by Kim Charlson
Paul Edwards opened the pre-convention board meeting held in Des Moines, Iowa by welcoming all board members and guests. The adoption of the minutes of the January 2001 mid-year board meeting was deferred until the “Unfinished Business” section in order for Sandy Sanderson to formulate wording he wanted included with regard to NAC.
President Edwards stated that his report would be brief since he would be covering many of its elements in his presidential address before the full convention on July 1. Reporting on ACB’s international activities within the North American/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union, he told the board that he and Brian Charlson had represented ACB at the March 2001 regional meeting held in Granada in conjunction with a special leadership skills training for blind women from the Caribbean. Jill Tobin, chair of ACB’s women’s concerns committee, actively participated in these sessions. This seminar provided ACB with an excellent opportunity to build bridges with the leaders of the region and with the leadership of the WBU.
Edwards also reported on another presentation he made in May 2001 in Ontario, Canada at the provincial meeting of the Canadian Council of the Blind. In addition to appearing on their program twice, Edwards was able to share many of the core values of ACB with CCB members, and he worked with the CCB leadership on strengthening their commitment to consumer advocacy.
In June, Edwards participated in a cross-disability roundtable meeting in Ohio on a variety of key issues of concern to all people with disabilities. Some of the issues discussed included video description, the Sutton nomination to the Supreme Court, and voting access. Edwards reported that ACB was recognized at this meeting as the only organization within the disability movement with a clear position on what advocates need to do to minimize the impact of the Garrett decision.
Edwards responded to criticism of ACB which had appeared in the pages of “The Braille Monitor” by telling the board that he believed the strength of ACB as an organization lies in its successes, not what names others call us in print.
“ACB’s strength,” Edwards said, “rests in what we do and the victories we achieve.”
The report of the executive director, Charles Crawford, focused on policy, budget, administrative, convention and other internal operational issues. Crawford commended all of those ACB affiliates who have made financial contributions over the past several months.
“Those contributions made it possible for ACB to continue its important work and to ensure that all the issues of ‘The Braille Forum’ will continue to arrive in members’ mailboxes,” Crawford said.
In the legislative and regulatory arena, Crawford reported that ACB is active on the fast-moving issue of access to the election process. ACB was the sole blindness organization to be invited by the National Association of Secretaries of State to share concerns on accessible voting and other related issues for people who are blind.
Penny Reeder reported that “The Braille Forum” list continues to grow. She told board members that subscriptions for those reading the computer disk edition have risen by one-third and subscriptions for the e-mail version have more than doubled over the past two years. With regard to the ACB web site, Reeder thanked Earlene Hughes for her efforts which resulted in getting the ACB convention pre-registration form online, as well as scholarship applications. There is now a search engine that enables people to search throughout the web site in order to locate specific information.
Kim Charlson gave a brief report from the board of publications. She announced that Winifred Downing would be the ex officio board representative from the board of publications beginning at the post-convention board meeting and concluding with the pre-convention board meeting in 2002.
LeRoy Saunders presented two bid proposals to the board for the 2003 ACB convention. The two locations under consideration were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Memphis, Tennessee. Room rates for both locations were $85 per night. Representatives of each city’s convention and visitors bureau and the ACB affiliate outlined the perceived advantages of each proposal. The board voted to accept the bid from Pittsburgh for 2003.
ACB treasurer Pat Beattie provided the board with her report. On a very favorable note, bequests to ACB were up significantly. Due to these revenues, the budget committee recommended that $175,000 be restored to the reserve fund. The budget committee also recommended that the previously followed policy of board reimbursement be reinstated, and that the funding for the September board meeting be fully restored. An additional $2,000 was added to the World Blind Union dues line item to cover ACB's full 2001 dues and delegate costs. Finally, $12,000 was set aside for ACB’s legal efforts on the video description case. These recommendations were approved.
As chair of the American Council of the Blind Enterprises and Services board, Pat Beattie gave that report as well. She stated that a new thrift store has been opened in Kansas City. She also announced that the ACBES board has a new member, Arnold Simons from the Washington, DC area. Consultant Michael Keoghan has been doing some statistical analysis for ACBES and this has proven to be beneficial to overall operation.
Debbie Grubb presented a brief report from the membership committee. At the mid-year board meeting, the recommendations from the resource development committee relating to increasing individual per capita dues and raising the dues ceiling for affiliates were forwarded to the membership committee for study and recommendations. The committee recommended the following: 1) Per capita dues for affiliate organization members should be increased from $3 to $5 in the year 2003; and 2) In 2002, the dues cap for affiliate organizations should be raised by 200 (members) per capita dues each year until the number of per capita dues reflected in the cap exceeds the number of members in the largest affiliate organization. At that time, the dues cap would be eliminated. These recommendations require changes to Bylaw 3 of the ACB Constitution.
The board voted to consider the two recommendations separately. A motion was made to accept recommendation 1 as submitted by the membership committee for implementation in 2003, and to refer this issue to the ACB constitution and bylaws committee for the drafting of an appropriate amendment for consideration by the membership.
A motion was made to refer the membership committee’s second recommendation with regard to affiliate caps to the constitution and bylaws committee without recommendation from the board. A motion was made to table this issue to a time certain in order for further study to occur. The motion passed.
Sanford Alexander gave a report from the National Accreditation Council Committee. He stated that the American Foundation for the Blind Study is not proceeding in the manner ACB had thought. NAC has had a change in its executive director and the committee needs to establish a relationship with the new director and re-examine a number of issues.
Jerry Annunzio discussed the issue of whether ACB should change its current logo. This might allow for the development of an ACB product store whereby logo items, such as caps, T-shirts, pens and the like could be sold. A committee was established to bring three recommendations forward with regard to the selection of a new logo for ACB.
Returning to the adoption of the minutes, Sandy Sanderson stated that the midyear 2001 board meeting minutes needed to include a reference to NAC and the $4 million that the NFB received from the federal government. Sanderson then deferred to Oral Miller for the amendment. A friendly amendment was added to state that: ACB members were not aware of the federal appropriation legislation to direct funds to the NFB until such legislation passed. The minutes were passed as amended.
Under new business, Mitch Pomerantz brought forth the issue of criteria for convention site selection. Other issues besides room rates should be considered in the equation including airfare, ground transportation costs, availability of restaurants, etc. These issues should all factor into where ACB meets. Pomerantz proposed that an ad hoc committee be appointed to deal with these issues. The convention committee was asked to examine this proposal and return to the board with recommendations for expanding site selection criteria.
Appreciation was expressed for Paul Edwards’ leadership of both the board of directors and ACB in general during his tenure as president.
After no further business, the 2001 pre-convention ACB board meeting was adjourned.