Annual BITS Presidential Report

Good Evening BITS Family:

As the weather continues to turn toward winter and as we begin to think about family and loved ones we come together to celebrate another year of amazing accomplishments and learning within BITS. It is my pleasure to report to you this evening on the state of BITS and boy do we have a lot to be thankful for and to be proud of within the BITS family.

Angels Remain Among Us

Before we proceed with reviewing the past year and look forward to 2025 we must pause and recognize someone in the BITS family who we have lost. Carlos Paraskevas, who was a quiet but valiant and wonderful person.   He was a BITS member. His love of technology, friendship, family, and service will truly be missed. If you have been on the discussion list then you may recall seeing his name as he asked questions on occasion to get assistance with his digital lifestyle. Carlos, we will miss you and many in the BITS family have very fond and loving memories of you that will truly never be forgotten.

Celebrating the Foundations of Leadership:

I must pause and give tremendous credit to those who have or who may have served this year in the BITS family. While I will try and mention everyone, you can be assured that if your name does not appear that I deeply appreciate your efforts, your commitment, and your willingness to serve.

Brad Snyder

Brad serves as our VP within BITS and I could not ask for a better right-hand person to be in leadership. He has led the tremendous work we accomplished for presentations and conventions.   He always keeps us on the straight and narrow path on lots of details within the organization. I am truly thankful for you sir.

Robin Frost

The mark of a talented team is led by its secretary. Robin’s leadership, organization, diligence, and true matter of fact awareness is one of BIT’S greatest strengths for our board. Thank you, Robin for being such a great friend, a valued and respected member of the board.

Diane Scalzi

Being a treasurer of an affiliate or of any board or organization is a heroic effort. Diane, thank you for all of the work you do to keep the books and to work with others in the organization concerning our membership data. You are crucial in your work and thank you so much for serving.

John McCann

It truly is hip to know John McCann as a wonderful friend, a tremendous leader for our membership data and process. This does not even include his legal efforts, his diligence on constitutional efforts and overall BITS knowledge. Thank you John.   We in the BITS family are truly thankful and appreciative of your efforts. We hope you recover quickly, and we extend our gratitude to you for all the tremendous work you have accomplished within BITS.

Michael Babcock

Michael took on the role of leading our information technology infrastructure team for much of 2024 and it was his tremendous talents and efforts that moved us to our new BITS web site and infrastructure. Thank you, Michael for your wonderful talents, always being a voice of reason and thoughtfulness in board meetings.

Larry Watkinson

Larry is now leading the information technology committee, and he brings a wealth of talent in the business and organizational space: to keep projects on task and to keep us moving. Thank you Larry for driving the team and moving the organization forward.

David Edick

David serves on the board along with his talents on the Zoom and Chat committees. Thank you David for being the champion of community within BITS. I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to David and his team for their exceptional leadership and support throughout our weekly BITs chats. Their dedication, patience, and guidance have been invaluable to our progress. Thank you for serving on the board, for bringing ideas and recommendations forward that we often miss, especially on critical areas. We value you.

Debbie Armstrong

Education inside BITS has been a pillar in 2024 and we could not have accomplished all of this without the tremendous talents and wonderful skills of Debbie Armstrong. Thank you for helping students, for editing recordings and for your tremendous wisdom and abilities of leading a tremendous group of educators within BITS.

Rosanna Beaudrie

One of the most vital areas of an organization is its publications team. Rosanna leads the team and is a tremendous asset to BITS along with those that serve with her. One of the most amazing things she completed inside of BITS this year was our newly revised BITS handbook. Rosanna led the effort and team along with many others to produce this content and if you have not had a chance to do so, give it a look on the BITS web site. Rosanna, thank you for serving in your committee and lending your talents throughout the BITS organization to push us forward. You are truly valued and appreciated.

Marty Sobo and Ann Bacon

One of the areas that is not one of my superpowers is in the role of fundraising. Marty had led the fundraising team. I am pleased as President of BITS to express our collective appreciation for the work he and his team have completed in supporting our current fundraising efforts. Their contributions, particularly with regards to the logos and merchandise, have been truly valued.

