The meeting was called to order by Chair, Denise Colley at 9:04 pm EST
Members present: Denise Colley, Tom Mitchell, Judy Wilkinson, and Doug Powell
Absent: Ron Brooks
Ex Officio members present: Bob Hachey (IOC), Nolan Crabb (PR), Berl Colley (Oral History)
Editor: Sharon Lovering
Contractors: Annette Carter (Website), Larry Turnbull (Internet and ACB Radio)
Guests: Ken Stewart, Carla Ruschival, Dan Spoone, Malaina VanderWal
The agenda was approved as distributed.
The October 6, 2014 meeting minutes were approved as distributed.
Committee Reports
PR Committee, Nolan Crabb/Tom Mitchell
Two documents are being finalized for inclusion on the PR webpage: 1) a summary of the projects honored at the PR session of the 2014 Conference and Convention; and 2) a compilation of marketing tips from last year’s committee reminders on the Leadership list.Another project in process is the podcast for children of people losing vision and the vision losers themselves talking about topics of interest and success stories.
Another project getting off the ground is to identify stringers around the country who could write about ACB successes for their local media. NFB does it, and we should be doing it also. This project is in the earliest exploratory stage.
Lists, Bob Hachey
Lists have been running smoothly. IOC members were concerned about the Candidate Posting Guidelines in regards to discussions with the candidates. They understand that the Leadership list is not for that purpose, but -L and Chat are designed to be more open, and they felt that there should be discussions allowed on those lists. Bob will write this up for next month’s meeting.
ACB Radio, Larry Turnbull
Washington Council streamed their convention, and New York is going to stream theirs for the first time. Listeners counts will be out soon (see below). New program on World News and Information called Democracy Now. Possible new program on Interactive. Larry received podcast files of the Forum, so will upload soon. Doug had asked in an email if it were possible to make all formats available at the same time at the beginning of the month. Larry thought it could, and asked Sharon to send him a copy of the text when she sends Annette her copy for the website so Larry can start doing his preparation in advance of getting the audio files. Tom asked Larry where his Forum teasers were since he hadn’t heard them. Denise admitted she wasn’t clear on the timing of when the teasers would be useful. Denise will get them out to lists when she receives them from Tom, and Larry will pick up the attached audio file and place it in various places on ACB Radio.
Listener counts received 11/11/14
Listener counts obtained from the server:
Mainstream average 18 per day total listeners for October 558
Café average 3 per day total listeners for October 93
Trove average 63 per day total listeners for October 1953
Interactive average 14 per day total listeners for October 434
World News and Information average 8 per day total listeners for October 248
We had 16 listeners for the Illinois Council of the Blind in October on live event.
We had 22 listeners for the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind in October on Live Event.
We had 21 listeners for the ACB of Ohio convention in October on live event.
Listeners by phone:
Average call per day 144.
Average listen time 30 minutes per call.
We had a total of 4477 calls for the month of October.
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 3727 hits for the month of October
Downloads:
MainMenu archives 2027
Speaking Out for the Blind Archives 198
We picked up 10 new subscribers for the Braille Forum and 15 subscribers for ACB Reports for October.
We have a total of 3492 aggregate tuning hours reported by Stream Licensing for interactive and café combined.
1746 of the ATH belongs to café and 1746 belongs to ACB Radio Interactive.
ACB Braille Forum, E Forum and ACB Reports
We had 156 calls for the month of October.
This averages to 5 calls per day for that month.
Website: Annette Carter
Report submitted by email 11/3:
My committee report is by way of the email I sent Melanie and Kim on October 31st, below. Note: I am approved to invoice 20 hours per week and I invoice 2 times a month. Previously, while under contract, I could request time needed to complete projects to be pre-approved by Executive Director and/or President. That was removed from the budget as of January 2014 and I am not under contract. Per Melanie’s suggestion when I pointed out insufficient time to complete current projects, I submitted the request to the Web Task Force to request budget for needed time. The motion was made and passed and I am awaiting the process to go through the Budget committee and the Board of Directors. Below is the email I sent Friday.
- Submitted by Annette Carter
Hello Kim and Melanie,
Just so you know, I have already worked 15 hours more than what I am approved to invoice for this period. So the invoice I submitted today (October 31, 2014) does not include that. However, I will put it in the one that begins November 1.
In the pay period that ended today (October 31) I have worked on:
- The Legacy Society (project to date is complete)
- 3 Washington Connections
- the November ACB Braille Forum (including photos)
- built the auction submission form and taught to Lori Sarff
- Convention page updates
- To the web site added individual and group photos to the Board of Directors and BOP pages
- Updated the 2014 convention sponsor page
- created 2015 Volunteer Opportunity page and quick links menus
- created 2014 Tour photo page and linked to 2015 Sponsor Opportunity page
- Completed the resolutions and summaries
- Web Task Force meeting, Goal 2 meeting
- performed module updates and security updates on sites as needed
- updated front page with current content as needed
- updates on committee and affiliate pages including presidents updates
Projects I have on deck are:
- The 2014 Holiday Auction (very time intensive)
- The PayPal project
- ACB Scholarship
- other projects as directed
- getting pages in the new website
In past years, extra projects like the auction and others have always required more time than 20 hours per week.
There was discussion of what the BOP could do to either streamline our processes to minimize our demands on Annette’s time or influence budget considerations to give her more time per week. Denise told us the WebTask Force is working with the Budget Committee and that BOP action wasn’t necessary at this time.
Annette told us that BOD and BOP individual photos are now up on the webpages and asked Tom and Judy to submit photos to Denise who would forward them to Annette and Sharon for future use.
Editor’s Report: Sharon Lovering
November counts (final)
Print Page Count: 48
Large Print Issues Mailed: 3,355 (-10.77% from 2013)
Date Large Print Issues Mailed: 10/23/2014
Braille Issues Mailed: 750 (-21.05% from 2013)
Date Braille Issues Mailed: 10/23/2014
Cassette Issues Mailed: 1,395 (-22.93% from 2013)
Date Cassette Issues Mailed: still in the works
CD Rom Issues Mailed: 168 (-1.75% from 2013)
Date CD Rom issues Mailed: 10/29/2014
Date Posted to Website: 10/23/2014
Date E-mail version sent: 10/31/2014
E-mail issues mailed: 3,635 (+4.15% from 2013)
Total issues mailed: 9,303 (-8.62% from 2013)
# Of Large Print Copies Returned Undeliverable: 4
# Of Braille Copies Returned Undeliverable: none yet
# Of Cassette Copies Returned Undeliverable: none yet
# of CD Rom Copies Returned Undeliverable: none yet
# Of Miscellaneous Copies Returned Undeliverable: none yet
I am currently working on the December issue, which will be electronic. 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 have also been updating our resource lists. I was amazed and saddened at how many of the companies we listed seem to have just disappeared. Then I got an e-mail telling me about talking piñatas! I had gotten a call from a parent of a blind child just weeks ago, asking whether I knew about any sources for accessible piñatas. Now I know where to refer them.
In the next several weeks I will be asking affiliates to send me their membership chairperson’s information, so that I can begin working on the membership lists after Thanksgiving.
I will be out of the office Friday and next Monday, attending and competing in the regional championships in Myrtle Beach.
The deadline for January’s issue will be Nov. 24th.
In addition to Sharon’s report, Tom asked if the MP3 version of the Forum could be put on the CD-ROM disk for distribution along with the Word, Text, Braille-ready, and Zip versions. There is not room on the disk to add the MP3 version. A DVD could hold that much information, but Sharon would need upgrades to her computer and software to work with DVDs. Denise suggested we discuss this again when we talk about transition away from cassettes.
Oral History/Leadership, Berl Colley
No report this month.
Social Media, Carla Ruschival
Facebook: 670 likes
Twitter: 856 followers
Guest comments: no comments
Fundraising Brochure: Dan Spoone
Denise asked if the brochure that goes up on the web was going to be available in formats other than pdf? Dan said that the brochure was originally produced for distribution to estate planners, financial planners, corporations, grant funders, etc. They would consider other formats, but would need help on the reformatting. Annette suggested visual changes in an email and Doug suggested content changes in another email which Denise will forward to Dan. Annette was concerned that the brochure was not in ACB standard font size. Dan told us that the brochure has been through four months of edits already, so content changes in this iteration would probably not be wise. There is another publication called Inside ACB that goes out every six months to donors that updates our successes. And there are and will be other outreach efforts, so this brochure is not the only vehicle out there. Denise will send Dan the email comments received for possible inclusion and future planning.
2015 BOP Budget
Denise reviewed the proposed changes discussed previously. The three main changes were: 1)additional money for Braille since NBP had notified us they couldn’t continue to produce copies at the contracted price,, 2) revenue and expenses to reflect our charging admission to the Editorial Workshop at the C&C, and 3) we added money to the audio format line to allow Perkins to narrate all twelve issues (both Braille and E-Forum) for phone and podcast distribution). Ron was acknowledged for putting the numbers together in a useful and readable format.
For the future, we are suggesting that the Braille Forum Raffle still be operated as an RDC function, but that the revenue and expenses appear in the BOP section of the budget (as well as any subscription/donation revenue line items). Also, it was suggested that the ACB Radio salary that appears under BOP be moved to the ACB Radio group.
Carla and Tom expressed concern at budgeting $10 for our Editorial workshop. We decided to budget $200 income and $275 expense. With that change, the budget passed.
New ACB Braille and E-Forum Cover Copy: Doug Powell and Sharon Lovering
Changes have been distributed and discussed via email. Anette suggested a horizontal line between the label area and the new copy. With that change, the changed copy was passed.
Old Business
It was agreed to table the discussion of the Survey results until next month when Ron and Tiffany could participate.
Judy suggested that we table the discussion of how to make the E-Forum a distinct product from the Braille Forum, but not forget it.
Doug asked Judy if she still wanted to do the article about accessing the Forums via podcasts. She said she would, that she would pass it by the BOP before submitting it to Sharon, and that she would complete it before the November 24 deadline for the January hard copy issue.
Denise mentioned that she presented to the Board our proposal that the Candidates Forum be hosted as part of the General Session of the Convention the day after the Nominating Committee report. There is ongoing discussion of the Conference and Convention, affiliate caucuses, and the place of the Candidates Forum,. Kim has asked that we explore new ways to do the Candidate Forum.
New Business
No new business
The next meeting will be December 1, 2014 9:00pm EST
The meeting was adjourned at 11:08pm EDT.
Respectfully submitted,
Doug Powell, Secretary