Call to Order: Deb Cook Lewis, President
The September 30, 2023, ACB fall Board of Directors Meeting was called to order at 9:08 AM Eastern Time by President Deb Cook Lewis. Members of the Board and guests participated both in person and virtually.
Roll Call and Introduction of Guests: Denise Colley, Secretary
At the call of the roll the following members were present: Deb Cook Lewis, David Trott, Ray Campbell, Denise Colley, Michael Garrett, Kim Charlson, Donna Brown, Chris Bell, Gabriel Lopez Kafati, Cecily Laney Nipper, Terry Pacheco, Doug Powell, Rachel Schroeder, Kenneth Semien, Koni Sims, and Jeff Thom. Board of Publications Member Penny Reeder was present representing that body.
Staff present: Dan Spoone, ACB Interim Executive Director; Clark Rachfal, ACB Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs; Jo Lynn Bailey-Page, Associate Director of Development; Kolby Garrison, Development Officer; Nancy Marks-Becker, Chief Financial Officer; Tabitha Kenlon, Audio Description Project Coordinator; Rick Morin, ACB Media and IT Manager.
Consultants: Larry Gassman, ACB Media Coordinator and Bill Reeder, ACB Resource Development Consultant.
Several guests were also present in-person and virtually.
Review and Approval of Agenda: Deb Cook Lewis
Trott requested that two items be added to the agenda.
- A brief discussion about a feeling of disenfranchisement expressed by several members and how we as a Board can work to be responsive to that perception.
- Taking a position on X/Twitter.
It was moved by Powell and seconded by Sims to approve the amended agenda. The motion carried.
Review and Approval of the August 15, 2023, Meeting Minutes: Denise Colley, Secretary
There being no corrections or additions, it was moved by Bell and seconded by Campbell to approve the August 15, 2023, telephonic Board meeting minutes. The motion carried.
Mission Moment: Deb Cook Lewis and Dan Spoone
This Mission Moment applauded the fabulous work done by our Podcast editing team in getting what is equivalent to 8 days and 14 hours of consecutive listening to our convention podcasts, if one were listening 24 hours a day. There were a total of 142 podcasts. This was a herculean feat for our editors and is really the way that all of our materials are the most frequently consumed. Rick reported that since convention we have had 20,000 downloads of convention material. This really shows that ACB is a strong force with a social presence and influencer in the world. The quality of the editing this year was superb. The team consists of about 12 editors, many of whom are from the Community.
Dan pointed out that it is not only the convention, but all the Community events content and other business activities we generate, we are averaging over 25,000 downloads a month. We ended last year with approximately 300,000 downloads across all of our podcasts and are pretty much on that same projectory for this year.
Approval of Consent Agenda: Deb Cook Lewis
Trott went on record complementing the great work done on the Membership Engagement report submitted by Cindy Hollis. He said we now have what we need to allow us to know where we’re growing and where we need to put in more work toward growth. It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Brown to approve the Consent Agenda. The motion carried.
Convention and Survey Feedback Report: Janet Dickelman, Convention Committee Chair and Rick Morin, Information Technology and ACB Media Manager
Janet talked about the great amenities at the convention hotel in Jacksonville, along with several eateries within a block or two from the hotel. She also shared information on the tour venues they have checked out, and she and Convention Tour Coordinator, Rhonda Trott are exploring holding a Community call to share tour information and let people ask specific questions.
Rick Morin then went through the Convention Survey findings. (See report entitled Post-Convention Survey Findings in Board dropbox.)
The number of survey respondents was less this year than last year. This year the survey was being targeted to those who had registered, and Rick thinks the reduction number was due to a wider circulation of the survey last year. The response rate this year was about 76%, based on all the individuals who answered all of the questions. It’s safe to say that the total of 430 people answered some of the questions, and all of the results were based upon the percentages of individuals who answered that particular question. It is interesting to note that 22.5% of respondents attended only the in-person segment in Schaumburg, which is a significant number of individuals who did not take advantage of the virtual only segment. Also significant is that 20.8% of respondents accessed the convention entirely in person and did not participate in any hybrid events.
