BITS Board Meeting for December 4, 2024

AI Generated Transcript

All right, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the December BITS board meeting, which I hope will be relatively short, I hope, as I really don’t want to tackle lots of issues until the new board arrives.

But we’ll see how far we get tonight, and we’ll go from there.

I just want to, again, welcome those who are here from the board and those who are here from the membership, as well as anyone else who might be attending.

So welcome to each and every one of you.

I would like, I’m going to hand things over to Robin, our secretary, who will handle the roll.

And I’ll let her go ahead and handle the adoption of minutes for November 6th.

And then we’ll talk about the consent agenda.

Robin?

Good evening, everyone.

President Jeff Bishop?

Here.

Vice President Brad Snyder?

I am here.

Secretary Robin Frost?

I’m here and happy to be so.

Treasurer Diane Scalzi?

She was here.

Oh, I had to unmute.

More or less, I said.

More or less, okay.

Michael Babcock?

I am here.

John McCann is here, sort of.

David Edick?

He was here, but I don’t think he’s back yet.

Is he?

He is.

He is, sort of, but that’s all right.

Okay.

And David is here.

We would also like to welcome all of our members and friends who have chosen to join us and spend time this evening and let you know you will all be recognized individually by name in the written minutes of this meeting.

And with that, Mr.

President, the call of the roll is complete.

Great.

Do we want to go ahead and handle the November 6th minutes while we have you speaking?

Sure, although I don’t usually call for the question.

No, no, that’s fine.

But does anyone have any questions or concerns about the November 6th minutes that were published by Robin?

All right.

Can I get a motion to accept?

I’ll make the motion to accept them.

Okay.

David, thank you.

And second?

I’ll second.

Okay, Diane.

All right.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Great.

I distributed the agenda.

I do not have any additional items to add unless people have items of new business, which will come up at that time.

So I would like to get someone to move the adoption of our agenda as well as the consent information that was submitted, meaning all of the committee reports.

Can we go ahead and get a motion to do so?

I move.

I’ll make the motion to accept.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

Robin, I’ll take you as first and David as second.

Thank you.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye, John.

I was unmuted.

So there you go.

How are you doing, by the way?

He’s muted again.

Okay.

Very good.

All right.

Let’s move to reports.

And we’re going to start with Diane, which may have a short one tonight because she’s running into some opportunities there.

I’ll hand it over to you, Diane.

Actually, I do have.

I was looking because we had, by my count, we had 13, again, that’s one, three life members in the month of November.

And nine of them came in through Stripe and four of them came in through PayPal.

So I was going to read them all off.

I was trying to get to the right window on my computer.

Do you want to do that now?

I got it.

Okay, good.

These are not in any particular order.

I just read them as they came off.

But our life members are Bell Mills, Janet Thomas, Cindy Laban, Karen Thomas, Patricia Toosing, Rebecca L.

Knobb, Lynn Correll, Viola Benson, Kayla Bentis, Irene Knokas, Mary Ward, Howard Thomas, Dina, oh, her last name is Moodley.

Dina Dalen.

Dina Dalen, yes.

Good job, John.

Dina Dalen, actually, it’s A-L-A-N.

Aren’t you glad I’m here?

Yes.

John, you’re not in too much pain, are you?

No, I’m really not.

Okay.

If I start acting weird, just disconnect me.

Okay.

You’re probably on enough drugs, you won’t feel anything.

Actually, not too much.

This is a walk on the beach compared to the back surgery.

All right.

Okay, keep going, Diane.

I think I did.

I did.

I give them all.

I wasn’t counting at the time.

I counted 13.

And I’m the one who’s on pain meds.

And John posted in his report that we have almost 70 now, John.

Is that right?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we would have close to that, if not over.

I did not add these to my other, you know, one of them or two of them.

I haven’t added to my other sheet yet.

And we had 37 at the beginning of this year.

So not bad, people.

According to his report, it’s 71 life members.

That’s correct.

Nice.

Yeah, pretty amazing.

Pretty amazing.

And we’re not done.

I’m sure we’re going to get more.

So pretty cool stuff.

All right.

Diane, did you want to talk about any other pieces of the report?

Or would you rather defer it until — well, this is going to get sticky because we have the annual — Yeah, I just — the reason I’m — you know, we’re using Stripe now.

And a lot of people seem to like paying that way through credit cards, because we’re getting a lot more payments that way than through PayPal.

And so I got the spreadsheet today.

Yeah, I sent it yesterday.

I have to say that the filtering in Excel really helped me look through, you know, get some information that I needed a lot more quickly than having to look at every single cell.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, it’s going to take me a little while, I guess, to figure this out.

I’m going to try and get it done today.

We did get a check from them.

I can tell you that.

We got a check on the 27th of November, and that will show up in the checking account.

Yeah, $2,227 or something of that nature.

Yeah.

And we have another $600 in the Stripe account right now.

Yeah.

Are they always going to send out the checks, like, at the same time?

Do you know?

Yeah, yes.

I think when I discussed this, and we set the date of — we can control that.

So whenever you want them to send them out, we can — they send them out once a month.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

You know, as long as we get it before the end of the — Yeah, I said it on the 27th, and it cut the check on the 25th.

Oh, okay.

Okay, great.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we will defer the Treasurer’s Report, and if we get something in time for the annual meeting, we will update the membership on our current — you can give that update at the annual meeting, Diane.

Okay.

All right?

Yeah, because I’ll have an interim — I’ll make sure it’s there on the agenda.

I have to do an interim report for the months of January through the end of November.

Right.

And present that at the — Yep.

Yep. — business meeting as well.

Yep.

Okay.

So if everyone’s okay with it, we will defer the report until we have all the data.

But I will say this.

I think we’re in a very healthy situation.

Oh, yeah.

So I don’t think that we have much to worry about there.

Okay.

I’m going to go quickly through — Jeff.

Yes?

Can I ask Diane a quick question?

Oh, of course.

Go right ahead.

Diane, do you need anything from us as board members to get the investment account up and running, or do we have any updates on that?

I’ve not been able to get a hold of anybody.

And I did, like, run some things by a couple people I know that we’ve worked with, but they work with a bank, and I don’t think we want a bank.

I think we want an account where we can get, you know, time deposits and that, but also get mutual funds and money markets and things, like we have with Fidelity.

But I can’t get a hold of anybody there.

I will — I’ll try one more time to get another phone number or something.

It’s bad enough that — it’s bad enough that the nearest office is, like, 45 minutes from my house, but, you know, I can’t get anyone to make an appointment with me, so.

Jeff, this is Larry.

I offered to help with that process, and I’m still waiting for a return phone call from Diane to do that.

Okay.

And that’s Larry, right?

Yes.

Your audio is breaking up there, so I wasn’t sure if it was you or not.

Okay.

Diane, can you reach out to Larry on that?

Yeah, we were — yeah, and I know we were talking about that, and Larry’s not on the board, so we wondered if that was going to cause any issues, but — I don’t — I don’t think it’s a problem as far as him assisting.

He can’t sign, but he can assist.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

John, do you — do you agree on that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Very good.

All right.

Okay, Diane.

Anyone else?

Okay.

I’m going to go through this rather quickly.

I think the report that I sent out to the — to the membership speaks for itself.

What’s top of mind right now is our upcoming annual meeting, which is going to be loaded with lots of fun and really interesting things to talk about, so I’m excited about that.

If you have not registered for the event, please make sure to do so.

We’ve sent that out a number of times.

We’ll send the link — the direct Zoom link to register out again this week so that people can make sure that they are getting registered, but you can also log into the website, and that information is located on the front page.

We encourage all of you to continue to — to renew your membership for 2025 if you haven’t already.

We know that a bunch of you have, and a bunch of you are already extended through 2025, so that’s great, but we have quite a backlog of people who have not yet done so.

So if you are interested in joining us next year where we’re going to be doing lots of really interesting things, then please do think about that.

Jeff, can I mention that we’re getting quite a few people who took advantage of the moratorium in 2024 and also paid, and we automatically extended them through 2025, and now many of them are paying, and so we’re extending them, you know, through 2026.

Well, if that’s the way it goes.

I will say we are — we will be updating the website with your actual expiration dates.

I’m waiting until things calm down here a little bit, but my hope is that I will have that done by next Monday.

So that is my goal, to be able to have that accomplished, and we just need to do some testing and make sure that it works well before we assume it’s going to update all 900 and some number of you.

So we just need to be cautious about that.

It may require members to double-check their data in reference to their — you know, the information that they have supplied when they have renewed, so we’re going to try to minimize that as much as possible, okay?

If you need assistance in renewing, you can reach out to us at support@bits-acb.org.

That’s the new way of handling and getting in touch with us.

There’s a number of us who monitor that account, and that actually goes through JIRA, and we manage things that way.

So again, it’s support@bits-acb.org.

We appreciate everyone’s understanding, and while we work through a lot of the paid memberships pro work that we continue to invest in as we have changed over our membership platform, there’s still a little bit of a hiccup now and again, but we’re working through that.

We believe that all issues that we’re aware of at the moment are accounted for.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they are all complete, because there’s lots of you, and all of you are using all kinds of different email services and those types of things, so be patient with us.

We’ll work with you on it.

You know, it’s going to take probably another couple of weeks until we have 100% everything done, but we’ll talk more about that during the IT portion of the meeting.

We are, and this is mainly for Diane and the board itself, right now the Stripe account is not classified as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

They have much stricter guidelines on how one can be accepted into that program, and so it’s going to take a bit of work for us to work through that with them.

They want 80% of transactions done through Stripe, and they want to make sure it’s not for goods and services and those types of things, so we have to get some clarity and figure out if we can speak to someone at sales there and figure this out.

Which program is this, Jeff?

Stripe.

Oh, Stripe.

Okay, but we’re looking at their non-profit status.

Yeah.

I will say people are loving Stripe.

The number of people utilizing that platform versus PayPal is astronomical.

It is.

I totally noticed that.

Diane was commenting on it, and I backed that up.

We’re seeing a lot more Stripe than PayPal, which makes me, well, I think it was the best thing we ever did to go.

A lot more flexible, for sure.

Yeah, unfortunately it’s costing us a bit more in fees at the moment, but we are diligently working on that, and we’ll see what we can do to try to convince them that we truly are qualified to have those rates.

There’s a lot to learn about Stripe and ways to consolidate charges and things, but there’s a lot of things that we can’t control either, so I’m just trying to be fully transparent with the board on that.

If you look at the fees, even though we collected nearly $2,600, there was well over $100 in charges due to Stripe fees themselves.

So it appears to be a little bit higher than what we’re used to.

The lifetime membership fee is over $6.

Yeah, it’s getting there.

The other one, the regular member dues is only, PayPal was $89, and theirs is actually $0.88.

It’s the lifetime one that we get nailed on.

And actually on PayPal, the fee was $547, so $6 isn’t horribly out of line.

Yeah, I don’t think it’s abusively horrible is what I’m suggesting.

Yeah, but if we can cut it that way.

But we think we can do better.

So I’m just trying to be transparent and upfront, and I just wish I knew that they were this difficult about this before.

I want to encourage everyone to make sure they’re attending, and we’ll talk more about this again later, but the candidates forum coming up on the 8th, where we will have an opportunity for Next Generation and Debbie Hazleton to lead us through a process of working through that and getting questions to our candidates and you hearing from the candidates.

So I’m excited about that.

Exciting announcement from the NUMA Solutions Group.

Our RIM benefit is extending through 2025.

So they have felt that that has been something that has been of value to them as well as for us.

So that is extending into 2025, so that perk continues next year.

I want to remind everyone about voting.

That’s coming up.

Their sample ballot is available.

On the website, so you can go up and try it.

You will have to log in and cast your vote or votes, depending upon how many ballots that we’re going to require, and we won’t know that until we vote, people.

Again, I’m going to ask everyone to be thinking about how you might want to get involved in the organization.

There’s lots of ways in doing that.

Just try to be cognizant of that.

We’d love everyone to be able to pick up an oar and help inside the organization.

We’re trying to be very, very transparent in all that we do.

I know that sometimes things don’t go as smoothly as they could.

I even addressed that in the report that I wrote up.

So again, please be gentle with us.

We’re trying to move quickly, and sometimes that gets us into a little bit of a problem at times.

So we just need to be more adept.

We’re doing great, but we also need to recognize where we could also improve for ourselves as well.

Okay?

All right.

Any questions from the board?

All right.

Then let’s move to committee reports, and we will start with communication.

So we’ll start with the communications.

So, Murph, you’re up.

Okay.

The report is in the packet, so I will not repeat anything there.

The one thing I would like to add is, and I will address this in writing on Friday’s Bits Bites, is that we have a lot of information that we need to be able to share with the community, and I will address this in writing on Friday’s Bits Bites, and that is that as we approach the end of the year, some members may not choose to renew, and of course that will make us sad, but you may notice that there are two groups that are very similar.

One is Bits@bits.groups.io.

The other one is Bits-Members.

Some people are choosing to unsubscribe from Bits-Members, and they intend to unsubscribe from Bits.

If you unsubscribe from Bits-Members, you may unintentionally be unsubscribing from the group where you’re getting all the news from our president regarding information about voting and about important news that you may not want to miss.

If you really, really, really want to unsubscribe from that, then please contact someone, either the president or me, and we can come up with an alternative.

And that’s pretty much all I have to say.

Great.

Any questions from Irv?

David?

I would just encourage everybody, if you only wanted to be on the minimum number of lists, to be on the members list and the events list, so you know what’s going on with Bits.

Absolutely.

If there’s any list that you really should be on, those are the two.

Okay.

Perhaps we should mention that on the Friday weekly announcement, Irv.

Okay.

That’d be great.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay.

We’re next going to hear from Rosanna, and then David Edick.

I’m going to let people know who’s coming up so that…

Chanel can be ahead.

Chanel can get ahead.

That’s exactly right.

Exactly.

Yes.

Okay.

Go ahead, Rosanna.

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the December meeting.

The Publications Committee did meet in November.

We are kind of winding down because we’re coming to the end of this year, but we have a lot of new things coming up in January.

The first thing I do want to say is I want to thank the IT Committee for getting the handbook up on the website.

That was something that this committee worked very, very hard on.

I want to thank the people who worked on this handbook, Robin Frost, John McCann, Penny Moss.

It was just incredible.

It was an incredible piece of work, and we really enjoyed doing it as well.

We all are very proud to see it up on the website.

Just an FYI about that is that that document that is on the website right now is a preliminary document.

The reason why it is preliminary is because we need to wait for bylaws to be passed at the annual meeting in order for us to complete the handbook in its written form.

The handbook, as you know, is a living document.

It will always need to be updated along the way as things change.

I do encourage anybody who is running for an office to please visit the handbook so that you have some idea of what you’re looking at and what you’re potentially getting yourself involved in.

That was another reason why we did want to make sure it got up there.

The other thing is that I want to just talk a little bit about the BITS publication, the newsletter.

There will be a winter one that will go out.

We’re going to be approaching it differently, so I’m asking everybody to just kind of look out in your email because we will be looking for some information from the membership as we go forward in relationship to the BITS bulletin.

There’s more to come on that.

I certainly want to encourage anybody who has something to share with the BITS family, please send that to us so that if it’s something we can put in the winter BITS bulletin, Deborah Armstrong will go ahead and get that in the bulletin.

Other than that, that’s all I have.

Jeff, I just have a question for the board and actually for you.

The one thing that — >> It’s on the list, by the way.

>> Oh, it is.

Okay.

I don’t know which one I’m talking about.

>> You’re talking about the list of members, right?

>> No.

No, no, no.

What I was looking at was we would like to have an email address that people can write to if they want to write to publications to ask questions or that we can communicate with.

We had talked about that several board meetings ago and Michael was going to put that into the works before all this happened and it never got done.

I would like to see that happen going forward because that way we can communicate with the membership and the membership can communicate with publications if they have a question or something that they would like us to address.

>> That does not require board approval.

You’re on the IT list.

Simply put in the request of the alias name that you would prefer and the people that you would like to have it be forwarded to.

>> Forwarded to.

Okay.

>> And if it would be helpful, I know we can look them up, but it would be helpful if you have the email addresses and we will do that post-haste.

>> Okay.

Awesome.

That would be really cool.

I would very much appreciate that.

>> Did you want to address the issue about the membership list as well?

>> Yeah, I can address it if you want me to address it here.

What I’m looking for right now, as you know, we have a Facebook page.

We had some new members that have joined our Facebook.

One of the issues that I’ve come across is that I need to make sure that these people really are members of the BITS family.

Obviously we don’t want to get outsiders into something that doesn’t belong to them.

We don’t want it to get into the wrong hands.

I’m very fortunate that I’m able to ask John if I’m not sure they’re a BITS member, and that’s been really helpful.

I am requesting to have or be able to have access to the membership list so that when we do have new people who want to join Facebook, that can be confirmed and I can make sure that they really are part of the BITS family.

>> I have a question.

Is this strictly for you, Rosanna?

>> Yes, it is.

No, it is only — it would only go to me.

And then, well, Herbie was originally doing it, but we haven’t — you know, he hasn’t been with us for a while.

So at this point, I will go ahead and be the one to admit them if they’re going to join Facebook.

>> Okay.

So what I’m going to recommend is that we add you to the membership administration level on the website, and then you can look up any member you wish.

>> Okay, cool.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that, Jeff.

Yes.

>> Okay.

So we’ll make sure — >> And Rosanna, anytime you want to, you know, just need a copy of what I pulled down from AMS, just ask.

>> Cool.

Thank you, John.

>> Yep.

>> Okay.

>> And that’s it.

I’m looking forward to next year, because I think there’s going to be so much more exciting things that will come out of publications as well.

So thank you.

>> Yes, I think people are — I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised.

>> I agree.

I totally agree.

>> Yeah.

I don’t know that people really understand what’s coming.

Okay.

>> Not yet.

>> Not yet, but they certainly will, won’t they?

>> Yes, they will.

>> All right.

Very good.

Okay.

We’re going to hear from David followed by Brad.

So just to give everyone a heads up here.

David?

>> Hey, thank you, everybody.

As you saw in my report, things are going well with chat.

We have people from more countries all around.

You know, somebody gets up at, what, 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning to come chat with us.

I think that’s amazing.

But outside of that, chat’s going really well, and we have an awesome committee.

Do you want me to let you guys know who the committee members are?

I can do that.

But other than that, do we have the code of conduct on the website?

I mentioned that in the report that we want to make sure that we’re going by that.

>> I doubt it.

>> It’s in the handbook.

>> Oh, well, there’s a place to find it.

>> Oh, it is in the handbook.

I should know that it is.

>> That should be noted, though, unless, you know, we don’t just stand alone, Doc.

I think we actually should do both because there’s nothing that suggests, oh, handbook, a code of conduct policy has to be in there.

I mean, I think it should be replicated there for completeness, but I would suggest that I would stand that the code of conduct policy be clipped out of it and have its own link and fairly prominently displayed or prominently accessible.

>> I can extract it and send it to someone if that would be easier.

>> Say again, Adam.

>> Let me do this.

Hey, Michael Doeys, can we modify the handbook page and put a referential link so that we can link to the code of conduct and put a link somewhere like on the about us?

>> It would be my recommendation that we just make a copy of that out of the handbook and do the same thing on a code of conduct page that would be in the about bits menu item, similar to how we have the handbook.

If anybody has any objections to that, we can do something different, but that way it’s a standard place where people know to find those things.

The only reason I’m suggesting the other path is that way we’re not duplicating effort.

If it gets updated in the handbook, it stays updated.

But either way is fine with me.

>> I think because if we want it to be downloadable and to be — >> Robin, can you send us a Word doc of that?

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

That would be great.

>> Where am I sending it?

>> Send it to me and Michael.

Send it to the IT committee, please.

>> Okay.

If somebody gives me addresses, I’ll be happy to do that.

>> Send it to me.

I’ll get it to the IT committee.

>> All right.

>> Send it to Jeff.

>> Okay.

>> Thank you for that.

>> All right.

>> Anyway, that’s pretty much it.

We’ve tried a few new things like have the doorbell on for when people come in the room so that everybody knows somebody new came in and it just helps the welcoming process.

So you should try it out.

>> Very cool.

Okay.

Any questions for David?

>> Oh, and one more thing.

There will be special chats during the holidays.

>> Yeah.

You want to talk about that, David?

>> So far the idea is that we have chat on the New Year’s and Christmas Eve as well as the New Year’s Day and Christmas Day.

We can do more if we have people that want to host.

But let’s see.

Not this weekend, but the weekend after the annual meeting.

Unless the annual meeting wraps up at this point, there will be no chat during the annual meeting as is tradition in years past.

>> I have a question about that.

I’m glad you brought it up.

There has been some discussion about this.

And I know that some people have thought that that has been to influence controlling of talking about voting and those types of things.

I’m not opposed to having chat opened up.

I’d like the board’s opinion on it, though.

>> I’m personally not opposed to having chat open as long as the people who are managing the meeting understand that we’re not going to be talking about any voting issues or candidate type statements or candidates at all.

Let’s just say it that way.

>> From my perspective, it’s a forbidden topic and we just have to move on.

No, we can’t talk about that here.

>> Right.

Exactly.

And I’m just wondering, do we want to have chat open during the — >> This is Brad.

>> Yeah, go ahead, Brad.

>> I’ve never seen a need to not have chat open.

That was something that was put into place by a former president.

And I never agreed with it then and I don’t agree with it now.

I think we’re all adults.

We all know, you know, what’s supposed to go on in chat.

If it’s — you’re not supposed to go in there and campaign, you’re not supposed to go in there and try and influence people on these kinds of things.

And if somebody doesn’t follow the rules, they can be reminded of it.

And if they still don’t — I just don’t see that there’s a need to really worry about it.

I’ve never felt there was.

>> And people brought it up over the weekend and I said, well, no matter what it is, if there’s any issue with bits that you have an issue with, you can write to the president or any other board member.

And I said, that’s how we got to deal with it.

And so I’m responsible for you getting some emails, I guess.

But no, seriously.

That’s how we handle it.

>> Okay.

>> If there’s any — if you choose to want to do it.

The only difference would be that I’d let people know it will be starting a little late if we have the annual meeting.

So we might change the time because we check in at 5 with the next event.

You know, the next round.

I suspect that the one on the 11th is going to go long because we have a lot of reports.

So maybe what we do is we — I’ll leave that up to you, David.

>> Well, the 11th is Wednesday.

So I was thinking Friday.

>> Yeah, it doesn’t matter.

It’s Friday and Saturday.

And if we have a meeting on Friday or — it should be pretty quick.

>> Yeah.

>> And you just commence chat.

>> Yeah, I agree with that, actually. >> 15 minutes after we close out whatever we’re doing on those nights.

>> So we could say it starts at 530.

>> Or — >> 30-year time, whatever.

>> Or when the annual meeting completes. >> 15 minutes after we conclude in whatever we’re doing in the annual meeting on those nights.

>> Yeah.

However you want to do it.

It’s up to the board.

>> Does anyone else have any objections or concerns?

All right.

Very good.

So, David, you may move forward.

I don’t even think we have to vote on this.

It’s by consensus, I think.

So — >> The code of conduct has been sent.

>> Thank you.

>> All right.

I’ll get it over to the IT committee here in just a minute.

And as soon as I get out of here, I’m trying to do — Outlook is not behaving well.

Okay.

>> I’ll update the schedule later after the meeting and send it out.

>> Okay.

And then we’ll talk — you and I will talk about it, David, to make sure that it aligns with — We’ll just send out your schedule, and then I’ll fix up the annual meeting agenda.

>> Okay.

Sounds good.

>> Okay.

Any other questions for — Thank you, David, very much.

This was very good.

Any other questions?

Brad, I think you’re up for presentations.

>> Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you, everyone.

Presentations.

You know, it’s a little short report.

In the packet, you will see I listed out the presentations that we did during November.

If you’re interested in reviewing that, you can.

Coming up in December, well, obviously, the main thing in December is the annual meeting.

We do have a couple of presentations planned, three of them exact.

We have — MacBytes is on the 10th.

That’s the night before the annual meeting gets started, and we are going to be talking about iPhone mirroring on the Mac in the current Mac OS and iOS operating systems.

It’s a neat little feature.

Its member, Sri Roy, has produced a nice about 16-minute, I think, demo of it.

It’s very nice and well done.

So we’ll be doing that.

We’ll be talking about other stuff.

We will be continuing in Basics with Bits.

Jeff has started a four-part at this point.

I’m just calling it a multi-part.

[ Laughter ] Because you never know where Jeff’s going to go with these things.

A multi-part series on Microsoft OneNote, part of the Microsoft 365 suite.

He did part one in the fourth week.

It was that November 23rd.

He will continue on December 14th with part two, and we will — on December 28th, the Saturday between Christmas and New Year’s, Jeff will do part three, and part four will be forthcoming in January.

Other thing of note, Jeff did the follow-up to — last year, we did Bits and Pieces of Family Tech.

It was very well received.

We decided we have so many new members that were not with us last year that we did an encore presentation of that, and that was on November 19th.

Jeff covered Windows issues, and I believe Jeff and I talked about it, and we’re going to do it on January 15th, the week after — the Wednesday after we’re going to do the board meeting on the 8th in January because of New Year’s is the first, so we talked about that.

Okay?

Jeff’s going to do part two of Bits and Pieces of Family Tech, and that will cover mobile devices, your iOS and Android devices.

So we’ve got that, and who knows what else we’ll come up with for January.

But that is my presentations report.

We don’t have a convention report because, well, we finished 2024 business, and beginning in January, we will start cranking up ideas and things for convention 2025 in Dallas.

So we’ll start having reports — probably with the February board meeting, we’ll start having convention planning reports again.

So that’s those two for this month.

Thank you.

Cool.

So I’m going to go ahead and have you address your concern now, Brad, with the IT committee, and then we will — Well, I realize — okay.

I realize the IT committee’s been very busy, to say the least, with implementing new website, membership management software, getting things ready for the board meeting — annual meeting and voting.

So they’ve had their hands full.

But we continue to get inquiries — actually, they get my name and members write me personally.

When will this presentation be posted on the website?

Are these recorded?

Can I hear it later?

And I have no answer for them.

I want to tell them, yes, they’re on the website.

I have a team of three individuals who are experienced editors who are editing stuff, and I have trouble encouraging them to hurry because there’s no — these things aren’t that I’m aware of being posted to the website.

I have learned today from talking with Jeff that they are on the web — a lot of content’s been posted to the website.

It’s just the links aren’t there yet.

So I know — I guess it’s being worked on behind the scenes, which is good to know.

But I had gone through all this with Michael Babcock.

We had a plan.

Michael stepped down.

And we got a new chair and co-chair.

So — and I realize you guys had your hands full.

So hopefully, once all this annual meeting and voting is done, we can start making this so that it’s on the front-facing part of the website and members are able to log in and see it.

I did see some language on the website, something about presentations open to members in — in good standing, which isn’t exactly true because we do a lot of presentations that are public and available to ACB members at large.

We might want to modify that language a bit.

But other than that, that’s my concerns about presentations.

>> So this is Michael D.

And I wanted to mention — to speak to that, Brad, and say that there is now a link if you — if members go to the membership corner menu once you’ve logged in, you’ll find a new link.

I don’t remember the exact wording.

But it is where you can find content that is being uploaded on the website.

And not everything is there as of yet.

But that will slowly start trickling in.

So you’ll start to see past archives of content that has been uploaded.

And there’s already a few examples of that.

I would love to get feedback as to how that is looking, if people want things differently placed, or things like that.

So the more feedback the IT committee can get, the better.

But yes, that is starting to happen now.

And I have a person that has volunteered some time to start creating those pages.

Because that’s the thing that takes some time.

We have the file, we have the transcript.

It’s just making the post to make things look, you know, the way it should and getting that going.

So this person will be working on that in the coming week or so.

And it’s going to look really nice whenever it gets done.

>> If I could just comment, Brad, it would be really helpful.

You attended the last two weeks of the IT meeting on Sundays at 6 o’clock in the evening.

>> I’ve been to one meeting.

>> Okay.

But still, either event.

It would be really helpful if you would interact with the committee, social viewer, last Sunday with these concerns.

>> I’ll speak to my concerns during that meeting.

>> Okay.

I’m just suggesting to you that it would be helpful to have that stuff so that we’re not coming to a board meeting kind of cold foot.

And I appreciate the acknowledgment that you’re giving these hardworking people who are volunteers, you know, for the work they’re doing.

I just think that it would be helpful to come.

And if you weren’t feeling satisfied, come to me as a chair and let me troubleshoot it.

>> Well, Larry, I’ve come to the only meeting I’ve been invited to.

I voiced my concerns and I’ve received no feedback from you or anyone else on the committee.

So I went to Jeff and talked to him about it.

So anyway, and if Michael D. must have put that link up in the past few hours because it was not there earlier this afternoon.

>> Oh, interesting.

No, that was there the last two days, I believe.

I looked in the members corner and I looked on the main page and I saw nothing.

>> Okay.

>> I’ll let the client — >> I will take a look at that then.

>> Okay.

Anything else for Brad or Michael that’s pertaining to this specifically?

We’ll come back to IT later.

>> Michael, if I could, I’d like — I’ll get your contact information.

Michael D., I’ll get your contact information to Jeff.

I’m going out of town tomorrow.

I’ll be back Sunday afternoon and perhaps you and I can get together and talk a little bit because like I said, I went over a lot of stuff with Michael Babcock when he was the IT chair and perhaps I can reiterate some of my thoughts with you next week.

>> Okay.

Sounds good.

>> Okay.

Thank you.

>> Sure.

You bet.

>> So, the IT support, it is included in the packet.

I’ll let that speak for itself and for the things that have already been mentioned by Brad.

Coming up in January, we will be starting our 24-week HTML and web accessibility/WordPress course through BITS.

And we have the first half of the course already documented and fully ready to go.

And we’re working on the second half now.

I expect that I’ll actually have that completed by the end of the year because I’m taking a couple weeks off of work and I’ll have plenty of time to knock it out.

So far, the documentation is about 80, 85 pages and I expect it to be larger than that.

So, stay tuned for that.

So, unless there’s any specific questions, that’s where we are as far as education that we’ll speak about here tonight.

Any questions?

All right.

I’m going to ask Larry, who is the chair of the IT committee, along with Michael, to bring us any IT reports that were not already accounted for in the packet or items of interest.

If Diane has items to talk about in reference to budget, she will be following these two gentlemen.

So, I want to go first because I’m in a questionable cellular service area because I’m on the train heading back from Portland.

There’s an action item that we submitted in our report to you today that you were going to bring up with the board for the Scripps plug-ins and stuff.

And so, I want to bring that up to you, Jeff, so that you can talk about that.

I’m then going to defer to Michael Deuss for the majority of the report just because of my level of cellular service.

I would also invite folks, if you have feedback for the website similar to what Brad was giving us feedback, use the support@bips.edu email.

If that was one central place, if you don’t have access to the other IT membership lists, et cetera, if you use that support, we’re looking at those and we’d be happy to do the best we can with it in that respect.

So, don’t let it fester.

Come to us with the issue.

So, Jeff, I want to defer to you and then after you, Michael Deuss or however you want to do it.

Okay.

We actually have this on the agenda under new business to talk about Techopolis.

I should be back in cell service by then.

Okay.

That would be great.

Okay.

So, we will talk about it then.

Michael, I’m going to hand things over to you.

Okay.

And you can fill in any other details that you feel are pertinent.

We don’t need to go crazy, but yeah.

First thing I want to mention, the link that you’re looking for on the members corner is called BITS Members Content Hub.

And that is where I just checked.

It is there.

And that’s the link I added a few days ago.

And that is where you’ll find new content as it appears.

It is not in the main menu.

It is just a link on the page.

But I am very excited that we do have our support email address.

It can be used to send us information and track tickets and things like that.

We’re also using Microsoft Office for our email.

So, everything is a lot more streamlined.

We’re working very diligently as the IT committee to streamline things.

Everything has its hiccups.

But the key here, guys, we’re a technology affiliate.

And so, we’re trying to strive for excellence as far as our technology and our IT.

So, there’s going to be growing pains with everything that we do as an affiliate and as a group.

So, I would just beg your patience for all of this.

And I think once we get some things ironed out, it will be worth what we’re doing.

That’s really all I have is those are some new things.

And the content, I think, is going to look great.

I’m working on some new images for that as well.

But I wanted to make sure we started getting content up.

So, I think it looks pretty awesome.

And we have a lot of great things.

So, that’s where we are there.

Any questions for Michael?

This is Brad.

Yep.

Member content hub isn’t real clear.

We’ll talk about, I’d like to talk about labeling that differently.

So, no mistake that it has to do with presentations and recordings of board meetings.

Like I said, I looked at it this afternoon and it certainly didn’t stand out to me.

So, we’ll talk about that.

I appreciate you letting me know about that.

The thing is there, that was the page that was created before I came on board.

That was the title that I went with.

And again, I think it’s one of those things that things just have to be done.

We could change them as the board sees fit.

I appreciate the information.

Thank you.

Anything else?

All right.

And Michael and Larry will be back to talk about Techopolis and when we talk about new business.

Diane, do you have anything to talk about in reference to the budget?

I don’t remember.

Did I?

Because I know I wrote it up, but I don’t remember if I sent it.

I don’t remember if I sent it to you or not.

Do we want to defer that until January and vote on it there?

Yeah.

Okay, fine.

Okay.

Robin, if you can make a note of that, we’ll make sure it’s in the agenda.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Anne, you’re next.

I submitted my report, so it is there.

We did meet in November.

We’re going to meet again in December.

If anyone is interested in joining this committee, let us know.

We will welcome you.

There’s a lot of exciting things I think that are going to be coming from the committee.

And so just hold on to your seats and wait for 2025 to hear some of the exciting ideas that we want to put forth.

We’re looking at expanding the product line and we’re looking at various avenues to have fundraising events occur.

So we hope everybody will get on board with us and ride this train and have fun with the fundraising activities that we’re going to present or suggest or recommend.

Just wanted to remind you this is the gift giving time.

And don’t forget, we have the blind girls design that has the logo specific items on it, as well as the tasty treats you can give from Terry land as gifts.

And unless you have any questions, that is my report.

I see Jeff, you’ve got some things from us under new business, so I’ll wait to them for that.

All right.

Amazing.

Any questions?

All right.

John, are you in a position where you can give a report or would you prefer to defer to your report that was submitted?

Yes, I think so.

She’s setting up an IV here, so as luck would have it.

But my reports are pretty quick.

I’ll do the bylaws first.

I’ll just say that since we have a draft circulated in half of the past 40 or 50 days, the only — and I’ll probably be the one to make this motion as a committee member, and I’ll post it before.

You know, we had a grace period.

Your memberships technically expire on New Year’s Eve, you know, the closing of New Year’s Eve.

And we were giving a grace period because I didn’t want to sit there on January 1st deleting everybody.

And we had that in the draft that went out to March 31st.

But it was suggested that we bring it forward to February 15th.

That can be voted on in the meeting.

But the thing itself, the constitutional amendment itself obviously needs to go to a vote with that amendment if it passes, without it if it doesn’t.

And the only other thing I want to say is that I am doing — we have 926.

I’m going to take the roster as it was published, and through the joy of everything that David taught me, I’m going to just put the last names, clip it, put it into another worksheet, and put stars next to the 200 or so that have done their Zoom registrations.

And we just sort on that.

Sort on the stars and everyone who doesn’t have the star.

This is really giving — for me to give Robin a definitive list, you know.

>> Okay.

>> Before the meeting as required by the D.C. statute.

>> There you go.

>> Okay.

Any questions?

So I can turn this off and get attended to.

I’ll be listening.

>> Okay.

And I think your membership data speaks for itself.

I think we’re in pretty good shape there.

>> Pretty awesome.

>> Yeah.

It’s pretty cool. >> 37 members from the last annual meeting to today, and who knows, some people may come in in the next week, and 34 through the entire tenure of the program from July of ’17 to, you know, the end of last year.

What does that tell you?

And a lot of these folks were moratorium onlys.

I can’t give you an exact figure, but a lot of those folks were moratorium onlys.

>> Yeah.

>> Pretty exciting, people.

>> Okay.

I’m going to mute myself.

>> All right.

Take care of yourself, John.

>> But I’m listening.

Yeah, I’m listening if you need me.

>> All right.

I want to at least offer the opportunity for Debbie to speak on nominating.

We’ve already kind of mentioned what was — what she brought forward.

But, Debbie, do you have anything additional to bring forward?

>> Just that if you are — I did send out a couple of things saying if you’re wanting — if you’re planning on running from the floor, I know of a couple of people that are, and you want to participate in the candidates forum.

I am meeting with Amanda tomorrow, and they work next gen, have a pretty structured outline.

And so it’s — and I think they make it so that it will fit into an hour.

So now we won’t be taking more questions or we won’t be — I mean, unless anybody lets me know anything exactly tonight, we have what we’re going to work with in terms of people that are going to run from the floor and any questions that are going to be used.

And their outline already has some really good questions in it.

So it’s going to be very well structured, but it’s going to be professional and real up — really neat.

It’s kind of got an upswing feel to it.

So I’m excited.

We’ll be Sunday at 8 p.m.

Eastern.

>> Yep.

Be there.

Be square.

>> And we’ll be sending out the Zoom info pretty soon.

Probably send it out that day again as well.

>> Yay.

>> Yeah.

>> Good job.

>> Okay.

And then we — and so for the candidates, for the voting, is it still going to be always just between two for the ballot?

Is that how that’s going to go?

>> Well, there’s changes happening in the — John, you might want to speak to this, but there are changes happening in the Constitution, but that has to be adopted.

So we’re going to have to go based on the rules that we have.

And we as a board need to figure that out as far as how we’re going to handle the ballot.

John, can I ask you a question?

Is it appropriate?

Or are you tied up?

>> We’re saddled with the laws we got for this, you know, but going forward it won’t be a problem.

So we will have to do runoffs because the new Constitution can only become effective, you know, at the close of the meeting.

>> So in other words, we’re going to only run the ballot up to the point at which we have — just like we do with national, correct?

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

>> Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

>> But we have to do runoffs.

We can’t do — >> Yes, exactly.

>> It would only be directors being done by slate anyway, I think.

Yeah.

>> Yes, that’s right.

That’s right.

>> Okay.

>> So, yes, this is the only year that we’re going to have to deal with this, at least for the entire slate.

So, yeah.

>> Okay.

And I know that provisional position comes up after the Constitution.

>> Correct.

Correct.

>> Okay.

Very good.

>> Very good.

Amazing.

Thank you.

>> All right.

We are ready for old business, and the only thing I have under here to keep things light tonight is the annual meeting.

I will be working with the board to finalize our agenda for next week.

I’ve already sent out a preliminary agenda to them.

I need to add a little bit more clarity on when we’re giving away the six prizes that we’re going to be handing out during the meeting.

So we’ll work on that, and there’s a couple other little minor things in reference to reports and things that we want to make sure people have an opportunity to give during the meeting.

So other than that, I think we’re all set, unless the board has any specific questions that they want to have addressed now.

>> Yeah, I do have a question.

>> Uh-huh.

>> Am I going to — because I haven’t heard a lot about this yet.

Am I going to need to order any Amazon — although I think we waited on those until we knew who the winner was.

>> That’s correct.

That’s right.

>> So is there anything that I need to order or anything before — >> Nope.

Nope.

>> Okay.

>> You just need to have random.org ready.

>> Yeah, I will.

>> All right.

Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> All right.

Okay.

Anything else for anyone?

Okay.

I put a bunch of stuff under new business, and I’m fine handling it all tonight, unless the board has a very strong feeling that we should wait until the new board is elected.

So let’s start, and we will see where we end up.

But there’s — oh, I don’t know, seven or eight things listed here.

I would like to first hand things over to Ann.

She has some fundraising questions in reference to board representation.

So, Ann, do you want me to sort of introduce this, and then we can handle it, or how do you want to deal with that?

>> You can go ahead and introduce it, because I think it was kind of briefly talked about at a — >> Sure, sure.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

They want to make sure they have board representation at the fundraising committee meetings, and I recommended that we ask our treasurer to serve in that role, since it is financially related.

And I’m wondering if, Diane, you’d be willing to do that.

>> Yes.

Yes, I absolutely would.

I said I’ve gone through a long period of not knowing whether I was actually — am I on the committee, or — >> Well, you are now.

>> Yeah, okay.

All right.

