Board of Publications Meeting Minutes for June 2, 2020

Meeting was called to order by Deb Cook Lewis, BOP Chair. 

Present:  Deb Cook Lewis, Penny Reeder, Zelda Gebhard, Susan Glass, Paul Edwards, David Trott, Debbie Hazelton, Katie Frederick, Dan Spoone, Sharon Lovering, Jeff Bishop

Guest: Christine Chaikin

Susan moved to approve the agenda, seconded by Zelda.  Motion carried. 

Paul moved to approve the May minutes, seconded by Susan.  Motion carried. 

None was brought forward. 

Deb will send out the general session agenda to allow each to choose a session. Paul and Susan will each take two sessions, Zelda and Penny will do one each with Deb summarizing the board meeting and coordinating all the general session summaries together. 

Sharon reported that all items for the convention newsletter, “The Digital Daily,” will be submitted by 2 p.m. the day preceding.  There will be no charge for affiliate or committee news.  The newspaper will be read each morning before the general session.

Will be on Saturday, July 4 at 11:30 a.m.  Led by Paul and supported by Susan.  

Penny will be giving the Henley award during the Monday general session. 

Zelda will present the other two awards (Freeman and Liggett) awards which are to be videoed and played the night of the banquet.  She will contact the winners and coordinate a time to get the presentation video recorded.  

All BOP members will be involved in this informal wrap-up on Friday night, July 10th.   

There weren’t many involved but the input was great.  The telephone number is not working to access the ACB Braille Forum and E-Forum right now.  People are interested in things that are located elsewhere.  Not everyone is accessing information from all sources and perhaps we should do cross reporting in different media.  It was suggested that we could do a short report of an ACB radio show in each Braille Forum. 

August: Coping with the Coronavirus.
September: Exercise and Recreation.

In October, we will address National Disability Month, National Employment of People with Disabilities, White Cane Day and/or changes in VR service delivery because of the pandemic. Paul will write up a description.   

Zelda suggested that we reinforce the ACB Core Values in November and December.  Zelda will write up the descriptions.   

Deb is centered in on many aspects of the convention. 

Sharon is back to working in the office.

May 2020

Issue type: Hard copy
Page count: 80
Braille distributed: 669
Braille returned: 6
Braille return rate: 0.9%
Braille received: 663
Cartridge distributed: 450
* Distributed on May 27th; too soon for returns. 402 subscribers have two or more issues out. Kim believes many of them are stuck in the backlog of 25,000 returns that came back while Perkins was closed. *
Large print distributed: 2,414
Large print returned: 46
Large print return rate: 1.9%
Large print received: 2,368
Email distributed: 4,824
Email bounces: 249
Unsubscribes: 4
Email return rate: 5.2% (again, largely due to full email boxes, suspended email accounts, vacation/auto replies, people using work emails, etc.)
Email received: 4,571

June 2020

Issue type: electronic
Page count: 96
Email distributed: 4,834

President’s Message: Summer Breezes and New Adventures, by Dan Spoone
One Number, Two Mainstreams, Three Great Ways to Listen
ACB – A Path to the Future, by Janet Dickelman
Conventions and Conventions, by Paul Edwards
Continuing Education – A Path to the Future, by Carla Ruschival
Walking up a Storm Virtual Style, by Donna Brown
Stay at Home and Bid on Items in the ACB Easy Chair Auction, by the ACB Auction Committee
MMS Is Going Virtual!, by Kathy Brockman
Mini Mall Headlines, by Carla Ruschival
Affiliate and Committee News
Wine and Song, by Peter Altschul
Readers’ Memories of Lynn Hedl
Passings
Book Review: Fairbairn’s ‘When You Can’t Believe Your Eyes: Vision Loss and Personal Recovery’ – The Title Says It All!, by Kate Crohan
Performing Marriage Ceremonies, by Charles Nabarrete
Backyard Wedding, by Peter Altschul
Here and There, edited by Cynthia Hawkins
High Tech Swap Shop

I am currently working on the July Forum, and aiming to have it out the door by the end of this week. Clovernook has re-opened, and is working on getting the May issue out. Perkins has recently re-opened, too, and sent the cartridges out on May 27th.

I’ve been working from home for 12 weeks now. Northern Virginia has entered phase 1 of re-opening, which means that we can start going back to the office. I returned to the office on June 1st, with mask as required by office building management and the governor. I have some research to do, some brailling to do, and a couple of requests to fill and send out. It will be good to get back to a regular routine. Then we’ll start tackling convention preparation!

Debbie reported about “Café with an interactive experience.” Old Interactive is now the community stream.  Doing more live shows, which reduces the amount of editing necessary and allows for more spontaneity.  Have some new mixers.  Working on convention with sponsors and exhibitors.  Server migrations have been happening.  Looking for a way to update the schedule.

Jeff reported that ACB Link for Android has been released.  We have started moving the server infrastructure into Azure Cloud.  We have seven Alexa skills in the Amazon skill store corresponding to the seven streams available.  Working on the podcast submission process.  Steam changes about the updated streams have been submitted to be used for the Victor Reader Stream.  Main Menu Live is back. 

Katie reported that the group meets every two weeks.  They are working on a document with some video do’s and don’ts to be utilized for convention. 

Deb has asked Penny to be the BOP representative for the coming year (convention to convention) with Deb serving as backup if needed.  It involves attending and summarizing the fall board meeting, board meeting during the leadership meetings plus other scheduled meetings throughout the year ending with the 2021 pre-convention board meeting.   

Paul moved to approve Penny as the representative at the ACB Board meetings.  Zelda seconded the motion.  Motion carried.  Penny will be the next BOP Liaison to the ACB Board. 

Next Meeting

Tuesday, August 4, 2020, 9 p.m. Eastern

Paul moved to adjourn, seconded by Zelda.  Motion carried.  Meeting adjourned. 

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard