Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: May 6, 2025

The Board of Publications Chairperson, Katie Frederick, welcomed those present and called the May 6, 2025, meeting to order at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Board members present: Katie Frederick, Jeff Bishop, Cheryl Cumings, Bel Collins, and Zelda Gebhard.

Ex-Officio members present: Sharon Lovering, ACB Braille Forum Editor; Rick Morin, ACB Media and IT Manager, Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President and Scott Thornhill, ACB Executive Director.

Zelda moved to approve the agenda. Bel seconded the motion. Motion approved.

Cheryl moved to approve the April minutes. Bel seconded the motion. Motion approved.

None was offered.

We received a couple of submissions recently. Katie encouraged those who were listening to submit their contributions to voices@acb.org.

May – Zelda and Bel

June – Cheryl and Bel

Sharon has been busy as usual. She stated that the votes have been received, and awards recipients selected. It was a very tight race for the Freeman award.

She proudly announced the completion of reformatting and digitizing the past ACB Braille Forum issues back to the first one - Volume 1, Number 1 April 1962. This has been a huge, time-consuming task, and the BOP wholeheartedly congratulated and celebrated her accomplishment of the completed project. She will continue to update board meeting minutes and other documents.

She passed along the announcement that Newsreel will be discontinued in the near future.

The convention newspaper will be the Lone Star Gazette, with the first one printed on Friday, July 4^th. She thanked HumanWare for providing three braille embossers for use in the Communications Center.

Editor’s Report - May 2025

Statistics

April 2025

Braille distributed: 447
Braille returned: 6
Braille return rate: 1.34%
Braille received: 441
Cartridge distributed: TBA
Large print distributed: 1,066
Large print returned: 25
Large print return rate: 2.35%
Large print received: 1,041
Email distributed: 5,776
Bounces: 74
Spam: 0
Unsubscribes: 1
Return rate: 1.28%
Email delivered: 5,702

May 2025

Braille distributed: 458
Cartridge distributed: 310* (waiting for final number)
Large print distributed: 1,161
Email distributed: 5,720

June 2025

Braille to be distributed: 451
Cartridge distributed: TBA
Large print distributed: 1,146
Email distributed: TBA

The March Issue

Largely due to inclement weather in the Cincinnati area, the March braille edition went out late. I was made aware of this by several callers who really, truly wanted their March Forums. One particular caller called every day for a couple of weeks! They had several snowstorms that closed the printing house for a few days each. According to Samuel Foulkes, Director of Braille Production & Accessible Innovation at Clovernook, “March’s issue finished shipping on April 1. … I do apologize for the delay, and am willing to discount a future issue to reflect the fact that we were late. We’ll be back on track for the May issue.”

The April issue finished shipping on April 24^th.

Deadlines for the Next Issues

July-August - mental health and wellness; deadline: May 23, 2025

September - emergency preparedness-accessible alert devices; deadline: July 23, 2025

October - attitude of gratitude/thankfulness; deadline: August 22, 2025

May’s Table of Contents

2025 Convention Snippets, by Janet Dickelman

Seeking Volunteers for the 2025 Information Desk, by Cecily Laney Nipper

The 2025 ACB Brenda Dillon Memorial Walk: Step by Step Together, by Katie Frederick

Paving the Way for Everyone’s Future, by Doug Powell

Our Octogenarian Odyssey, by Janet DiNola Parmerter

Man’s Best Friend Plus 2, by Anthony Corona

Riding the Roller Coaster of Life, by Melody Holloway

Summary of the March 15, 2025 Board Meeting, by Katie Frederick

Passings

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

June’s Table of Contents

President’s Message: A Sneak Peek at the Convention, by Deb Cook Lewis

Advocacy in Action: A Day on Capitol Hill, by Claire Stanley

Extras, Extras, Read All about Them, by Janet Dickelman

Affiliate News

Explore to Achieve More, by Kenneth Semien Sr.

