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September 6, 2016 Board of Publications Meeting Minutes

Call to Order/Introductions

The meeting was called to order by Chair Ron Brooks at 9:02 PM on September 6, 2016.
Members present: Ron Brooks, Chair; Susan Glass; Paul Edwards; Deb Lewis; Doug Powell.
ACB employees and contractors present: Eric Bridges, absent; Sharon Lovering, Annette Carter; Larry Turnbull.
Ex officio members present: Kim Charlson, President; Carla Ruschival, Goal One Chair; Bob Hachey, Email List Moderator; Katie Frederick, Board Liaison; Denise Colley, immediate past BOP chair.
Other participants on the call: Renee Zelickson; Sue Ammeter; Oral Miller; Lauren Casey.

Adoption of Agenda

Ron reviewed the agenda.
Motion: Doug moved and Susan seconded adoption of the agenda. Motion passed.

Approval of August 2 Minutes

There was confusion regarding whether Ron or Deb was doing the August minutes and therefore they were not completed. Deb has agreed to provide the August meeting minutes which will be approved in October.
Motion: Doug moved and Susan seconded that adoption of the August 2 minutes be deferred until October. Motion carried.

Public Comment

There was no public comment.

Reports

BOP Chair

Ron met with Eric, who reports that the Web Task Force completed its work and has made recommendations to Kim which will be considered by the board. The task force is now disbanded.
They also discussed the possible name change for the Internet Oversight Committee, which will probably be called the Email Oversight Committee and does not require a bylaws change. This decision is Kim’s discretion and there is no further action for the BOP or the ACB board.
There has been email list traffic regarding the possibility of combining the email lists and the social media under Goal One. If the BOP wishes to consider this, it can be on the agenda for a future meeting. Discussion followed and no further action was taken.

Editor: Sharon Lovering

* [Link to Sharon’s Nutshell Report is at the end of these Minutes.]
Doug identified one error in the release dates, should be 8-30-18 rather than 6-30-18 for the September Forum.

ACB Webmaster: Annette Carter

Work was completed on the upgrade for the Mini Mall on schedule. Eric, Kelly and Carla will review the site for any issues.

ACB Radio: Larry Turnbull

Streaming of the World Blind Union went well for the most part. Michigan will stream their affiliate convention the first weekend in October and National Braille Press wants to stream their event at the end of October. There is still lots of positive feedback about the quality of podcast content for Mainstream and On Demand content for ACB Radio.
Ron asked if the board meetings are streamed. Larry said they are not. Carla said the cost factor would be a significant consideration. There was discussion.
Ron asked if it was possible to know the total listeners to podcasts rather than just those registered. Larry explained that it’s not possible to determine listeners, only downloads and some people download on to multiple devices. Only new subscribers are logged by the server.

ACB Email List Moderator: Bob Hachey

Bob said the committee is interested in having an Announce list for one-way information. Kim said such a list exists. Everyone agreed that most people are probably not aware of the Announce list and that it would be good to remind them of this option to receive information without participating in discussion. Paul proposed that the Announce list should be included in the Braille Forum to increase awareness and subscribers. It was agreed that the text insert describing the email lists should be reviewed to see if the Announce list could be incorporated. There are currently 249 subscribers to Announce. Doug suggested that the 3000 subscribers to the email version of the Forum could be migrated to the Announce list with a remove option. There was discussion about where this has worked and has not worked well on other lists. Kim thought that an easy method to opt in would be well received. PR will work with Larry to create an opt in mechanism for the Announce list. Sharon will draft language to add Announce to the list information included in the Forum. Annette will determine how to incorporate the information into the various Forum formats. It was agreed that every format would not present the information in precisely the same way but could use filler ads, text boxes, masthead etc.