As we reflect on our journey, I want to acknowledge that there are areas where we, as leaders, could have done better in supporting our fundraising team. We recognize this and are taking concrete steps to improve.  As individuals and as an organization, we must continually strive for improvement. For myself, there have been valuable lessons learned, which have enabled me to grow both personally and professionally. This mindset is crucial for our collective success. Marty, your service has been invaluable, and I want to express my deepest gratitude to you. Your dedication and commitment have made a significant impact on our organization.”

Ann is now leading our fundraising team, and a lot of ideas and thinking is happening in this space. It is most appreciated.

Mervin Keck

Communication is at the heart of all that we do inside of BITS and Mervin Keck has been driving these efforts with our email management team and even playing a role in our social media accounts. He has been vital in assisting in our IT infrastructure committee and truly been there to help members in all aspects of their membership. He has been a Jack of all trades in his work and we could not have achieved the things we accomplished inside of BITS without his monumental efforts. Thank you Merv for the gentle, calm and consistent help in all that you do.

Debbie Hazelton

Debbie served this year on the nominating committee and she and her team have put together a tremendous slate for you to consider in our voting during the annual meeting. Debbie is someone who I also consider a tremendous asset to this organization, someone that I can deeply rely on for constructive and loving advice and friendship. Thank you Debbie for serving.

Chanelle Allen, Marci Duty, and Michael Hartwig

Our educational efforts could not have been accomplished without the tremendous hosting and organizational skills of these individuals. Thank you for your dedicated work During our many educational opportunities. We value you and respect the commitments you have put forth in your willingness to serve.

Planning for the Future of BITS Leadership

One of the core principles that I outlined last year as your incoming President was the concept of working smarter and not harder. We value time with our families, friends, and personal time and we all as leaders, need to ensure we are not burning out on the work we do for this organization. Yes, we love each and every one of you, but we also need to get better at remembering others in our lives and that goes for your President as well.

For this reason, I have asked that each committee chair look for a co-chair to serve with them in leadership. These are the building blocks of the work toward the future, and I personally would like to see this extend to other officer roles as well, like the treasurer, membership, and many other areas. We must continue to work as a team and there is no I in those efforts. I hope that we will continue these efforts in 2025.

We are also setting up a better communication path to ensure that committee chairs, board members and others can provide engaging and tremendous feedback to the organization. We need to ensure that when a part of the family needs help it is urgently recognized and not forgotten. It is in this spirit that communication will take a vital role in BITS to strengthen awareness and planning which will go on throughout the organization. We are truly trying to learn and adapt as an organization, especially if we have areas to learn and grow from. It takes all of us to have a growth mindset, including your President.

A Look Back at 2024

It is now my pleasure to look back at the work we accomplished with each and every one of you in the work of BITS. We are truly a tremendous organization with wonderful talents and value that excel across our organization. Let us celebrate together as we look back!

Respect and Commitment

One of the very first principles I undertook to try and bring forward was to remind each and every one of you, both members and leaders alike, is that we are all here to help each other. Every person in the organization must be respected, valued, appreciated, and uplifted.  We also understand that we are all human so we must work hard at bringing voices together, to make ourselves humble, to listen, grow and to be more effective people within the organization. I believe that we have accomplished this goal, but we also recognize that we are also a family and at times we must work together and through challenging situations. I want to thank all of you for being a part of the family and I again encourage all of us to remember the core values of ACB as they also relate to BITS as an organization.

I can assure all of you that we as a leadership team will work hard to continue to listen and to seek your input. Our Town Hall events will continue each month, and you should feel safe in bringing forward any ideas. Be bold in your thinking and be courageous. Be constructive but kind and that is true for all of us.

Partnerships

Making things happen inside BITS requires us to partner with lots of organizations and people. We have partnered with many, including Perkins, Pneuma Solutions, the National Library Service, Bookshare, Microsoft, Github, Computers for the Blind, iBUG Today, Techopolis, Freedom Scientific, Hartgen Consultancy, the American Printing House, The Access Technology Higher Education Network (ATHEN), Universities in the state of Arizona and Texas and so many others. I want to send a sincere thank you to all of these organizations for their commitments to BITS. RIM will continue as a benefit in 2025 for all BITS members and I wanted to give a special shout out to Mike Calvo for the generous donation and commitment to the organization for continued RIM support.

A Convention to be remembered!

We represented BITS at the annual ACB conference and Convention both in their virtual events along with an in-person presence. At the convention we taught everything from hosting and WordPress engagement, AI, apps and so much more. A party was held where we spent a few hours with over 100 BITS members and friends to celebrate the success of the organization.