Help ACB Continue to Thrive, by Michael Garrett and Jean Mann

Editorial: Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water; Preserve the Affiliate Vote, by Matt Selm

Howdy, Partner! Come and Help with the Lone Star Gazette

ADA, the Beautiful!, by Pinalben “Pinky” Patel

DaVinci in Cordoba, by Anesadora Hightower

Rowing Is Life, Part One, by Caleb McKinsey

Champion for Accessibility Thomas Wlodkowski Receives 2025 Helen Keller Achievement Award

Here and There, edited by Cynthia G. Hawkins

High Tech Swap Shop

***

The June issue went to press on Friday, May 2^nd. It is chock full of convention information.

I continue to put together the Dots and Dashes newsletter. The next issues will go out May 5 and May 19th.

I’m still working with the archives/history committee on preserving and digitizing old recordings and documents from ACB events, and identifying people in photos. Some of the work involves digitizing board minutes. In the old minutes, I have finished 1990 through 1994, and will work my way through as time permits. The file for 1995 is huge!

I have finished digitizing all the Braille Forums, all the way back to Volume I, Number 1, April 1962!

I continue to record the Washington Connection, and some of the other boxes on our phone system, such as the national convention box, the scholarship information, and the state convention box. I updated the Washington Connection on April 28th.

I have also updated the Job Connection. The new one will be posted by the time you read this.

Sharon Lovering, Editor

July-August – Mental Health and Wellness, deadline: May 24

September – Emergency Preparedness and Accessible Alert Devices plus Convention Wrap-Up, deadline: July 23

October - attitude of gratitude/thankfulness; deadline: August 22, 2025

November-December – Wins for Winter – accomplishments for the year

Jeff has spent a lot of time developing a process to create and refine the audio readings for the Convention (newsletter, resolutions, etc.) This was done to remove the unwanted pauses and refine pronunciation. The development of audio was previously done with Eleven Labs which required much human overview to achieve a quality recording. Jeff is creating a system with programming which, once fully developed, will eliminate the need for much of the manual attention previously required.

Rick used ChatGPT to create the January to April report emailed to the BOP list. Stats reflect a huge bump in March because of the D.C. Leadership Meetings and increased production of podcasts and listens.

At 4 a.m. this morning Rick shut down one of the two virtual parts of Azure and the other one will be shut down in a week or two. The old ACB Radio system was moved from Azure to AWS. The ultimate goal is to move from AWS to a new scheduling system sometime in the future.

Katie asked Zelda to present information about a proposed amendment to the ACB Large Print Guidelines.

If approved, the amendment will provide guidance for the consistent printing of name badges and result in providing better visual utilization for hotel staff, ACB staff, exhibit hall vendors, guests and ACB members with sight or low vision. 

Patti Cox, President of CCLVI, explained why the CCLVI Name Badge resolution was created. If the BOP includes the name badge guidelines in the ACB Large Print Guidelines, resolution will be achieved without a formal resolution 

Scott and Deb provided some supporting information from the staff’s perspective. 

Zelda moved to add the amendment to the ACB Large Print Guidelines. Cheryl second the motion. Motion carried.

Wording Addition:

Applicable to the three-inch by four-inch (3” x 4”) name badges regularly issued for the ACB Conference and Convention and other in-person ACB Events.

1. First name in bold Arial 35-point (or the largest point the longest name in the attendee list will accommodate)
2. Last name in regular Arial 24-point font
3. With 10-point space between each line.

The amended guidelines will be shared with the president’s list.

Katie thanked CCLVI for bringing this issue before the BOP.  

Bel moved to approve the guidelines as amended to include a form for submitting events or announcements to be posted as a group to the Conversation email list. Zelda seconded the motion. Motion carried.

Deb suggested that we host a workshop to explain the appropriate ways people can post their information. Bel will contact Cindy about providing information proactively to the facilitators and the presidents groups. Also, we discussed creating a recording of this information to be posted in various places like Dots and Dashes. 

May 19 - Deadline to submit information for candidates’ web page

May 30 - Web pages are posted and announced.

June 11 - Candidate’s Forum

The meeting was adjourned.

Next BOP Meeting is scheduled for June 3, 2025, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Respectfully submitted,
Zelda Gebhard, Director
ACB Board of Publications