Dan commented that they also received valuable information from the Community calls that Janet and Deb held, and from so many other venues including the presidents, weekly call, convention steering committee, staff, and the AV team.
It was moved by Schroeder and seconded by Campbell to accept the convention and post-convention survey reports. The motion carried.
President’s Report: Deb Cook Lewis
- Committee Chairs and Assignments
Appointment/reappointment of committee chairs and co-chairs is moving along, and President Lewis is making committee visits as she can fit them in. Several assignment changes have been made but have not all been transmitted. Most of that should be done within the next week or two.
Two new ad hoc committees have been appointed. One is related to our Executive Director search. The timetable for the search has been moved up and this committee will begin their work soon. The goal is to have that process completed by the time of the Leadership Conference next March. The members of this committee will be Deb Cook Lewis, Kim Charlson, Michael Garrett, Jeff Thom, Dan Spoone and Nancy Becker.
The second ad hoc committee will be working on the completion of the reorganization of the policy structure for the Board policies. The members of that committee will be Koni Sims, David Trott and Ray Campbell. This committee will be responsible for making sure that all current policies are in a central location, those that need to be online are placed there, making revisions to current policies as needed, and identifying those that are obsolete or need to be archived. A process will be developed for reviewing new policies each time there are minutes that contain new policy language that needs to be placed in one of those locations.
- WBU and FCC Update: Kim Charlson
The Executive Committee of the World Blind Union (WBU) will be meeting in Malaga, Spain from October 21-25, and Kim will be attending.
The Haiti Society for the Blind is participating in a Rice for the Blind campaign to raise money for food insecure Haitians who are blind. They have been buying a large bag of rice and a can of cooking oil to give to families who are food deprived and struggling in the political situation there. The request to participate from our North American/Caribbean Region members is going out to ask each of their organizations to make a contribution. Kim will be putting this request forward to ACB members and affiliates to consider making a donation for this dire situation.
The other thing the North American/Caribbean Region has been working on is meeting with our Caribbean nations and talking with them about their memberships and getting Caribbean nations to join the WBU as individual countries rather than as one Caribbean Council of the Blind organization. Membership by nation gives a country more impact and more engagement in the region. There is a reduced fee structure and delegate process for helping smaller Caribbean countries with less than 500,000 population.
The WBU General Assembly will be taking place in 2025 in San palo, Brazil. This will be the first time South America has hosted a General Assembly of the WBU.
It was moved by Charlson and seconded by Brown that ACB contribute $1,000 and establish a fund to collect any contributions that may come from individual members or affiliates toward the Haiti Rice for the Blind Campaign. The motion carried.
Kim will work with Nancy Becker and also prepare information to be shared with the affiliates so that we can accept other donations.
Kim is co-chair of the FCC Disability Advisory Committee. At their September 7 meeting a report was made by a workgroup on a recommendation to the FCC on Direct Video Conferencing (DVC). This is a type of video relay phone communication where the FCC is establishing a process making it possible for an ASL user to contact a registered number that provides this DVC. This means they need to have someone at that designated phone number who uses ASL. It is essentially ASL to ASL Video phone communication. That report was passed, which will allow for a process to be developed and put in place to make it possible for entities that have a major customer service phone presence to be able to hire someone to do DVC Communication with the deaf community.
There is a second workgroup on audio description internet File Protocol Transfers, on which Kim, Clark Rachfal and Carl Richardson are serving. This work group is developing a series of recommendations to the FCC around some of the challenges relating to the file transfer process of the audio description file traveling with the original program content.
- Proposed Informational Board Budget Meetings: Possible Dates
The proposed date for the informational Board budget meeting was set for November 28, and the proposed dates for the revenue and expense budget review are December 4 and 11, all at 8:00 PM Eastern.
Deb shared that ACB and the Membership Engagement Manager are initiating a new program for our ACB Board Affiliate Liaisons. Board members will still be available to be liaisons to individual affiliates, but affiliates will now have to request a Board liaison instead of just having one assigned. The program will be totally voluntary.
There was then discussion about the issue David Trott added to the agenda about the number of calls and emails he was receiving from members with complaints that the Board, officers and staff are not listening to the membership. Such issues as the Jacksonville Convention and the Mastodon presence were cited. There seems to be an increasing minority of members who are not happy with the way that we are responding to them and their concerns. Pros and cons were discussed and ideas suggested.
It was moved by Powell and seconded by Thom to accept the Presidents report. The motion carried.
Executive Session
The Board meeting went into recess for lunch and moved into executive session at 12:50 PM. It was moved by Powell and seconded by Campbell to move out of executive session at 1:35 PM. The Board meeting reconvened at 1:45 PM. President Lewis reported out that the first issue brought to the Board and discussed related to a request for an exception to their recording policy for ACB Community calls that was received and denied by the Community Support Committee. It was determined by the Board that it would be appropriate to expand the duties of the Executive Committee to be empowered to hear any appeals related to these kinds of matters where there is not an appeal process already in place inside the policy and would be something that would come to the Board. Since this would probably require a Constitution and Bylaw change, the president requested, if the Board so desired, that a motion be made to have the ad hoc committee that was formed on policy take a look at this issue and determine what the best way would be to either increase the powers of the Executive Committee or some other mechanism to recommend to the Board to address this issue.
It was moved by Powell and seconded by Campbell to request that the ad hoc committee on Board policy determine how to best hear appeals of Community Support Committee policies and other policies that do not have their own appeals process, and that this be done in conjunction with the Constitution and Bylaws Committee since this will likely require a Constitution and Bylaw change. The motion carried.
A second issue discussed was the convention situation with hotel requirement nights increasing and other things related to our convention. There have been discussions with the Blinded Veterans Association, who are also wanting to hold their national convention in Jacksonville in July, at our convention hotel. Might we be able to enter into an agreement to hold our two conventions as separate conventions, but under the same roof. There could be the sharing of some components like the exhibit hall and the ballroom at different times of the day. This would resolve the hotel night attrition problem for both organizations as well as some of our other costs. No formal commitments have been reached, but all is in the exploration stage.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Schroeder that ACB staff continue discussion and negotiations with the Blinded Veterans Association relating to a shared convention site in Jacksonville. The motion carried.
The third item was legal updates, with no actions taken.
Staff Reports
- Executive Director: Dan Spoone
The demolition work has officially started on our new office space in Old Town Alexandria. The most recent expectation is that the work will be completed so we can move in towards the end of December or in to January.
Communications: ACB is adjusting to the resignation of Kelly Gasque as our Communications Manager. This resulted in having to move very quickly to transition her workload. Many of those activities have been transitioned over to Sharon Lovering and Kaitlyn Herrera. Some of the membership responsibilities are being moved to the Minneapolis Office since a lot of the member certification work is done there. They are also trying to expand the number of employees that are involved in handling the information and referral and peer support calls that come in to the office to take some of that work off of Sharon’s plate.
One of the key areas of Kelly’s job where we didn’t have anyone who could take it on was in maintaining content on ACB.org and our other associated websites, as well as maintaining our social media presence. In the interim, to handle these areas, we are contracting on a parttime basis with Mike Johnson, who comes to us with 10 years of communications experience with National Industries for the Blind. While there he served as Director of Communications and Interim Vice President for Communications, and oversaw their website, social media, convention and major events planning. He will be working as an interim part-time contractor. He will be reporting to Advocacy and Governmental Affairs.
Audio Description Gala: Dan Spoone (See report in ACB Board Dropbox.)
