Call to Order/Introductions
The May meeting was called to order by Chairman Ron Brooks at 9:02 p.m. on May 7, 2019.
Members present: Ron Brooks, Chair; Deb Lewis; Penny Reeder; Paul Edwards; Susan Glass.
ACB employees and contractors present: Sharon Lovering; Larry Turnbull.
Ex officio members present: Bob Hachey, email list manager; Katie Frederick, public relations.
Guests: None.
Adoption of Agenda:
Ron reviewed the agenda.
Motion: Penny moved and Deb seconded adoption of the agenda. Motion passed.
Approval of April 2 Minutes:
Bob noted that the number of posts to the chat list should be 202, not 20.
Motion: Paul moved and Penny seconded adoption of the revised April 2, 2019 Minutes. Motion passed.
Open Forum:
There were no items.
Decisions Regarding 2019 BOP Awards
Ron explained that voting results were emailed in advance of the meeting to maintain secrecy as long as possible.
Motion: Penny moved and Susan seconded acceptance of the award recipients as determined by the vote. The motion passed. Deb will include the winners in the July Minutes which will be distributed after the awards have been presented. Ron will work with Sharon to create the plaque language.
Ron thanked all for their hard work reviewing the many nominees and noted that while there was consistency, there were also differing views which he thought was healthy. Penny stated that she did not find the editorial comments related to the Freeman nominees to be helpful, because it is the editor’s job to edit the articles, and the award should be given solely on the merits of the writer’s content. Ron said that if a writer is good and they require little editing, this works well. But if the idea is good but they need a lot of help to deliver it, this should also be factored into the decision. There was further discussion but no changes in process were made at this time.
Paul expressed concern that ineligibility of ACB board and BOP members along with recent winners might not be included in our revised editorial policy. Deb wasn’t sure and will look into this for next meeting. It was agreed that no motion would be needed to make this change to the policy.
Update on ACB Candidates’ Webpage, Forum and Town Hall Meeting
The article inviting candidates to submit content for the webpage was included in the April E-Forum. Unfortunately the Leadership list reminder did not make it out because of the listserv problems so Ron will send another announcement. There were no responses to date.
The Candidates’ Forum will be June 19 at 9:00 eastern with Ron as facilitator. Ron and Larry will get information out on participating via Zoom. The instructions will also be included on the Candidates’ Webpage. Ron requested that any ideas for candidate questions be sent to him.
Larry will set a date for submission of candidate profiles for airing on ACB Radio and will write an article describing the process. As with the Forum, candidates must have submitted webpage content to be included in the profiles.
The Town Hall meeting is scheduled for Wednesday the 10th at 7:15 PM. Paul and Penny will facilitate.
Update on the BOP Writers Workshop
Deb, Susan and Katie will meet to plan the event. Anyone else is welcome to attend the planning which will be posted to the BOP list, send in ideas, or attend the event to help. Deb proposed that the demos should be recorded in advance to reduce hazards and to ensure timing.
Chairman’s Report: Ron Brooks
- Provided write-up on 2019 BOP Writer’s Workshop to Convention Coordinator.
- Authored theme introduction for June edition of the ACB E-Forum.
- Reviewed and ranked articles, publications and other submittals for the 2019 ACB Board of Publication awards and provided rankings to ACB Editor.
- Communicated final award recommendation decisions to BOP members for ratification during the May BOP meeting.
- Communicated with President of CCLVI regarding disposition of CCLVI recommendations for the large print 2019 ACB Conference and Convention Program.
Editor’s Report: Sharon Lovering
April 2019 Issue type: electronic; Page count: 87
Electronic distributed: 6,715; returned: 0
May 2019 Issue type: Hard copy; Page count: 80
Braille distributed: 699
Cartridge distributed: 690
Large print distributed: 2,500
Electronic distributed: 6,717
June 2019 Issue type: electronic; Page count: 96
The June E-Forum went to Perkins at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
Last week I recorded a Facebook Live with Claire and Clark on fair housing. I also updated the Washington Connection and sent out the latest Dots and Dashes on Friday, May 3rd. I will be updating one message, perhaps two, either today or tomorrow.
I also worked on getting the candidates’ page up on acb.org. I haven’t received any entries yet, but I’m sure they’ll come pouring in on the 16th and 17th.
One major project that is now nearly complete is emptying the office file cabinets and bookshelves, packaging up the files, and preparing for the new furniture. All the boxes are stowed in one corner of the conference room. I’ve also boxed up all the cassettes that were in the cassette filing cabinets and other places throughout the office, and will be shipping them to Kim Charlson at Perkins in the near future. I couldn’t believe they filled five bankers’ boxes! I still need to empty the bookshelves in Clark’s office – and find enough boxes to hold all the braille copies of the Forum dating back to the ‘60s.
I’ve also been helping the ACB Angels project by finding photos of this year’s group of new angels. One photo that took some hunting down was the photo of Otis Stephens and his sister, Ann (Stephens) Sims.
I’ve procured three embossers from HumanWare and a timed license for speech software from Vispero for the communication center computers. Margarine has procured 20 boxes of braille paper for the communication center. And I’m already getting ads for “The Flower City Press.”
Sharon received notice that former BOP Chair Carol McCarl passed away. There was discussion of how to recognize Carol’s contributions.
Motion: Paul moved and Penny seconded that the BOP dedicate a future edition of the ACB Braille Forum in memory of Carol McCarl. Motion passed.
Other Reports
ACB Radio: Larry Turnbull
Listener counts for April:
ACB Radio Mainstream 2065
ACB Radio Cafe 212
ACB Radio Treasure Trove 2362
ACB Radio Interactive 962
ACB Radio World News and Information 769
ACB Radio Live Event: 26 listeners for the ACB of Nebraska Convention
We do not have listener counts for the phone this month as Audio Now has been bought by Zeno Media and the infrastructure is still in transition.
Web hits: 17,728 web hits for the month of April.
ACBRI on demand visits 1847
Downloads:
MainMenu Archives 115
Speaking Out for the Blind 25
ACB Braille and E Forum 1050
ACB reports 835
Advocacy Update 82
We picked up 85 subscribers for the ACB Braille Forum and E Forum podcast.
We picked up 23 subscribers for ACB Reports.
We picked up 92 subscribers to the Main Menu podcast.
We picked up 122 subscribers to the ACB Advocacy Update podcast.
We had 862 tuning hours reported by Stream Licensing for the month of April for ACBRadio Interactive.
We had 862 tuning hours for the month of April for ACBRadio Café.
Two shows have changed time slot on ACB Radio.
Larry has been coordinating with Eric and Jeff in anticipation of major surgery later in the summer. Larry has also been coordinating with convention sponsors to help them record their own spotlight presentations this year.
ACB Email Lists: Bob Hachey
Leadership Subscribers April: 273; Messages: 138
ACB-L Members: 341; Posts: 107
ACB-Chat Members: 155; Posts: 252
There was discussion of a recent outage lasting several days that impacted all ACB listservs. Larry said it was caused by a malfunction of the virus scan software and explained what is being done to reduce this problem in the future. It was recommended that Larry look into whether there is a mechanism to alert him if this happens, and it was suggested that he create an email distribution to inform list administrators of the status when such a wide spread outage occurs. There was concern that an overall lack of communication and information made the problem seem greater than it was. In the case of individual subscribers not receiving list messages, Larry said he should be notified so he can investigate, but this outage was much more widespread.
Social Media Stats
Not available.
Public Relations: Katie Frederick
Katie has been working with the membership committee on incorporation of social media. Katie commented that her new employment has made it more challenging to work as intensely on PR issues as she has in the past. Deb asked if the Facebook Live sessions were successful and Katie thought they were going well in terms of participation and interest level.
Other Business and Announcements
Deb updated on the large print convention program. A meeting was held with Janet, Lane, Nancy Becker, David, Sara and Terry. All aspects of the large print modifications were reviewed. Lane explained that the electronic version is derived by converting the PDF, without the pictures, to Word. Deb and Terry expressed concern that this is exactly why the Word document has been less usable, and suggested that the originating document, before it is sent to the printer for inclusion of the pics, should be the basis for the electronic document. Deb is not sure if this will happen, but does know that the HTML version of the registration document looks much better than it has in the past, so she is hopeful about the program as well.
Next Meeting:
The next meeting is scheduled for June 4, 2019 at 9:00 PM Eastern time.
Adjourn
Deb moved and Susan seconded adjournment. the meeting adjourned at 10:25 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Deb Lewis, Secretary