Welcome and Call to Order
Meeting commenced on Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Chair, Zelda Gebhard, welcomed board members, guests and the community. She noted public comments could be submitted to this email: bop.mail@acb.org
Roll Call
Board members present: Deborah Armstrong, Jeff Bishop, Belinda Collins, and RaLynn McGuire.
Others present: Katie Frederick, Past BOP Chair and ACB Board Liaison; Sharon Lovering, ACB Braille Forum Editor; Rick Morin, ACB Media and IT Manager; and Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President,
Approval of the Agenda
RaLynn moved, Belinda seconded. Approved.
Approval of the Minutes
Belinda moved, RaLynn seconded, approved.
Public Comment
A member of the audience suggested more learning-oriented themes on ACB Media and audio tours.
Another member suggested adding turning over a new or unexpected leaf to the fall Forum theme. She also wanted a station dedicated to ACB business, for example, running a continuous repeat of board meetings.
Another member asked if links to ACB Board and Board of Publications meetings could be posted on lists so they would be easier to find hours after they occur. She also requested ACB Media find a method of notifying listeners when a new podcast is posted.
Another member, aspiring to become a statistician, asked if members could get access to ACB Media statistics.
A member asked about something she sent to Sharon; it was unclear exactly what was requested from this member.
Another member wanted to know how to apply to serve on the BOP.
Note: these comments occurred throughout the meeting and have been gathered in these notes in one section.
ACB Braille Forum Report
Sharon sent out a statistics report to the BOP list. She said more print copies are being distributed. Cynthia Hawkins resigned as editor of “Here and There” so another volunteer to continue the column is being sought.
The group decided to give the same 2018 name, “Gateway Gazette” to the convention newspaper.
Jeff suggested publishing the pricing for affiliates to put advertising in the convention newspaper and he suggested using Dots and Dashes to publish that information. Sharon agreed to do it as soon as she has those prices.
We decided the September Forum theme would have something to do with “Falling” into learning and turning over a new leaf. There was discussion about article ideas.
ACB Media Report
Rick agreed to consider airing a 24-hour loop of a past board meeting. He also agreed to be more diligent about posting ACB Board meeting links on the conversation and leadership lists. He also will publish a full set of all the podcast feeds’ web pages. And he agreed to add the business podcast feed link to the podcast section on the ACB Media site.
Rick had sent a report to the BOP list, and he detailed some of his statistics therein. Podcast listenership continues to increase. He reported successful shut-down of the older infrastructure. ACB Media has run successfully with no disruptions on the new Live 365 infrastructure for a month.
Work continues, he reported, on restructuring podcast feeds. He emphasized the trend is for more and more listeners to prefer podcasts over listening in real time.
Debee also agreed to post a link on the conversation list to a session she did on ACB Community about how to listen to ACB Media podcasts.
Jeff had a few technical questions they decided to discuss offline.
Rick also responded to the public comments as some of them came in during his report. He did agree to look into the suggestions from the public comments.
Zelda reminded the public how busy Rick is and that he may not be able to accomplish everything the membership requests.
ACB Conversation Email List Report
Conversation list guidelines were slightly changed and approved in March, and Zelda reviewed that change. Debee agreed to read the new guidelines out loud for audio playback again.
BOP-Sponsored Convention Session Update
Zelda reported she needs to connect with people who will be on the panel and Jeff offered to assist. She reviewed decisions made in previous meetings about this upcoming convention BOP-sponsored presentation.
Candidates’ Checklist and Guidelines
Zelda reviewed discussions from previous BOP meetings. Debee moved and Belinda seconded to finalize them. The motion passed.
ACB Voices Blog
No submissions were received. RaLynn and Belinda will handle editing any submissions received in April.
Zelda will edit in May and Debee will monitor the list in May, but she wanted to submit a blog post then. She decided to submit her post immediately and then help edit blog posts for May.
Other Announcements
President Lewis said she might want some time on the May meeting agenda.
Next Meeting
BOP next meets May 5. The meeting adjourned at 10:07 p.m. EDT.