Things are coming together for the Audio Description Awards Gala. The third annual Awards Gala is happening on November 14th at 7:30 PM. All the Award winners videos are complete. This has been an interesting and challenging year with the Writers and Screen Actors Guild Strike, which has prevented them both from participating in the Gala. The co-hosts will be Marilee Talkington and Conchita Hernandez Legorreta. The Peoples Choice Awards are being held again with five nominees in film and five in television series. The Gala will also be highlighting our Audio Description Project winners from our summer convention. At the time of this meeting we were officially at $92,500 in committed sponsorships with another large sponsor who wants to support audio description as well.
Membership Engagement: Dan Spoone (See report in Board Meeting folder in Dropbox)
In Cindy Hollis’ absence, Dan highlighted some specifics from her report. The first day of the JP Morgan Chase Hackathon went well. She and Natalie Couch were able to demonstrate both JAWS and AIRA. They received a lot of good questions from participants.
Four Value discussions were held to hear from members about what brings value to them in being an ACB member and Cindy has received written feedback from about 80 different members. The #1 response is “I joined ACB because it is an environment that gives me a purpose; to volunteer and make a difference”.
Through our Information and Referral and Peer Support area we continue to document our calls and emails that come in, and as of the end of August we were up to 706 calls. The staff handling these calls are working hard to categorize them into one of our key programs and service areas so that we can also track what people are calling about and what’s driving them to reach out.
Information Technology: In October, we will be launching the transition of the ADP website from its current HTML environment into the Drupal platform. Louisville Web Group will be working with us to complete this transition.
- Advocacy and Governmental Affairs: Clark Rachfal (See report in ACB Board Dropbox).
The Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act was reintroduced in both the House and Senate on Thursday, Sept. 28, which happens to be the same date it was reintroduced last year. This was again led in the Senate by Senator Tammy Duckworth, and in the House by Representative John Sarbanes (Democrat) from Maryland and Representative Pete Sessions (Republican) from Texas. This legislation is now bipartisan, and still without any industry support. Expect a Call to Action in the coming weeks. The Cogswell-Macy Act was also reintroduced as a bipartisan bill in both the House and Senate on Wednesday, September 27.
A comment period has open at the Department of Health and Human Services. They are modernizing their Section 504 regulations with specific emphasis on websites, mobile applications, and kiosks. There is a 60-day comment period, and ACB will be working with our partners within the broader disability community to create large coalition comments, much like we’ve done with DOJ. The comments for Health and Human Services are due by mid-November.
Clark reported that, as of the previous evening there were over 150 organizations that had signed on to the sign on request letter being sent to the Department of Justice related to their ADA Title II website and application accessibility rulemaking. Of ACB’s 66 affiliates, only 25 had signed on. Sign Ons are due October 2. He asked everyone to reach out to their state affiliates and local chapters leadership and encourage them to sign on if they hadn’t already.
ACB has already begun making progress on some of our 2023 resolutions passed at convention. Clark thanked our President and Membership Engagement Manager for getting out the communications to affiliates related to adopting their own Prohibited Conduct Policy. We have also followed up with ACVREP regarding the Occupational Therapist certification. The letter approved by the Board was sent to ACVREP after our August Board meeting, and subsequent to their reply a meeting was held with them. They expressed apologies for not involving ACB more in the process from the beginning, but they wanted to make sure we knew they were sincere in their efforts to collaborate with ACB moving forward. They have formed a 5 person advisory council for the OT certification, which will be made up of two representatives from AER, one from the OT Credentials field, an international representative from Australia, and our ACB president. The question was asked whether the letter ACB sent to ACVREP had been shared with the membership, along with their response. Deb responded that this had not been done, but probably could, and would best be sent to all affiliate presidents to have them distribute to their membership.
Clark ended his report by sharing that Swatha has reached out to the GDUI Advocacy Chair to move forward on the resolutions dealing with service animals, ride share and airlines.
- Resource Development Report: Bill Reeder, Jo Lynn Bailey Page, and Kolby Garrison (See report in ACB Board drop box).
Jo Lynn reported that the Development Team has identified the ten key program areas within ACB for their foundation and corporate outreach for the new ACB STRONG Initiative. They include General Operating Support, ACB Media Network, Advocacy, Audio Description, Braille Forum and Other Publications, Community and Membership, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Health and Wellness, Information, Referral and Peer Support, and Scholarship and Leadership Development. They have launched affiliate fundraising pilot projects in South Dakota and Illinois. Sony Corporation of America has just become ACB’s newest corporate partner. In the forth quarter the Development Team will be taking the next step in major gifts prospect development cultivation by calling on each Board member for guidance, with the focus of reaching outside the ACB network. Funding proposals were developed for the continuation of the ACB Community Outreach Platform, to build out the Information Referral and Peer Support Program, and for the development of an accessible fundraising curriculum Empowering Visionary Fundraisers; Building Sustainability, in Training Blind Professionals.
- Report of Chief Financial Officer: Nancy Marks-Becker
The scholarship application has been updated and the application period will go live on November 1. Almost everything connected with the 2023 Conference and Convention, except for the attrition, is almost completed. Around the end of October affiliates who are owed funds from the Walk, Convention and MMS will receive that in a lump sum instead of individually.
In terms of filling the vacant positions in the Minneapolis Office, Because the accountant position is a unique position, it is being put on hold for the present. The Human Resource position is posted. For the next couple of months Nancy will be working primarily on development of the 2024 budget.
It was moved by Brown and seconded by Thom to accept the staff reports. The motion carried.
Financial Summary for 2023 Year-to-Date: Michael Garrett, ACB Treasurer (See reports in the Board drop box)
Michael highlighted areas in the year-to-date financial report through 7/31/23 that he believes the Board needs to take special notice. Our Unrestricted Contributions were almost $300,000 below our budgeted amount for that same time period. Individual Contributions and Individual Internet Contributions showed a slight increase but are still areas for cultivation. Corporate and Business Contributions were considerably below budget, but we are making progress in those areas. We are also below budget in Unrestricted Legacies and Bequests, and in Foundations and Grants. While our Resource Development Team is working hard in these areas, we need to take note since these are key areas of our overall budget.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Sims to accept the financial reports. The motion carried.
Review and Approval of the 2024 Legacy Endowment Drawdown: Michael Garrett and Nancy Marks Becker (See document in Board Drop box.)
The legacy endowment drawdown amount will be based on the investment value averages for years 3 and 4. The return on the account since inception was provided. The amount of the drawdown was provided for 3%, 4% and 5% of the average value of the investment.
It was moved by Charlson and seconded by Garrett that the Board authorize for the 2024 budget a drawdown of 5% from the Legacy Endowment Fund. The motion carried.
Board of Publications (BOP) Report: Penny Reeder, BOP Chair
The next meeting is Tuesday, October 3rd at 8:30pm. The goal for this meeting is to talk about our budget request for the BOP for 2024. The BOP members are all cognizant of the 2023 resolution to increase the number of hard copy issues of the ACB Braille Forum as we can. Their goal is to at least honor the intent of the resolution. The Blog is still an issue. Writers are still needed. The Member at the Mic part of the ACB Voices Blog has been quite successful.
It was moved by Trott and seconded by Campbell to accept the Board of Publications report. The motion carried.
Review and Approval of Mastodon Presence: Deb Cook Lewis and Dan Spoone
Deb talked about the initial reluctance for ACB to just have a Mastodon presence start off as just a volunteer initiative because if we are to do it we want to take it as seriously as our other social media offerings. Social media is now very much a communication force, and ACB has a significant presence. Our followers on Facebook are in the thousands and about half the activity on X, but it is very strong on both platforms. Also, when the conversation about Mastodon first came up our Communications program was up in the air with the departure of Kelly Gasque. Also, some of our current tools don’t support that platform.