It’s good to know that.

>> Okay, so that will be your official representation from the board, Ann.

I will probably be attending when I can, but Diane will be your official go-to resource, and we’ll make sure that she gets on the list, okay?

I’ll get that done after the meeting tonight.

>> Okay.

>> Unless someone can beat me to it.

Actually, Merv, can you add Diane to the fundraising list, please?

There, see?

There you are.

I believe you have ability to modify those.

>> If I have permission to modify it, I can do it.

>> Yeah, I believe you do.

If not, email me, and I’ll make sure you do have it.

>> Okay.

>> But I believe you do.

I believe you have main access, so — >> I do.

I do have main access.

So you want me to put Diane on fundraising?

>> Yes, sir.

>> Then I will.

>> Thank you, sir.

See?

I love efficiency.

I would now like to — we already talked about this one, the giving out membership data to Rosanna.

So we’re going to talk about that now.

Can we — there are two items — there’s a few items under here in reference to awards.

I don’t know that we need to tackle all of these tonight, but I wanted to make two recommendations, and I was wondering if the board was willing to entertain these.

And, yes, I did skip the IT issue to make sure that Larry is back in time.

We’ll come back to it.

There has been some interest in a volunteer appreciation award, which is really more of just a, hey, thank you for serving sort of a, you know, recognition sort of thing.

And we maybe even write something up and include it in the newsletter or we include it in the weekly, you know, newsletter or something.

We can figure that out later.

Does anyone on the board have a — and we can set up the infrastructure to allow people to nominate and vote for people that they would like to be, you know, just like they kind of do with the community, right?

They do this every month in the community.

Yeah.

So does anyone have any objections to this moving forward?

>> No.

>> Jeff?

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

Go ahead, John.

>> Robin, you can go first.

>> I do have reservations.

I was just wondering, well, two things.

If we could, A, talk about this more in January perhaps.

If not, I can talk about it now.

>> Unless it’s really in depth, we can do it now.

It’s fine.

>> I just think that BITS as a whole is a volunteer-driven organization.

And sometimes when we start handing out awards in appreciation from the outside looking in, it can sometimes resemble a popularity contest.

>> Sure.

>> I just think there are other ways we could expend energy to find, to create perks and other rewards for membership as opposed to this.

>> Well, so let me bring up the second idea because this might address your concern, Robin.

We have a lot of very talented people in this organization who either are developers or who have very creative ideas.

I don’t want to limit this to people who write code because that’s not fair.

And maybe this would facilitate the need here, Robin, which is like a quarterly innovation award where we recognize someone who has gone above and beyond for the organization in whatever they’re doing.

It would have to be something that was tangible and that we would recognize.

For example, if someone wrote a tool and posted it on the website or someone volunteered and went the extra mile to do X amount of things or those types of things.

And since that would be given out quarterly, I would like to suggest that we would recognize them by renewing their membership for the following year.

Maybe that’s how we do it.

>> I’m okay.

>> Go ahead, Robin.

>> No, I have less reservations about this than simply just a volunteer appreciation award.

Because it is based on something a bit more tangible.

>> Okay.

And we can work on exactly what that looks like next year as far as like how that’s represented and all of those things, right?

Okay.

John, did you have a comment?

>> Yeah.

First of all, Robin and I have had quite a number of back channel mastodon communications on this subject.

So I’m really echoing what Robin has said, which means I won’t speak for very long because we don’t need an endless echo.

I do like quarterly and I do like that it would be tangible.

You know, that’s important to guard against it being a popularity contest.

>> Yeah, I like that.

>> You know, I don’t get an award for doing a truly phenomenal job of doing membership tracking because that’s what I signed on to do.

>> No kidding, right?

>> Or for being your legal eagle.

But I wouldn’t even be comfortable accepting an award for that.

That’s what I signed on for.

That’s my de facto role.

>> I agree.

Yes, yes, I agree.

>> So let’s put more meat on those bones and pick it up in January.

>> Yeah, let’s do that.

Let’s do that.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

Great.

Go ahead, David.

>> The only thing is if a life member gets that award, then extending their membership for a year wouldn’t work very well.

>> Yeah.

Well, let’s iron out all these details next year.

But I want to at least get it on the table in reference to the thought and we’ll figure out all the mechanics of it.

We can talk about it on the board list and sort of hammer out some ideas.

You know, I’d like to get some creativeness around it.

And you know what?

If it takes a couple of months to figure out, so be it.

It’s fine.

We don’t have to — this doesn’t have to be solved tomorrow.

Okay.

Cool.

Okay.

Larry, are you back?

>> I’m back in cellular service.

So basically, Jeff, I want to have you talk a little bit about the plug-ins that we are interested in getting, if you would.

And what I would like to do is — I want to just full disclosure, Michael Doyce is the owner of the company.

We are using some of his material, some of which we’ve been paying for and should be paying for, because it goes beyond volunteerism.

It actually is buying into his propriety products that he would sell as a company.

And so I wanted to come to the board and I talked to Jeff about it, so that Michael was having someone else make the decision rather than me making it and then the committee making it.

So that’s where I’ve got.

And Jeff, I defer to you on it.

>> Okay.

Let me just — and I’m going to ask Michael to speak to it, and he can speak to the financial ask here and what the commitment is and all of that.

And then we can vote on it as a board as to whether or not we wish to do that or not.

I moved out of the computer room because my wife is printing on the 3D printer.

And it’s noisy.

So sorry about that, everybody.

Okay.

I just wanted to say that this is not just a plan of just utilizing plug-ins.

There’s a lot of accessibility consulting and work that goes on behind the scenes in reference to the infrastructure of the BITS website.

Even though a lot of that is now handled by WordPress itself, there’s still quite a bit of things that we need to make sure that we’re keeping on top of, which is garnered by the IT committee.

But there’s a good portion of the staff of the IT committee that is also involved in the IT committee.

And so we’re going to be talking about that.

And then we’re going to be talking about the work that’s happening above and beyond in reference to the work that happens, you know, as far as infrastructure.

And we’ll talk more about that in just a minute.

And that would all encompass this as well.

So just don’t think it’s that we’re going to pay, you know, $25 a month or, you know, whatever the charges might be for magic links, right.

It’s way above and beyond that.

Absolutely.

So, and going back to that 3D printer stuff, I think BITS, I think we should have a class on this.

My printer comes on Monday.

So if they don’t delay it again, I got the same printer Jeff did.

So I’m really excited to get that.

Yeah, it’s my fault, I know.

Yeah, yeah.

You made me spend money.

So because Jeff made me spend money, I’m asking you guys to spend money.

Wow.

Anyway, just figured I’d throw that in there.

So what Techopolis is, is we build community through technology.

And we have a product, a set of products that are WordPress plugins, accessibility services, training.

And as I sent that is in the board packet that Jeff included is a list of services that are provided under the Techopolis all access plan.

And that is WordPress plugins.

And just, it doesn’t mean just the magic links.

It means artificial intelligence where you can, we can use AI to do things with WordPress.

It means adding a potential chat bot to the website.

It means being able to do different submission forms.

We have plugins that are used at iAccessibility.net for app directories and other things that can be coming in the future.

It means that if bits would like to use it, we have a training platform that can help with course creation.

It means that we have accessibility services.

So if a website with bits and need, if we need to do some auditing and remediation because of a change, somebody made, we can do that or help the organization in those areas that is included as well.

It also means I told Jeff, you know, we have the expertise and the talent to build a mobile app and we can do that as well through this as well.

Building a bits, an iOS app.

You know, we can entertain an Android app, but we’ve had some troubles there, but all of those things can be discussed.

And you normally charge what?

A thousand dollars for an app, right?

Is that what you normally charge for an app?

Yes, normally $1,200 for an app.

Right.

So in other words, this would roll into the all access plan, right?

Yes, this would roll into all access.

And what are the prices again, Michael?

Sure.

So that is typically $25 a month.

We’re doing a holiday sale right now.

It’s usually 50 for nonprofit.

And right now it’s 25 or 270 a year is the pricing at this point.

Right.

So it tells you you get $30 off and you pay it annually, right?

Yes.

Okay.

But that’s for one year.

Is that correct?

And then the price would go up because no, no, your rate would not change.

The rate locks.

So you would have to pay a little bit more.

Yeah.