Growth within BITS

At the convention BITS was recognized with two growth awards by the national organization. At the time of the convention, we had about 720 members, up from 180 from the year before. We stand at about 920 members at the moment and the number of lifetime memberships has dramatically increased to over seventy, which by the time of the annual meeting I believe we may have doubled in the last year. All of you played a role in this effort and as I recognized at the national convention, we could not have done this without each and every one of you and the talents of our leadership team. Thank you BITS family.  This is truly a moment to be remembered in BITS history.

Educational Opportunities

One of the crown jewels over the past year has been the deep commitment of lifelong learning for BITS members. Keep listening for more on this topic as we look toward the future but suffice it to say we hit the ground running in our efforts.

Setting Students up for Success

One of my personal core principles in education is to ensure that we are not introducing barriers to entry for any student whether this is due to a membership dues payment, the lack of textbooks for a course, the lack of software to be able to participate in a course or in whatever other resources an individual may require, we truly tried to meet student’s needs. This included ensuring that students had free access to textbooks for our Python and Office course. This also included those that needed free copies of Office 365 through contributions by other BITS members. You see, we are a family, and we give back within our own family. Isn’t that amazing? Students also wanted ways to listen to material for the office course and so we took the skills of our Python course along with the use of AI-based technology and produced audio versions of the book used for the Office course. This required financial commitment as well and we even had people step up to assist with this. Thank you to all of you who picked up an oar to help others with your financial contributions. You know who you are, and we are sincerely appreciative to your willingness to contribute. Aren’t we an amazing bunch of people BITS family? All of you should feel proud!

Making BITS Members Creators

We undertook a bold, ambitious plan to produce and teach a Python course inside of BITS. This could not have happened without the core team of administrators who assisted in this project. Special appreciation is extended to Ken Perry, the primary instructor of the Python course. Many sent written statements thanking us for this course, including one BITS member who had the opportunity to work at NOAA due to the skills and talents he achieved due to the BITS course. It is stories like this that truly gives us pause to think about our impact in the lives of people we are serving. Again, feel proud about the work completed here. Over 140 students joined us and over ninety completed the course. That is amazing, concerning the tremendous challenging work of the assignments and pace of the course.

I took the BITS python course because, working at a community college, I’d seen so many blind and visually impaired students fail at computer science courses. The reasons were not complicated: the materials and development environments were not accessible. Code in textbooks was shown as images. Students were expected to work with graphical development tools that could not be accessed. Instructors performed actions in front of the classroom or online in videos that were difficult to follow because they mostly typed, clicked and did not voice what actions they were performing or the lines of code they were typing.

Yet programming is a very accessible career, and it was tragic to see how it was unachievable in college for most blind and visually impaired students.

A student wrote: “As a former software engineer, I was determined that I would be able to advocate with our professors for this situation to end. But I myself needed to learn a modern language so I could easily demonstrate how possible it is for a blind person to effectively code today.

The BITS course not only gave me that knowledge, but the skills I now have make me able to automate many parts of my job. For example, I convert inaccessible exams in to something a blind or learning disabled student can easily read with synthesized speech, Braille or magnification. Knowing Python means that this process has become fully scriptable, freeing me from the drudgery of document conversion. For another example, I can now manipulate the Microsoft Office tools I use like Outlook and Excel using scripts, again relieving me from the tedium of routine office tasks.

Lastly, this course means that I can now comprehend the material in more advanced books on python, so I can continue to learn the language, the many libraries that enhance it,  and in turn improve my own work automation.”

BITS, truly excelling at empowering, motivating and promoting excellence in careers and education! Go team!

To all Python students, you were utterly amazing, and we are honored to have helped you in your development journey. Staff, again, thank you for helping these students learn and for bringing your game to the table to set these individuals up for success. Roberto from Microsoft was vital in setting students up for success in Visual Studio Code, Michael and Taylor Arndt helped in teaching the course, and others picked up an oar to truly change people’s lives.

The work done here is being felt both inside and outside of BITS due to the lessons learned. ACB Media’s impact has been greatly enhanced with AI generated speech, podcasted chapter markers and statistical analysis, all due to the Python course. It truly is about giving back and that is yet another reason the BITS family is so special.