Social Media: Carla Ruschival

As of September 1 we had 2,468 Facebook likes, and the top performing posts were the 3D printer ultrasound posts, the convention highlights video, and the Uber message. Twitter had 1,528 followers as of September 1. Top performing tweets were the WBU schedule, Uber’s new accessibility site, and the ACB guide dog survey. It has made a difference having Kelly helping with the social media content and presentation. Timing is everything for effectiveness of social media.

Public Relations: Katie Frederick

They did not meet as scheduled in August but will in September. Continuing to work on committee and affiliate web pages. Kim clarified whether someone from the BOP would be the liaison to Public Relations, and it was confirmed that Paul will do this.
Doug asked why we have both the committee ex officio and liaison. Kim said she thought the roles were different in terms of the ex officio representing the committee and the liaison representing the BOP. This reinforces engagement. Paul noted that the BOP has policy responsibility in some way with each of the committees on which it has a liaison.
Doug said he felt the BOP had the least connection with ACB Radio since there is not a liaison relationship. Deb offered to do that since she is serving on the ACB Radio management team.

2016-2017 BOP Work Plan

Ron has circulated several drafts of the plan and particularly thanked Doug for his review and comments. The work plan is a roadmap for what we will accomplish by next July. We will post it on the BOP page for everyone to learn what we are doing and accomplishing. Each item has a task, project, goal, due date, a lead person (BOP member, staff or contractor), support roles, and progress by month. Items are alphabetically organized by due date.
  • ACB Braille Forum cassette production extension: Eric is responsible. The cartridge RFP is delayed due to supply problems and it will be necessary to extend the cassette production instead.
  • ACB BOP budget: to be adopted at the November meeting. Ron is lead.
  • ACB Braille Forum RFP: large print; audio; Braille. 12/31/2016. Eric and Sharon. Denise noted that the contract with Potomac expired on July 31 so must be dealt with right away. Need to particularly consider distribution rates for various formats. Vendors have typically met the quality requirements of the RFP so these aspects probably do not require review. Ron thought that there should be a schedule as part of each RFP showing how all of the production and distribution should work together to deliver all of the products near the same time. Denise pointed out that the audio goes through more steps than large print or Braille which makes it difficult to deliver on the same schedule.
  • Consolidated statistics: develop tracking mechanism to determine how many people we are reaching with each format. Ultimately would like to get a metric that shows what we spend, regardless of format, per copy. Then we can bring costs down by helping people move to lower cost alternatives. There was discussion on how this is difficult because people subscribe in more than one way, on more than one device, and may use all of the media differently or sometimes not at all. Deb said that you want to know how the demographic of your membership impacts the consumption of various formats which might be easier to capture than measuring specific readership of each format. Major work on this item is tabled until next year, but Deb suggested that we could do simple analysis of the statistics we currently receive which would inform the survey. Ron will develop a template to track the data we currently receive.
  • Large print readers survey: get quantitative information from large print readers in order to develop a strong majority opinion and a subsequent large print style guide for ACB publications. This will be collaboration with CCLVI and other interested individuals.
  • Midyear presentation: placeholder to develop information or content relevant to affiliate presidents.
  • E-forum format and content: how we use the E-forum relative to how we use the hard copy Forum. 3/31/2017.
  • BOP Awards: 5/15/2017.
  • Constitution and bylaws amendments: housekeeping item to make sure policies are updated.
  • BOP editorial policy: revise and update as appropriate.
  • BOP ACB Candidates Forum: language for the page, questions, logistics.
  • BOP Editors Workshop: identify topics.
  • Ongoing activities: Monthly meetings; Monthly meeting minutes; Tracking volunteer hours.
Motion: Paul moved and Doug seconded acceptance of the proposed work plan.
Ron will make editorial changes and send out the final version. BOP members should identify what areas they would like to work on.

Other Business

There was no other business and no announcements.

Next Meeting:

Tuesday, October 4, 2016 – 9:00 PM Eastern

Adjourn

Deb moved and Paul seconded adjournment. Motion passed and the meeting adjourned at 11:04 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Deb Lewis, Secretary