for whom we have email addresses. Should we send them the E-Forum and allow them to opt out? Should we contact them with a link to the email subscription page on the website? Should we send them a reminder of when the E-Forum is available? Denise suggested that she, Larry, and Lane discuss the best way of using Donor Perfect data to increase our E-Forum subscription rate. Dan commented that it looks like there are 1000 - 1500 members who we have email address for over the 3600 who receive the E-Forum now.
We also discovered that there was no link on the Forum page to subscribe to the email version. We discussed language that would simplify people’s opportunity to subscribe without changing their hard copy preference. Annette will add a link to the subscription on the Forum page header section.
Committee Reports
PR Committee, Nolan Crabb/Tom Mitchell
Work on the Guerrilla Marketing White Paper continues, as well as the Conference session recap of PR projects. The podcast project continues. David Trott asked the Committee to gather and publish conference call services, how to sign up, and conference call etiquette, which they will do.
ACB Radio, Larry Turnbull
No November listener counts received.
Holiday Auction and ACB Radio Birthday shows are keeping Larry busy. November Washington and New York streamed their state conventions (NY for the first time). Larry has also been getting ready to move the website to a new server that will give us more space at less cost.
Tom asked Larry if he could go to 60 seconds on some of his Forum teasers. Larry said that would be no problem occasionally. He also asked if there were some generic promos for the Forum. Larry said he was interested, but hadn’t gotten around to writing the scripts. Tom offered to help with those scripts.
Oral History/Leadership, Berl Colley
Oral History: Berl is working with Carla and Adam to secure permissions for some convention presentations. Berl is also asking affiliates to suggest people to interview who have been active for 25 years or more, or have been on the BOD or BOP.
Leadership: The Task Force is looking at innovative ways of having people get trained in leadership qualities rather than taking an extra day for a workshop. They are looking at what should be in a leadership curriculum, where to get trained, and how to manage the diversified program.
Annette Carter - Website
She’s working on the Auction which will turn out to be about 35 hours of work. Other projects include the Angels page, getting PayPal working, scholarship 2015 info, December E-Forum is up on the web in the least time ever, and Mid-Year meeting info and registration forms are up.
I suggested that we try to release all formats of the E-Forum and Braille Forum so that members receive the publication at approximately the same time. There was spirited discussion on the topic. Denise suggested we look at some recent history to see how difficult it would be to bring the release of the formats into line, and definitely have this information in mind as we negotiate new contracts with our hard copy and audio vendors.
Lists, Bob Hachey
The IOC was asking for clarification on the Candidate Posting Guidelines about discussions involving candidates on list. We needed to add language to Section 5 that restricted discussion on the Leadership list, but allowed it on ACB-L and Chat.
Bob also mentioned he had to suspend a member for denigrating members after repeated attempts by Bob to have the member stop.
Social Media, Carla Ruschival
Twitter followers: 873
Facebook likes: 700
ACB Radio twitter followers: 235
Main Menu followers: 855
New Business
Kim asked us to authorize Sharon to provide one article in each one of the Braille hard copy editions in Unified English Braille (UEB) this year in preparation for universal implementation in 2016. A motion was made to that effect, with the proviso that the article be designated as UEB either in the Table of Contents or at the beginning of the article. The motion passed, and Sharon will choose a different article in each hard copy issue for NBP to produce in UEB.
Denise asked BOP members to provide her with hours they spend on calls, writing articles, etc. for her to supply Melanie. This will help in fundraising efforts for grantors to know how many volunteer hours our organization contributes.
Old Business
Denise suggested that it was getting late, and asked how we wanted to proceed with our discussion of the Forum Readership Survey. We decided that we should set a special meeting with the survey as the only agenda item, and that Ron would contact Matt Wiesler to ask if he could complete the agreed upon report and come on the call to add to the discussion.
Judy reiterated her interest in us discussing the differentiation between the Braille Forum and the E-Forum — perhaps also at a separate special meeting. Tom suggested that that discussion should wait until the survey data report had been submitted and discussed. I suggested we start the discussion via email because I was unclear why we are trying to do this. Denise said she would look through notes of what was discussed at the time the E-Forum was born to see if there were some ideas to start the discussion.
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Appendix
Listener Counts for November 2014 submitted by Larry Turnbull January 7, 2015.
Hi all,
I sent these out in early in December but I guess they got lost in cyberspace somewhere so I am sending them again.
The counts for December 2014 will be in the next email.
Here are the listener counts for the month of November.
Listener counts obtained from the server:
Mainstream average 14 per day total listeners for November 420
Café average 4 per day total listeners for November 120
Trove average 65 per day total listeners for November 1950
Interactive average 16 per day total listeners for November 480
World News and Information average 10 per day total listeners for November 300
We had 28 listeners for the Washington Council of the Blind in November on live event.
We had 18 listeners for ACB of New York in November on Live Event.
Listeners by phone:
Average call per day 134.
Average listen time 20 minutes per call.
We had a total of 4034 calls for the month of November.
40% of the callers listened to mainstream
50% listened to treasure trove
3% listened to interactive
0% listened to café
3% listened to World News and Information
4% listened to Live Event
Web hits:
We had 3475 hits for the month of November
Downloads:
MainMenu archives 1849
Speaking Out for the Blind Archives 172
We picked up 15 new subscribers for the Braille Forum and 10 subscribers for ACB Reports for November.
We have a total of 3216 aggregate tuning hours reported by Stream Licensing for interactive and café combined.
1608 of the ATH belongs to café and 1608 belongs to ACB Radio Interactive.
ACB Braille Forum, E Forum and ACB Reports
We had 126 calls for the month of November.
This averages to 4 calls per day for that month.
Larry
The meeting was adjourned at 11:20pm EST.
Respectfully submitted,
Doug Powell, Secretary