Board of Publications Meeting Minutes: March 3, 2026

Meeting commenced, Tuesday, March 3, 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, 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; Deb Cook Lewis, ACB President; and Scott Thornhill, ACB Executive Director.

Belinda moved, RaLynn seconded. Approved.

Belinda moved, RaLynn seconded, approved.

A participant suggested ACB Media develop a sports channel. The idea was welcomed and discussed. Deborah suggested contacting ACB Students as this could encourage participation from more young people.

A participant asked how to know when something is on Media 6 vs. Media 5 and how to better locate events on the website.

Deborah volunteered to post direct links to recordings on the business podcast to the conversation list. There was also discussion about making the ACB Media site easier to access and ensuring members can locate recordings of interest. 

Rick explained this is being worked on.

Sharon sent the BOP a list of statistics. These cover all the formats of the Braille Forum (braille, large print, digital cartridge, and email), plus Dots and Dashes. She said the ACB office was very busy preparing for the upcoming leadership conference.

The committee commended Sharon for the excellent issues of Dots and Dashes.

Themes and Deadlines

Deborah suggested she'd write a Travel Tips article for July. It will involve tips from ACB members she interviews.

Rick detailed the history behind ACB Media's change-over to a new and better infrastructure for running its streaming service. He reported the old, more expensive infrastructure has now been completely retired. This, he said, will save ACB $10,000 annually.

Two other projects involve reorganizing podcasts to make material easier to locate. He also intends to train technical people in various affiliates to handle the audio-visual aspects of their virtual conventions. This will reduce his need to travel around the country to broadcast state conventions.

Rick also complimented Michael Babcock on his helpfulness, productivity and technical ability.

Due to questions about recent email appearing on the list, it was decided to clarify which promotional postings are allowed and forbidden. 

A consensus approved the revised wording for the guidelines. This revision permits blindness-related information to be posted.

There was discussion about the quantity of cross-postings and ways to reduce it. The committee decided to be more diligent about reminding members to avoid forwarding posts from other list, especially the announce list, which all members should subscribe to. 

It was decided the same two-person team that handles incoming blog posts would also take the lead on moderating the conversation list each month so duties rotate through the committee. Though only the chair is the official moderator, members responsible for moderating during a particular month will monitor for any guidelines violations and inform the BOP.

Zelda reported on the success of this February 13^th event which taught the audience how to effectively use PSAs to promote their affiliate. She thanked Katie for scheduling and hosting and RaLynn for assisting. Zelda said she learned a great deal from researching PSAs.

She also asked for ideas for topics for the next session. 

Jeff suggested having Michael Babcock talk about a turnkey system (a WordPress plug-in) he's designed to enable affiliates with newsletters in Microsoft Word to directly post to their websites including images and all content properly formatted for speech and low-vision users on the web. 

It was tentatively scheduled for some time in August.

It will be held at 10:30 CST on Sunday, July 26. It was agreed to have Michael briefly mention his plug-in, and there will be a panel discussion on how to communicate regularly and effectively to encourage member involvement. The audience is expected to be affiliate leaders. Jeff agreed to facilitate the panel. Zelda will draft a description of the session for the BOP to review.

Zelda asked if the last two draft documents were acceptable and there was some discussion about them, but no requested revisions. One is a checklist with dates and deadlines, while the other document fleshes out guidelines for members announcing their candidacy. A final decision about the wording of these documents will be made at the next BOP meeting in April.

There was a post for February. Deborah will review potential blog posts for March. Jeff will act as her backup. 

In April, blog posts will be reviewed by Belinda and RaLynn.

The meeting adjourned at 10:20 p.m. The next meeting is on April 7. 

Recordings

Find them at  http://acbbusiness@pinecast.co.