Present: Chair, Mike Duke; members, DeAnna Noriega, Charlie Hodge, Cindy Burgett; ex-officio member, Janelle Edwards; staff, Sharon Lovering; and guest, Chelle Hart.
First thing address was the switching of roles, Mike is now the new BOP Chair and Charlie is taking over the appointed member position on the BOP. We now have an elected position vacant, which will not be filled until the September board meeting.
The agenda was then reviewed and accepted with one addition by Janelle to discuss the subscription process for the email version of the Braille Forum.
BOP Secretary. Cindy Burgett was nominated by Charlie Hodge and was elected by acclimation with a motion by Charlie, seconded by Deanna and a unanimous vote.
BOP representatives to the PR committee. Mike will serve on that committee as the BOP Chair. Cindy nominated Charlie to serve as the other representative. With no other nominations, Cindy moved to elect Charlie by acclimation which was seconded by Charlie and passed unanimously.
Internet Oversight Committee. Janelle nominated Cindy to continue on this committee as the BOP representative. A motion was made by DeAnna and seconded by Charlie to elect Cindy by acclimation and this passed unanimously.
Janelle then reported that things were set up so that Cindy could help Sharon subscribe and unsubscribe email addresses to the Braille Forum email list.
Melanie was not present, but Mike gave a brief report about the opened editor position. Six applications have been received and will be gone through with the hopes of interviews taking place by September 1. Mike as BOP Chair and DeAnna as an elected BOP member will both serve with Chris and Melanie on the interview team. Mike and Deanna will then bring back a report to the BOP in Executive session. It is Melanie's desire to have a selection for Editor made by September 15.
Biennial Review. The situation of Winifred not being given the same perk of a mini suite upgrade as all other ACB board members at the recent convention was brought up by Charlie. The concern is that the BOP representative to the ACB Board, although an ex-officio member, is not treated as an equal part of the Board, even though the ACB Bylaws clearly includes the BOP representative alongside Board members in receiving reimbursements. A proposal was made to add language to section 1.5 of the BOP manual that would clarify the position of the BOP representative on the ACB board as being treated, for all purposes, on an equal basis as all members of that board. DeAnna will add such language. Charlie then spoke on behalf of Ralph, who was not in attendance, that he would like language added to the BOP Editorial Policy manual specifying that editorials are to speak for the publisher of the communication format, ACB, and that in should then be signed by a duly authorized officer or representative who can speak in the name of ACB, and that opinion pieces, including opinion pieces of the editor of the Braille Forum may be printed in the "My Perspective" column or be designated clearly as an opinion piece, but that editorials are not strictly editorials. A major discussion then ensued over what is an editorial and the role of an editor. Cindy read a definition of "editorial" from the American Heritage Dictionary which made reference that it is an opinion written by the editor or publisher. The majority of the BOP agreed that the editor should be able to write his or her opinion as an editorial with the hope that the editor would share such a piece with the BOP if it had the potential of being contraversial. Charlie then made a motion that we add the definition from the American Heritage Dictionary into the BOP Editorial Policy Manual. This did not receive a second, and therefore, no language changes would be made in the manual pertaining to editorials.
Newsletter awards. Cindy spoke of previous concerns of the committee for potential work involved by the members of the BOP in judging newsletter submissions, and shared with the BOP criteria for 2 awards, a newsletter (under 32 pages) and a magazine (32 pages or more, or a bound publication), which would be judged by 2 subcommittees of the BOP at 2 different times. She had a list of judging criteria that she will send to the BOP list for later discussion. Mike shared that his sense is that the ACB board will not consider two separate awards at this time. Charlie and Cindy both shared their views of why they didn't feel it would be fair to judge a small newsletter against a large magazine. We'll discuss it more on the list and then decide either via polling of the BOP or in another called meeting, how to proceed.
Future meetings of the BOP. We will set the September meeting date based on the completion of the interviewing process. October 24 at 8:30pm Eastern will be the scheduled date for us to meet to begin going over the budget proposal from the BOP.
Two items of old business.
Charlie brought up that even though we raised $5650 from the raffle, we are still short, based on the budget and the cost per issue, for a tenth issue for this year. Sharon did not have numbers from the Minneapolis office on what's been spent thus far, but would work on getting that information. We discussed the possibility of asking the Board of Directors to amend the budget if necessary to allow for a tenth issue, since it is believed that that is truly the desire of the membership. Cindy made a motion to have Mike approach the Minneapolis office and let them know that we need an amount of what's been spent thus far on the Braille Forum this year. This was seconded by Charlie. The discussion was to have this be a way of conveying a sense of urgency for the numbers and to take this burden off the shoulders of Sharon. The motion carried.
Charlie requested that Mike connect with the webmaster and secure a time when the BOP could receive a report from her. Mike said he would do this.
The meeting then adjourned 2 hours and 1 minute after it began.