Board of Publications Meeting Minutes for June 30, 2018

 The July meeting, held at the Union Station Hotel in St. Louis, was called to order by chairman Ron Brooks at 10:40 a.m. on June 30, 2018.
Members present: Ron Brooks, Chair; Deb Lewis; Donna Brown; Susan Glass; Paul Edwards.
ACB employees and contractors Present: Sharon Lovering.
Ex officio members present: Katie Frederick, Public Relations. 
Guests: There were six guests. Ron invited everyone to introduce themselves and share “which of the following statements best describes the role you would prefer playing in the world of journalism”: an intrepid reporter, a painstaking editor, or a jaded reader? Why?

Ron reviewed the agenda. 
Motion: Paul moved and Deb seconded adoption of the agenda. Motion passed.

Motion: Susan moved and Paul seconded adoption of the June 5, 2018 minutes. Motion passed. 

Photography and video will occur throughout convention along with Facebook live coverage of some events. 

Katie and Kelly will be presenting about use of social media at the BOP Writers Workshop on Wednesday. 

PR is working on a visual style guide for ACB to promote consistency of use for the logo, tag lines, accessibility of images, etc. 

Paul explained that the Public Relations committee is an ex officio member of the BOP specifically for the types of coordination that Katie described in her report. 

Ron began by discussing the BOP’s role in a changing environment. The ACB board implemented a new strategic plan in 2016 with increased emphasis on communications and marketing. The BOP is making significant efforts to engage closely with the Board and its committees in the implementation of strategic plan initiatives involving communication. This close alignment sometimes means there is healthy conflict as we attempt to get clarity around what the BOP does, what committees do, how to respect each other’s roles, and how to work together for the best outcomes. 

The BOP recognizes that it owns the written content in ACB’s publications. As we have diversified the formats of our publications, we have learned that it’s not appropriate to have the same kind of communication in every medium. Both messaging and ways to communicate have become complex over time. We are seeing decreasing requests for large print and Braille materials and a steady increase in use of electronic materials and social media with the overall distribution of ACB publications on the rise over the last two years. The BOP helps ACB refine its message—what we want members of ACB and the public to know about ACB, and how we want to communicate the messages. It is critical that BOP membership reflect both the ways we are trying to communicate and also the individuals with whom we are trying to communicate. 

Ron thanked Donna for her service on the BOP — she is not running for a second term. He also thanked Paul, Deb and Susan for their work and contributions. 

This year has been a very busy one so far! 

I signed up 5 new people for the online database; 2 affiliates requested Word, 1 wanted Excel, 1 wanted large print, and 64 used the AMMS system. Some affiliates used the AMMS system but wanted a Word or Excel list for comparison. 

I continue to work with the public relations and credentials committees, as well as the board of publications and the awards committee, and the marketing and communications strategic plan group. The BOP awards had 75 candidates for the Freeman, one for the Henley, and none for the Liggett. 

I have also been working with the history committee. I am continuing my work on the photo/video inventory. It has proven to be quite a challenge to identify the people in some of these photos. I have completed captions for 2001 through 2003’s photos, and will begin working on 2004 after convention.

As of this writing, I am working on the August E-Forum.

Numbers below are in the following order: 2018, 2017 and percentage of increase or decrease in parentheses.
By the time you read this, the July issue will be going out to:
2,580 large print readers (2,668, down 3.3 percent)
681 braille readers (695, down 2.01 percent)
970 cartridge readers (950, up 2.1 percent)
0 CD readers (134, down 100 percent)
and 6,369 e-mail readers (5,289, up 20.42 percent)
Grand total: 10,598 (9,736, up 8.85 percent)
* as of June 21, 2018
Since January, I have received: 12 pieces for Affiliate and Committee News, 43 pieces for Here and There, 3 pieces for High Tech Swap Shop, 9 pieces for Passings, 4 memorial articles, 3 letters to the editor, 1 request to do a book review, And 54 separate articles. * as of June 21, 2018
In May, I received back in the mail: 17 large print issues of the Forum, 4 braille issues, 1 (old-Sept. 2017) cassette, and 6 emails.
In June, I have received: 1 braille issue, 1 large print issues, 0 cartridges, and 1 “unsubscribe me from the list” notice. * as of June 21, 2018
So far this year, we have lost 65 members and friends. (as of June 14, 2018)

September 2018 (hard copy): July 23, 2018
October 2018 (electronic): August 24, 2018
November 2018 (hard copy): September 24, 2018
December 2018 (electronic): October 26, 2018

Larry was unavailable due to convention commitments. Deb announced that the Android version of ACB Link is now in public beta. Ron announced that the new acb.org has gone live. Paul discussed the importance of worldwide outreach through ACB Radio. 