Our Outlook Continued as we worked with students to Empower them to Excel.

Our next set of training took us to the Fall where we enrolled over 400 students in our Office 365 course where we guided students through Windows Basics, Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint. We again had a talented group assisting us in this process and a shining star among us, that being David Kingsbury who was our primary instructor. Many praised the course, the value of the textbook, the content, and the willingness to assist students as we instructed all of them over a 3-month period

This course extended into an advocacy opportunity with Microsoft. Many BITS members are assisting Microsoft in ensuring that the Outlook (New) client is truly accessible, usable, and inclusive for all users. In addition, we held an amazing partnership meeting with Microsoft where we gave students and leadership an opportunity to give feedback on impactful scenarios to Microsoft to strengthen Office 365 for everyone around the world. We could not have done this without the tremendous talents and commitment of our students, staff, and leaders in our educational opportunities. Thank you so much for all of you serving and being trailblazers in leading the charge to make the world better for everyone.

Infrastructure and Building for the Future

I will leave the future for later in this report but suffice it to say we accomplished a great deal in our information technology areas of BITS and we are not done!

Thank you for the valiant efforts of our IT team BITS upgraded to a modern platform for our web site. We instituted a new membership platform which eventually will simplify a great deal for our leaders and members alike. We expanded payment types for members to pay for their memberships more easily. The organization has moved to Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, and other Microsoft-based technologies for the running of the organization. This included improved email communication. We have begun to roll out a new help desk or support system for the BITS organization and you may have heard a bit about this, but you will be hearing more in the future about it so stay tuned! We have improved email list communication and streamlined ways for users to interact across WhatsApp, Discord, Zoom, Mastodon, and others. Many talented members are contributing plugins, automation tools, scripts and applications to BITS that are truly making a “Magical” difference for all of us!

As you can see, the team has been busy with the publications and membership committees. These teams will continue to work cohesively together to achieve greatness, and you will hear more about this in the report.

Recognizing Service

We as a leadership team would love to give awards and recognition to many others within BITS but we genuinely wanted to recognize a couple of incredibly special people this evening. You will be hearing more about recognition and ways that members will be rewarded next year but suffice it to say we felt it important to start this journey in a way everyone here can completely understand.

Hundreds Serve Inside of BITS.

Before I announce what is coming here I truly again wanted to recognize the deep commitment of all of our volunteers. It is what makes BITS special, bold in our leadership, organization and dare I say it, our family! Again, thank you to each and every one of you for serving and giving the best of yourselves to assist all of us.

Making Dreams Possible

I remember as a child getting my first computer, a TI-99-4-A followed by a Commodore 64. There, is where I learned the basics of programming, logic, assembly language and of course playing Infocom adventure games. I knew at an early age that I genuinely wanted to be a creator and to use computing power to its best as a career. In the BITS family we recognize that we want all people to excel in being creators,  to build toward their dreams, no matter what they are and for this reason we took on the adventure of our Python training course.

The foundation of this course was the tremendous talents, respect, commitment, and skills of none other than Ken Perry. Ken truly put in thousands of hours of his own time to teach and guide students in their learning journey. Sure, he had help at times but it was his vision, forward thinking and ability to instruct others that guided students into the world of becoming creators!

It is for this reason that as a BITS family, we are proud and honored to announce a “LIFE MEMBERSHIP” to Ken Perry. While this is purely a token of our appreciation to ken, we would have loved to have done more. We hope this helps in representing our thankfulness along with respect for his service. Ken, thank you for serving and welcome to the club of BITS Life members! I can say from a personal perspective that the reward of this course and Ken’s efforts has expanded into so many contributions both within and outside of BITS that it is utterly amazing. Ken, you continue to change lives and impact people more than you can imagine. Again, thank you for your resolute and ongoing service to this organization. We deeply appreciate you!

Students and Employees Excell with Productivity and Efficiency

It is amazing what our group brings forth and the talent that we have inside of BITS. No matter what you are doing in your life, whether a student or an employee you are needing to work with documents, operating systems, email communication, data and presentations. Some of us may not touch all aspects of this but throughout our careers or education we often are working with all kinds of areas within our computing journey. Teaching these skills from an assistive technology perspective is challenging and not only that, doing it in a way where the visual is represented for compelling documents is crucial.