The economy requires you to increase costs.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s just business, but yes.

Yeah.

But, but I would, I would make sure the bits keeps the same rate no matter what.

Okay.

So that’s the proposal.

Michael is just reporting on the financial part of it.

And so I would like to ask the board to.

Consider this.

I would like to.

And I would like the board to.

If we’re at all interested in doing this, we pay for it annually.

I mean, financially, I think that makes better sense.

Oh, and it’s easier for.

Keeping track of too.

Yeah.

I will then move that we commit to the plan is outlined in the packet at a cost of two 70 a year.

So we have a second.

So I’m sorry.

Two 70 or two seven zero.

Two seven.

Wow.

Okay.

We can get it at the discounted price right now.

Yeah.

Cause it’s 25 times 12, which is 300.

It’s okay.

Cool. $30 off of that.

If you pay the annually.

Okay.

David, you had some questions.

Yes.

I want to mention first, I am in favor of this.

I’m not a firm believer in the fact that.

The people that I’m involved with.

Specifically have language that says they don’t pay employees.

However, I’m a firm believer and you get what you pay for.

If somebody gives you something for free.

That may not be available if you get it for free.

So.

We do need to be careful because another.

Another accountant.

I think that’s a good idea.

I’m going to use full disclosure here.

One of the things, and I hope that this is acceptable, but one of the things that as you’re building a company, having a portfolio is key.

It’s essential.

We are a membership organization, and people will get to see what we’re capable of.

Plus, along with it being volunteer, all of these things balance each other out in my book.

That’s why I want to extend this offer two bits for a little bit extra work so that we can make something great with this organization and its technology.

I appreciate that.

I just wanted to bring that concern up because it is– I appreciate that. –I’d hate for us to rely on you, and then something happened, and you can’t provide those services.

No, no.

And then my last question, you might have missed it because I had to step away or you might have mentioned it because I had to step away for a minute.

These are, for clarification, on top of what PMP, paid membership would cost as well, correct?

Correct.

Copy that.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Yeah, tech is in here doing stuff.

But I just thought perhaps we should just add, since this is a contract that can be terminated by either party at the end of the term, we’re really not committing to anything.

So that should be–Robin, can we include that in the motion?

That really covers us.

I do not anticipate any of us invoking it.

I don’t foresee any issue.

But let that–since it’s kind of an offer by Mike’s company and an acceptance by us, that should be in there.

Okay.

All right.

And we can correct it if we need to add more language to it.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Very good, John.

All right.

Your tech is there.

Oh, boy.

Sounds like he’s going to get drugs.

Okay.

For anybody who’s listening, he’s in the hospital.

So, yeah, he’s okay.

That could have come across badly.

Okay.

We have any more discussion before we vote?

All right.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Very good.

I have one last item, and I’m going to ask Michael B. to speak to this.

But we have a bunch of members, more than we probably realize, honestly, who really could use assistance from this organization who either do not have email or who do not wish to email or who do not wish to participate in the organization via that method, or they need to be able to describe something verbally.

But basically what this is coming down to is it would be great to be able to set up an IVR, basically call a number and get a menu of choices, where you can leave messages for specific people in the organization, and then we can get all of that configured.

And then we can have people get routed to the appropriate email addresses that we wish to have them route to, and we can get all of that configured.

And then individuals could then, from the organization, call those people back and handle any issues or reach out to the individuals.

And we have at least best effort help desk type service that we can get some people to help facilitate and allow people to get answers for any technical issues or any issues for that matter.

So I asked Michael B. to put together some brief cost proposals here on this.

It truly will be very, very minimal because we’re not calling out with this.

It’s strictly a call in, leave voicemail, the voicemail gets routed, it doesn’t get translated into a transcription.

You simply get a recording and you deal with whatever the recording says.

So I think that fully explains it.

Michael, feel free to expound upon anything else that you feel is pertinent.

Yeah, so in summary, first of all, I’ve been doing this for a couple of organizations, at least I’ve helped them with getting it set up.

So what we’re looking for potentially when it comes to costs of a service like this is a couple of different avenues.

Jeff has kind of explained what it would look like.

We’ve set this up as an information voicemail line for the southwestern chapter of the American Council of the Bind of Oregon.

And so we can provide information in an audio format and we also can give those voicemail boxes per what Jeff was talking about.

I was procrastinating there for a second while I found my notes here.

So FOIP.ms or VOIP.ms is a service that provides phone numbers for $0.85 a month.

That’s an incoming phone number and you can configure it to be outgoing.

That does put you on the pay per minute plan.

Currently, the current price of minutes is $0.0052 per minute for incoming calls.

I’m sorry, that’s for outgoing calls.

For incoming calls, you’re looking at $0.009 per minute.

That’s for a local-based phone number.

If you’re looking for a toll-free phone number, it would be about 90 — it is $0.95 per month and the incoming calls is $0.027 per minute.

And then you have — That’s $0.03 a minute, right?

Yep.

And then you have that standard outgoing rate is what you would pay, the $0.0057 per minute.

And that is two zeros between that, which for me took a little bit for me to wrap my mind around, because I’m like, wait, that’s too many zeros.

But it is $0.0057 per minute for outgoing calls.

Now, that being said, however — and I said 5-7, I meant 5-2, I apologize.

That being said, however, I did reach out to the IT committee about the cost of the ticketing system.

And I did reach out to the IT committee about the cost of the ticketing system.

>> I’m going to second.

And then I have a question.

>> Thank you, David.

>> I’ve used VoIP.ms.

It was recommended to me by a good friend of mine who is no longer with us.

But that’s a different story.

And so I do think that’s a good solution.

In addition, we can connect software to or hardware to the service so we can actually do the same thing.

So I think that’s a good solution.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

>> I’m going to second.

>> Thank you.

It’s rare nowadays.

I mean, unless somebody has got an old landline phone, it’s rare that somebody’s going to have long-distance charges incurred.

And I don’t know what, you know, we can’t cater to absolute everything.

I agree, but I think it’s worth at least looking.

And if it’s only like a $20 difference, I think it’s a no-brainer, right?

What, for an 800 number?

Yeah.

Yeah, if we could find one for only $20 a year, yeah.

Yeah, or even 50.

I mean, if it’s like, if it’s really, really minimal, do you think it would be minimal, Michael?

Well, again, it’s only 99 cents a month just to have the number.

We’re not going to have that number of how much it’s going to actually cost us until our members start to use it.

And the thing about it is, is if we as a board pass the motion that’s currently on the floor of $100, and we get through June and we’re like, “Oh man, we’ve spent $20,” then we’ll have that information to make a decision on what we need to do.

Or if we’re like, “Oh no, we’re $80 and we’re in June,” then again, we can readdress this.

I think $100 is a good starting point.

But my question to you, Michael, is, do you think that, what is the per minute rate for the 800 number?

The per minute rate for the 800 number is…

For incoming.

Yep, for incoming calls is $0.027 per minute.

So it’s three cents.

As opposed to it being zero, zero something.

Zero, zero, five, two.

Oh, that’s the outgoing.

At 100…

No, that was incoming call.

Hold on one second.

You’re right.

So zero, zero, five, two is outgoing, and 0.009 is incoming for a local number.

So one second…

0.009 versus 0.027.

So in other words, it’s two seconds, it’s two cents more per minute.

Yep.

Are we willing to pay two cents more for an 800 number?

That’s the question, per minute.

Well, you know, if you start working with someone on a technological problem, those minutes, I think, could potentially…

No, no, no, no, but that would be you calling them.

In other words, that would be you calling them.

Oh, that would be…

And we just use our own service.

Yeah, use your own, yeah.

Cell service.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is people calling and leaving a message for us.

Or listening to a report, like the board minutes or a newsletter or presidential reports or whatever that we decide to put up there.

Go ahead.

Yes.

I had a question.

Yeah?

John did.

John?

Yeah, okay.

To whoever will be working on this, several years back, there’s been quite a few now, and the name did come to my mind.

I forget the name of his company, but if you look up Bill, B-I-L-L, Quimby, Q-U-I-M-B-Y, he does a lot with 800 numbers.

I don’t know anything about his prices, but just remember that name and explore that avenue.

It may go nowhere, but I’m giving you a starting point, at least on the toll-free side.

Okay.

I found him right here.