Email list stats were not available. ACB has a chat list open to any topic and acb-l which is blindness and ACB specific topics. 

Last year, we had 3,027 likes on our Facebook page, and 1,937 Twitter followers. This year, we have 3,470 likes on our Facebook page, which is a 15 percent increase, and 2,356 Twitter followers, which is a 22 percent increase in followers. (as of June 25, 2018)

We are now using Facebook Live to connect with our followers and have made a concerted effort to promote convention this year through our social media pages. We have a regular cadence with our posts to keep our followers in the know

By constitution and historically, the BOP’s role is to be independent from the board and to have editorial freedom and accountability to the membership. This role has expanded from the magazines to include any written content on behalf of ACB such as the website, email list policies, ACB Radio, and to some extent social media. Ron opened discussion regarding The BOP’s role and what it should be doing. Content of the ACB Braille Forum and editorial consultation for affiliates were discussed. There was a request for help with format and content of affiliate brochures. Ron said this should be the shared responsibility of BOP and Marketing. He noted that we now have a large print format everyone can read but it may be a format everyone cannot produce, and we may be producing documents that are easy to read but not easy to manage for the reader due to size. Deb also explained complications that arise from producing the electronic convention program from the PDF files used to produce the large print. The challenge is to produce a wide array of formats in a useable form and to help our members learn to use formats, such as Daisy, that might work better for them if training was available. Paul said that some of the same challenges are faced for production of Braille including significant costs for all paper formats. Our members do not have the skills and resources to take advantage of the array of information available on the internet, and he noted the extremely high numbers of people accessing ACB content over the phone. Ron summarized that people will gravitate toward what is easy and we need to focus on making access to content as easy as possible. 

•    In collaboration with CCLVI, we have adopted new guidelines for the large print format. There has been both positive and negative feedback resulting from this change. 
•    The BOP is expanding access to ACB candidates. We held our first ever online Candidates Forum using ACB Radio and Zoom Cloud Meetings and will have our first Town Hall candidates event at the 2018 convention. 
•    We are changing the content of ACB’s magazines. The ACB E-Forum will have themed issues beginning in August, 2018. Both magazines will have more balanced content.
•    We are rewriting and modernizing the Editorial Policy manual to more accurately reflect the activities, collaborations and role of the BOP. As our editorial needs change, our policies also need to change.
•    BOP awards presentation during convention.
•    Key Program Indicators (KPI) dashboard to track communication media and messages. We are reaching about ten thousand people per month.

Ron explained that the BOP determined there would be a difference between the ACB Braille Forum and the E-forum. The ACB E-Forum was created as an online publication which is available in all formats other than hardcopy. The ACB Braille Forum is a historical archive of organization activities and is space limited because of the hardcopy formats. Both magazines will have a more balanced approach to content. The E-Forum will be themed. The August theme is education, October is employment, and others will be determined. We need original content from new authors. We will solicit feedback from readers and will use that input to further shape the magazines. 

The BOP is responsible for the official convention newspaper, this year it is “The Gateway Gazette,” which is overseen by Sharon and volunteers. 

The BOP Writers Workshop will be held on Wednesday afternoon and will feature a presentation by Kelly Gasque and Katie Frederick on use of social media.

The Candidates Town Hall will occur Wednesday evening and will provide an informal opportunity to hear from ACB candidates. 

The BOP will present two awards during convention.

A comment that items coming out via email are easy to share on social media and appreciated. 

 There was no other business.

 The next meeting is scheduled for August 7, 2018 at 9 p.m. Eastern time. 

 Deb moved and Paul seconded adjournment. the meeting adjourned at 11:58 a.m.
 

Respectfully Submitted,
Deb Lewis, Secretary