The ACB Board of Publications met via teleconference on Monday, November 5, at 9:00 PM EST. Members present: chair Paul Edwards, Denise Colley, Marcia Dresser, Judy Jackson; ex officio members Berl Colley, Bob Hachey; ACB staff/contractors Annette Carter, Sharon Lovering. Members absent: Nolan Crabb; Ron Milliman; Larry Turnbull. Several guests also participated on the call.
Chair Paul Edwards convened the meeting at 9:05 PM EST. The meeting agenda was adopted as amended. The minutes of the October meeting were approved as distributed.
CCLVI member Donna Pomerantz joined the call tonight and said that CCLVI is eager to work with the BOP regarding matters related to large print. Paul replied that assistance from CCLVI members would be greatly beneficial to the BOP, since no one currently serving on the BOP has low vision. Donna will find five CCLVI members who use large print as their primary reading method to evaluate the large print convention program. Paul will ask Lane Waters to send the 2012 program to these people, who will report back to Donna. Donna will give us their feedback during the January BOP call. At the BOP meeting in December, Lane Waters and Janet Dickelman will outline the budgetary constraints pertaining to CCLVI best practices. Donna stated that one effective compromise would be to have titles in 20-point print and the rest in 16-point. We also decided that before the 2013 program goes to press, Annette will revise it and make formatting changes to optimize it as much as possible within the constraints we decide on.
In response to a question from Charlie Hodge, Paul stated that at the executive session in September, the BOP members discussed approaches that would make The Braille Forum better. Shortly thereafter, a meeting was held with the editor, who was asked to produce some writing of her own in The Braille Forum. In addition, the BOP members will hold "budget meetings" with the editor just before the Forum is due to go to press in order to establish the order of articles and to discuss anything that might have come up at the last minute.
Editor's Report
Sharon reported that the December issue has gone to press. Eric Bridges and Bob Hachey collaborated on a document that outlines FCC regulations regarding video description of TV programs and describes the process of filing a complaint with the FCC if such description is not being received in the top 25 markets. Bob will send this document to Sharon, who will include it in the January issue of the Forum.
Web Site
Annette reported that the donation pages on the Web site will be ready for testing when Larry returns from the WBU meeting in Thailand. She will attend the upcoming ACB office staff meeting in order to present guidelines for creating and formatting documents to be put up on the site. For several months, low vision folks have had the ability to customize color and font, and many people in Florida told Paul that they are very pleased with the results. Annette would like people to know that she needs advance notice about upcoming projects because it takes time to code items for the site. To that end, she would like to meet with committee chairs at the beginning of a project to iron out the logistics. Judy suggested that a notice to this effect should go out on the leadership list. Marcia moved and Judy seconded acceptance of this report; the motion carried.
Leadership Training
The Crossroads leadership training, sponsored by Kentucky and Bluegrass, will take place on March 15 and 16; Ohio and Michigan will participate. The Midwest training, spearheaded by Ray Campbell and Jim Jirak, will probably occur in August. Since Arizona, New Mexico, and Louisiana have expressed interest in leadership training, a South-Central event will be organized, which will hopefully include Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma. Blind Pride, who also expressed interest, can join any of the three.
Oral History Project
Berl reported that Adam and Carla Ruschival are now assisting with this project. Very soon, they plan to interview Bernice Kandarian, Carol McCarl, and Roger Petersen. Also, they are exploring the possibility of compiling CDs of some of the banquets in which entertainers such as Doc Watson performed. Once these entertainers grant permission, the membership could purchase these CDs through the ACB Store. A notice has gone out to the leadership list asking affiliates to provide any historical data that could be archived and used for memorabilia CDs; Washington and Nebraska have sent several years' worth of their newsletters. There is a concern that old cassettes may have suffered degradation.
Goal One
A document that deals with social networking was accepted by the Goal One Task Force. The BOP will review this document at the December meeting. Bob moved and Judy seconded acceptance of Berl's reports; the motion carried.
Internet Oversight Committee
Bob reported that the lists have been very quiet. There is a problem with inactive email addresses, which Larry and Annette will attempt to resolve. Berl moved and Denise seconded adoption of Bob's report; the motion carried.
Public Relations Committee
All of the handbooks are being updated. Ron sent a detailed report to the BOP.
Downloading Documents
DOC might be the best option; however, Tom pointed out that notetakers do better with rtf files. Judy, Marcia, Denise, and Paul will investigate this.
Next Meeting
Because Marcia and Denise will be out of the country on December3, the next meeting of the BOP will occur via teleconference on Monday, December 10, at 9:00 PM EST.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Marcia N. Dresser, Secretary