Tollfreenumbers.com.

Tollfreenumbers.com, yeah, okay.

Can I throw a comment out?

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

With the Washington organization, we’re using a service that is basically VOIP.

It’s not like VOIP.ms, and they have a weird way of billing, and we’re getting something like $400 a month, if not $800 a month, on toll-free numbers due to spam, and we don’t want to see that.

Okay, so we’re not going to do an 800 number.

Well, I think their prices are higher, but they don’t break it down in a way that we can grab.

I know, but I didn’t even think about the spam thing.

Yeah, 800 number’s going to be more likely to be spammed as well, so thank you for bringing that up, David.

Yeah, let’s not do 800 number.

When I can get the motion passes is I can explore that vanity number.

Yeah, if we have spam, I’m totally on board, the heck with it.

Yeah, the heck with it.

It’s not worth the risk.

Yeah, good point.

Very good point.

Thanks for raising it.

Okay, very good, David.

That was amazing.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Wow.

That helps a lot.

That’s the beauty of meetings.

Everyone has an idea.

Yeah, I just say, let’s see what kind of feedback we get and see how this works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let’s see how this goes.

Best project.

We can always add later.

Okay, so we have a motion on the table.

It’s been seconded.

Any other discussion before we vote?

This is the last item of business for tonight, by the way, except for taking questions from the public.

I know it wasn’t part of the motion, I don’t think, Jeff, but I would please ask the committee, get bits.

That’s a great number.

Yes, yes, yes.

It’s much more likely that I’d like that to be sort of part of the motion if it can be gotten.

And there’s much more likelihood of that now that we could just about do any area code.

I love that.

Maybe not a Canadian code, but I wouldn’t worry about that.

Holy smokes.

Okay.

I love that.

It would roll off the tongue real easily when you’re giving an audience presentation.

Get bits.

Any other comments before we vote?

It sounds awesome to me.

Excellent.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Amazing.

Okay.

Now time to call out for any comments, questions, concerns, constructive feedback, any feedback whatsoever from the general public.

All right.

We will go to Jamaica.

Hello, everybody.

I wanted to ask you, did you ever think about the — to work about the scholarships that we were going to try to do?

And if that is going to happen, I’d like to be a part of that.

Part of that.

It’s on the agenda for tonight, but we’re going to postpone that until the new board is consolidated.

But it’s going to be definitely an item of discussion in January.

Okay.

All right.

And we’ll formulate a committee and we’ll get working on it.

Okay?

Thank you.

Yep.

Jeff, that brings me to an idea.

Unless there’s somebody else to speak, I had something that I thought was going to be on the agenda.

Okay.

Go ahead, David.

What does the board think of end of the year special promo to reduce the cost of its membership?

Something like either the last few days of the year, just before Christmas or something like that.

Is it a bad idea or is it something we could consider?

Jeff?

Yep.

I — as far as promotions like this, I would — we can anytime past the beginning of the new year, we can modify our due schedule.

We’re mandated to produce a due schedule no later than the 15th, but it can be much earlier than that.

Right, right, right, right, right.

I would not like to do anything along those lines without laying a predicate by putting something in the preamble of the due schedule, say the BITS board may at its discretion from time to time offer promotional — offer promotions affecting dues.

Without that in the policy — Yep.

Agreed.

Without that in the due schedule, I am opposed to doing anything with — Would you consider that friendly for the Constitution?

I don’t think it needs to be in the Constitution.

Okay.

Where it needs — the Constitution as it presently exists, courtesy of the amendments we passed in 2023, and it’s incorporated slightly differently in — or maybe the whole integrated in the 2024 proposed bylaws, talks about the due schedule.

So what it would be — the due schedule would indicate that we reserve the right or may from time to time do dues promotions.

I wouldn’t want to do anything until that predicate is laid.

I would like to postpone this until January with the new board and discuss it there, unless there’s an objection.

That would be my preference as well.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Great.

Any other — thank you, David.

Any other comments or questions, concerns, constructive feedback from the membership?

We have no participant questions.

Very good.

The only other item of business that I have is to announce that next month’s board meeting — I really, really don’t think people want to be here on January 1st, do you?

No.

Okay.

No.

Okay.

Just checking.

I don’t want to be swiping people off the membership rolls who haven’t paid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which isn’t going to happen anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So I would propose that we move the meeting to January 8th, unless there’s an objection.

It’s a more space for a Wednesday night chat.

I’m sorry?

Brad said it’s reasonable, and I said it’s a good idea for a Wednesday night chat.

All right.

Very good.

Okay.

Any other business that needs to be brought before the organization?

David can have chat on January 1st.

He may.

We could.

Yes, we could.

Wide open.

Didn’t even think about that.

That’s right.

Okay.

Can I get a motion to adjourn?

I move.

Pamela just raised her hand.

Yeah.

In under the wire.

Wow.

I kind of know the wire just in there.

Man, you were so close.

Yeah.

What’s up?

Is it my understanding that.

That.

The discretion to do chats is left up to the zoom.

That is correct.

President, you know, the president of the zoom committee.

Or is it.

Is it up to the board as to how.

Often the chats are held.

I know there was some discussion in the chat on Saturday.

Having to do with.

Conceivably more chats.

I’m wondering.

What the board’s feeling is about that.

I think what I would like to do there is I would like the committee to come back with a proposal.

And honestly, I don’t even think the board has to approve it.

If, if, if we have enough people who wish to host.

And there is ample interest by the.

The membership.

To do it.

Then we can have as many as we want.

As far as I’m concerned.

I think that’s the best way to go.

No, I get that.

I totally get that.

Yeah, Brad, go ahead.

We have presentations and other events during the week.

Holidays are one thing, but I mean, right now we’re doing.

Friday and Saturday.

You know, Sunday is Sunday, but, you know, I don’t see where there’s time during the week.

For this, we have education on Monday.

We have presentations.

And we have.

We have.

Beyond beyond expanding it for holidays.

I just don’t see that.

It.

Realistic.

I agree.

Okay.

How much participation do you get?

And the participation and the.

Other things that are during.

These are.

Events.

We’re not going to sacrifice.

Presentation.

So we can just have random chat.

I get it.

I get that.

Okay.

How much participation within.

The membership.

Do you get.

For your presentations outside.

Or are they a part of the community?

Well, they’re both.

If I can comment.

This last Sunday is a perfect example.

I asked Jeff when the request came in, is it, is it possible to have a Sunday chat?

I think it was this last Sunday.

Yeah, it was.

And he said.

Yeah, there’s nothing going on.

If there’s something going on, it’s off limits.

We couldn’t do it.

So Monday’s.

Actually, there was something going on.

There was the ACB holiday.

There was.

Yeah.

But I realized that people had a choice and there’s a lot of people that.

Aren’t interested.

So, you know, there was, there was no.

There was no, there wasn’t really a conflict in my mind, but I just.

That’s the first thing I thought.

You know, but then I thought, well, you know what?

People should have a choice.

Yeah.

And if someone’s, if we’re using the meeting room.

It’s not going to happen on Monday nights when I have class.

It’s not going to happen.

Well, Here’s what I’m going to recommend.

If the community as a whole has.

Significant interest in doing this and they can come up and justify it.

And they can talk to the zoom committee.

And if the zoom committee wishes to come to the board with a proposal, then I’m all for it.

As it stands right now, I think we have enough on our plate to get through during the week.

That.

I know that I probably wouldn’t be participating during the week.

I mean, I’m working 40, 50, 60 hours a week.

Plus bits stuff.

Plus.

More to publications.

Plus.

You know, I keep going, you know, breathing, sleeping.

Eating.

I get it, Jeff.

I was just curious as to how that was going to be handled.

Yeah.

I mean, I’m never going to say never, but I.

I think there’s a lot more things to prioritize at the moment.

No, I get it.

I totally get it.

As far as your 800 number thing.

What is to stop someone?

I know.

Bill Sparks.

Bill Sparks uses an 800 number for his voicemails.

What is to stop someone from doing something like that?

That would allow.

The voicemail that that would be left.

To go to an email box.

That’s what I do.

But the sense you can listen to recordings.

You can get done there for a while.

I think that’s a good point.

Thank you.

Bye.

Thanks, everybody.

AI Generated Transcript

Related

Discover more from Blind Information Technology Solutions