David Kingsbury is someone who spent hundreds if not thousands of hours similar to Ken in preparing, teaching, mentoring, and providing guidance to students as he used his tremendous talents of his book and skills to teach over 440 students in Office 365 concepts. Students will be able to take these skills, training resources, documents and recordings into the future.   Students   will use them as lifelong learning opportunities to better themselves whether at home, school, work, or play. The impact is significant for continuous learning and achievement.

It is for this reason that we extend a “LIFE MEMBERSHIP” to David Kingsbury in BITS. David, we know you have renewed your annual membership already, so a refund is coming your way for that, and we deeply appreciate your commitment, dedication, patience, and skills in the work you put forth for our BITS membership. Again, sincerely, thank you David for your dedication to amazing learning opportunities.

Looking Toward the Future

Do not worry, we are nearing the end here folks, but we must also look toward the future of BITS and what is coming for all of you. We again commit to being a vibrant, passionate affiliate who truly listens to its members and truly want, all of you to succeed, no matter what you want out of your technology journey. We appreciate all of you, from the beginning, users to those who have been working in the field for 50 years. Everyone has a home here inside of BITS and we strive to continue to listen to your voices, to guide our direction and purpose.

Reaching Out to All Members with Improved Communication Channels

We know that everyone does not communicate the same way. Many of you send text messages, use WhatsApp, many of you love email and yes there are many of you where iPhones are used as a “phone,” imagine that! Some of you love talking to people or using your voice to ensure that things are communicated in a way that meets your specific needs.

For this reason, BITS will be rolling out a new way of contacting leaders within BITS as well as obtaining vital resources, newsletters, announcements and more from the affiliate. In addition, you will be able to ask for assistance through this vehicle and we will ensure that it is injected into the BITS support process or help desk. We will announce next year the phone number that will be rolled out for all of your use so stay tuned. Yes, we are listening and wanting to ensure that members who want this type of communication style have access to our organization.

Web Site Efforts

The team leading this effort has big dreams for the future so stay tuned for ongoing commitments and improvements, everything from audio-based content, forums, better organization and so much more. Planning is still underway here and our leader of this team, which being Larry, will guide the team in a prioritized and strategic manner for the future. Be patient with them and do not be afraid to provide constructive, meaningful, and polite feedback. It takes all of us to build greatness.

Educational Opportunities

BITS is making a name for itself in the area of education, so I am pleased to announce some efforts we are undertaking in 2025. Buckle up everyone!

BITS Educational Accreditation

Your leadership team is working hard at getting our educational services recognized for professional CEU credits. We hope to have this completed by the first quarter of 2025. This will bring in additional revenue for the organization not to mention recognition in the industry.

HTML and WordPress Course

Starting in January we will be rolling out our 24-week Mark Down, HTML, web accessibility and WordPress course for BITS members. This will be an extensive course which we hope will help more people to let others hear their voices in the digital landscape. This will help individuals, affiliates, leaders, and others. Accessibility will be at the center of this training. We want people to understand how to create compelling, inclusive, and engaging content. We are excited about this course to see what magic users may create in their journeys. More information, including the first three months of the training syllabus will be released in the coming weeks, just after Christmas so stay tuned to a communication channel near you for additional information.

Google Suite Training

In 2025 we intend to produce and roll out a class on all things Google Suite, from Docs to Gmail, to Sheets and Slides. We will instruct you as we have in the Office 365 course coming to a class near you, in the second half of 2025.

Python Training, with a Visual Focus

We are planning and adapting our Python training course. We have had tremendous interest in repeating this course and we hope to add even more skills in this training for those that wish to create graphical user interfaces or true interactive applications other than just teaching language constructs. This one is underway in the planning stages, and we do not have a date for it yet, but it is coming. Stay tuned!

Learning Management System Implementation in 2025

As you can see we have a lot of bold ambitions for 2025 for training, oh, wait, we are not done yet, stay tuned!

One of the core principles in learning is to ensure that instructors, facilitators, administrators, and students alike have better tools to achieve their educational goals and opportunities. It is for this reason that BITS is exploring and will be purchasing a Learning Management System (LMS). This will require tremendous commitment of resources and commitment within the organization, but we feel we must utilize technology, services, and features to work smarter and not harder in the work we do for students and staff alike. You will be hearing more about this in the coming months so stay tuned. Suffice it to say, we are not resting at all here on innovation and adaptation.