Research around the implementation and use of Mastodon by others who have the same posting challenges we do has been done. Also, a real plus for us was that Dan was in the process of negotiating our contract with Michael Johnson to handle our social media presence, and as a part of that contract we had the ability to include having him determine how we might handle our Mastodon presence and implement it. In this way we will have it in sync with our other social media platforms.
At the request of the president, it was moved by Powell and seconded by Sims to approve the inclusion of the management of a Mastodon account in our social media contract with Mike Johnson. This would not be a time-consuming process, so should add very little additional cost in the contract. The motion carried.
Accessibility To address the issue of the new X platform Ray Campbell briefly shared that since the change over from Twitter to X, the Accessibility Team was basically disbanded, and the Company has discontinued support for third party applications.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Semien that this Board request that a letter be drafted to the corporate headquarters at X expressing our concerns about the lack of a commitment to accessibility in light of these two major developments. The motion carried.
Review and Approval of Changes to Community Event Platform Expectations & Guidelines: Deb Cook Lewis and Lucy Edmonds (See policy document in the Board Dropbox.)
Most of the suggested changes to the CommunityEvent Platform Expectations & Guidelines are for clean up and clarification purposes.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Brown that the changes and clarifications to the Community Event Platform Expectations & Guidelines put forward by the Community Support Committee be approved. The motion carried.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Powell that the Board move into recess and that the ACBES Corporation meeting be called to order. The motion carried. The meeting moved into recess at 3:50 PM Eastern time.
ACB Enterprise Services Board Report and Elections: Michael Garrett, ACBES Board Chair
Michael reported that ACBES contributed $212,000 in income to ACB during the first 7 months of 2023. The goal is still to be able to contribute 20% to 25% of the total ACB budget, even as it grows.
This year the Corporation has 3positions up for election. They are the positions currently held by Jeff Thom and George Holliday, and Dan Spoone’s unexpired term currently held by Terry Pacheco. It was moved and seconded that the 3 individuals placed into nomination be elected by acclamation. The motion carried.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Brown that the meeting of the ACBES Corporation adjourn and that the ACB Board meeting move back into session. The motion carried. The ACB Board meeting moved out of recess and returned back into session at 4:00 PM Eastern time.
ACB Demographic and Diversity Report: Deb Cook Lewis and Nancy Marks Becker (See report in ACB Board Dropbox.)
One of the things we are continuing to encourage with our members is getting them to understand the importance of completing the demographic information in AMMS. There is a collaboration between the Membership Committee and the Multicultural Affairs Committee to urge affiliates to collect more accurate information about our membership. Such information will help ACB to assessing where we need to do more outreach, or if our outreach efforts are working. This information is also very helpful in our grant funding proposals. Deb is also looking at our committees makeup and trying to get more demographic balance within committees. It is important to try to diversify our organization as much as possible.
According to Nancy Becker, the members who entered the gender information into AMMS is up 6% since last year, and members who entered the ethnicity information is up 4% since last year, so we are seeing increases.
It was moved by Campbell and seconded by Bell to accept the Demographic and Diversity report. The motion carried.
Discussion on the 2024 DC Leadership Conference: Deb Cook Lewis, Dan Spoone, and Clark Rachfal (See hotel information in ACB Board Dropbox.)
The feedback from last year’s Leadership Conference was that people would like us to go back to an event occurring over one weekend instead of two separate weekends. The Hilton in Alexandria, where the Conference was held last year has gone up too high in their prices. After a lengthy review of hotel sites, the recommendation being made was to hold the Conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Pentagon City. Room rates are $149 per night for the weekend of February 28 to March 4, 2024. There will be some component of hybrid sessions for the leadership conference.
It was moved by Trott and seconded by Brown that we approve the recommended proposal to accept the Pentagon City Sheraton Hotel for the Leadership Conference in the date range between Tuesday, February 27th, and Wednesday, March 6th, 2024. The motion carried.
It was moved by Powell and seconded by Campbell that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 PM Eastern.
Denise Colley
Secretary
Date submitted: 11/26/2023
Approved: 12/11/2023