Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: January 6, 2026

Meeting commenced, Tuesday, January 6, 2026 at 9 p.m. EST.

Chair, Zelda Gebhard, welcomed board members, guests and the community. She noted public comments could be submitted to this email: bop.mail@acb.org.

Board members present: Deborah Armstrong, Jeff Bishop, Belinda Collins, 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 

Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President

Scott Thornhill, ACB Executive Director

Jeff motioned, RaLynn seconded. Approved.

Jeff moved, Belinda seconded, approved.

Deborah reported on the Word template she designed, using ACB's large print guidelines. The goal is to make it available to communicators so it will be simple for anyone in ACB to automatically apply to their documents.

She had several questions about guidelines and brief discussion clarified them.

There was commendation for the large print template. There were complaints about finding things on the ACB website. 

Sharon reported she is almost done putting the February issue together. She also enumerated themes and the themes for May and June were chosen.

There was discussion about building mothers and fathers day in to the themes for May and June, remembering past leadership — mothers and fathers of ACB. Also there was discussion about highlighting the stories of people who grew up in an ACB-oriented family.

President Lewis reminded the board that the June issue gets filled with convention preparation coverage.

Deborah reported having difficulty getting affiliate representatives to interview. However, the first column featuring the government employees affiliate appears in the February Braille Forum.

Rick sent out a report to the Board of Publications, and his comprehensive data was praised by the board. He reported successfully testing of the accessibility of the Live 365 scheduler. A new stream will soon launch with pre-recorded ACB Community content. In the long term, Rick said the goal was to eliminate live streaming of ACB Community calls.

Scheduled content, he said will help members know when to tune in. These changes also save ACB money as it subscribes to external services to broadcast and store recorded programs. He also discussed some technical issues due to archiving his group is working to resolve.

Rick also mentioned a concern about a lower number of live listeners as opposed to an unusually high number of podcast listeners. He's looking into the validity of this data.

President Lewis suggested event sponsors, if their event has a regular podcast feed, to include its website in their announcement. There was also discussion about the podcast links on the ACB Media site not being in sync with Pinecast, the podcast aggregator.

It was agreed that podcasts needed to be better organized by topic. 

Jeff reported ACB Link for Windows will be out soon and will make searching for content much easier.

Rick said for this year's convention, he'd be able to report on the number of audience members for each individual session.

Zelda also thanked Rick for dealing with a small mailing list emergency on Christmas day.

Zelda reported she will now send a reminder to read the conversation list guidelines five days before the month ends. The guidelines are hardwired by groups.io to come out the first day of each month.

Deborah agreed to create an audio recording of the new conversation list guidelines.

Zelda continues to try getting in touch with affiliate presidents to locate their affiliate's communicators. She wants to put them on the communicators list as well as invite them to the ongoing trainings. These trainings help affiliates improve their connection with their membership. She asked if other board of publications members thought she should announce these opportunities to the entire ACB membership or limit it to any people chosen by affiliate presidents.

Currently affiliate presidents will make the decision about who their communicators are. The next communicators meeting is tentatively scheduled for February 13, the second Friday of the month.

The ongoing discussion continued from last month's meeting. Everyone agreed that a hybrid convention session on creating greater engagement with members was valuable. It was also agreed this would best be handled by a panel discussion. 

Several panelists were suggested. Jeff agreed to talk to the ACB membership committee chair to see if they would like to co-sponsor that session.

It was agreed, though two sessions were originally discussed, only one session would be handled by the board of publications, possibly with a co-sponsor. Leftover material this board wished to present could be handled by community calls.

Zelda agreed to contact suggested panelists.

Zelda reported working with Kenneth to collaborate on his document describing how to prepare for a candidacy. She summarized the rules this board had agreed on regarding what candidates can post and where. Consolidating this information in to a single document will reduce random posts to ACB lists she said as it presents information for perspective candidates in an organized manner. The document will also be posted to the ACB website. She has a rough draft which she is still refining.

It was agreed random posts from prospective candidates to ACB lists should be disallowed because it makes it more difficult to compare candidates with each other fairly. Candidates need to be meeting the first deadline. It was agreed that is essential for participation in the Candidates’ Forum. Zelda also suggested a community call in February explaining candidacy procedures could be useful.

Zelda also listed prospective deadline dates based on July 8 being the date of the Candidates’ Forum. The dates will be firmed up at the next meeting because the Braille Forum posts information about becoming a candidate in its May issue. President Lewis also suggested writing to the incumbents to remind them if they wished to continue in the next term to apply for a place on the candidates’ page as well. This year, President Lewis said, five board members and three board of publications positions will be in the running. Therefore encouraging candidates with an organized approach to the process, everyone agreed is vital.

No submissions were received and Jeff and RaLynn will review any posts that come in for January. Zelda and Belinda will handle February submissions, and Deborah has agreed to handle March.

President Lewis asked for someone to volunteer to more closely monitor the ACB conversation list. Violations to the guidelines, she said, needed to be dealt with immediately. Several Board of Publications members said they also regularly monitor the list. Zelda also said she keeps a record of every violator she contacts.

It was agreed to use Zelda's texting group, so when a violation occurs, everyone on the board of publications can weigh in. Therefore, when Zelda contacts a violator, she has the Board of Publications to back her decision up. 

The meeting adjourned at 10:37 p.m. EST.

See: https://acb-business.pinecast.co/