In-Person Educational Opportunities

If you did not think that was enough … It is time to take BITS training to the next level. BITS has committed to bringing educational training to the 2025 and 2026 annual ACB Conference and Convention. This will be a firsthand, in-person training opportunity. Members will guide the topics. We have clever ideas on where we are taking topics for 2025, and we will not announce that here this evening but expect a survey about all of this in the early part of 2025. It is about elevating your empowerment and abilities in a hands-on atmosphere where learning is celebrated. We commit to bringing professional Assistive Technology and product experts to lead this training and yes, we plan to cover expenses for instructors of this training as best we can. The goal is to present four days of firsthand and in-depth training. Students will be asked to complete tasks, to enforce learning through firsthand guidance and expertise, re-enforced by feedback and attention to detail.

You will learn more early in 2025 about all of this so you can start planning your convention trips. We will give you the information to use to guide your paths in learning inside of BITS and beyond! One idea we are considering is to re-enforce Office 365 skills with an AI focus, does that sound interesting? Your voices will be heard to ensure we are building things for your personal educational journey.

Boldness and Goals are Best Served with Partnerships

As you can see, we have some ambitious plans for 2025. It feels like an awful lot and frankly it looks daunting from a financial perspective. The cost of a Learning Management System alone may end up costing BITS thousands of dollars, not to mention the cost of flying instructors and paying expenses for them to be available for in-person training events. This is where we turned to our partners yet again to see what we could do to get some assistance in achieving greatness.

Microsoft Joins the BITS Family

We started to have ongoing discussions with Microsoft about our dreams, goals, and opportunities we felt we could bring to over nine hundred blind and low vision members of BITS along with representation with the ACB national organization. We put together a proposal and I am pleased to announce that Microsoft has made a $25,000 contribution to BITS to be used over the next two years to achieve our goals and outcomes. Microsoft believes in empowering everyone to achieve more through the use of technology, including Microsoft Office, developer tools and of course artificial intelligence. I am pleased to welcome them to the family and am humbled and honored with their financial commitment to BITS. This sets us up well for our efforts into the future and we are terribly excited about what this means for BITS and most importantly for each and every one of you in the BITS family!

In Conclusion

Thank you everyone for listening this evening. As you can see, we are setting up some tremendous and amazing opportunities into the future. We want to thank each and every one of you for being a part of the family. If you have not renewed your membership for 2025 I truly hope you will consider this to support our efforts. We need all of you to be effective and we genuinely want to change your lives to empower you in whatever areas you wish to undertake. Again, sincerest thanks goes out to our leaders, instructors, facilitators, volunteers and of course our thriving membership. You truly are why we are all here and we will ensure that you are not forgotten in our journey as a family. I love each and every one of you, have been humbled and often taught by many of you and for that I sincerely value each and every one of you. Remember, my door and our leadership team members doors are always open for your feedback and guidance. Thank you and please continue to support the BITS family moving forward.  We will truly support you! With that, I leave all of you in Dr. Seuss fashion:

The BITS Year in Rhyme

Oh, the places we have gone, the things we have done,
BITS has been buzzing, and oh, what great fun!
From Python to Office, our knowledge took flight,
With wisdom and laughter to brighten each night.

Brad steered the ship with a steady, wise hand,
While Robin’s keen notes kept it all neatly planned.
Diane balanced books with precision and care,
And John brought the insights no others could spare.

Rosanna created, inspiring us all,
With guides and revisions that answered the call.
Larry pushed forward with projects to lead,
While David built chats, meeting every need.

We fundraised, we Zoomed, we taught and we grew,
From Word to Excel, our skills shone through.
Microsoft joined us with treasures to share,
Their gift lit the path to dreams that we dare.

From lifelong learners to experts so skilled,
We have shaped a great family where dreams are fulfilled.
Python empowered, and Office brought ease,
With tools that could conquer the toughest of seas.

As the year closes and holidays gleam,
We pause to reflect on our collective dream.
Whether coding or chatting or learning anew,
BITS has a home for every one of you.

We honor all paths, each journey, each start,
Each voice in this family, each generous heart.
From candles to trees to moments of cheer,
We celebrate you, our bright stars of the year.

Thank you, dear BITS, for the magic you bring,
For the hope, the hard work, and the joy of each thing.
So here’s to the future, so bold and so bright—
Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!