BITS Board Meeting for February 5, 2025

AI Generated Transcript

All right. Good evening, everyone. And welcome to the Blind Information Technology Specialist board meeting for February. Today is February 5th, 2025. And we’re here to conduct the business of the organization. I’m Jeff Bishop, president of BITS. And around us, around the virtual table here, we have all of our board members and members alike. So welcome, everyone. It’s been a long week already. Okay. I’m going to hand things over to Robin, who’s going to call the roll. Good evening, everyone. President Jeff Bishop. Here. Vice President Brad Snyder. I’m here. Secretary Robin Frost. I’m here and happy to be so. Treasurer Diane Scalzi. Here. Michael Babcock. I am here. John McCann here David Edick I’m here and Mervyn Keck he’s here here there he is we would also like to welcome I’m dating myself with that reference I’m sorry yeah yes you are jeez we’d also like to welcome all of our members and friends who have chosen to be with us this evening this evening. Those of you whose display name displays properly in Zoom as opposed to numbers will be recognized individually by name in the written minutes of this meeting. And with that, Mr. President, the call of the roll is complete. Thank you, Madam Secretary, as usual. All right, let’s see. So I have distributed the agenda as well as the board packet with all committee reports which have been sent in to us for distribution and uh i will let people review that that was sent so unless anyone has an objection i would like to ask someone to move the adoption of the agenda i’ll move adoption that’s circulated and the consent agenda killing two birds with one stone okay all those in favor any opposed let’s move to uh diane right we’re at number five are we not robin no minutes minutes oh minutes thank you yes gosh darn i did that last time too didn’t i oh my gosh what is wrong with me tonight okay i’m blaming the computer you can just blame that on okay uh yes uh robin take it away okay well before we ask for anybody to approve the minutes Hopefully they will. Just a moment of personal privilege, if I may, for some secretarial minutia that no one cares about besides me. But just mentioning it so that the chairs who it may impact will know. The IT committee did request of me the bylaws as ratified, and I did provide that. I also took the liberty of adding heading levels one, two and three for easier navigation. So I hope the chair of the bylaws committee doesn’t mind. And OK. And the other thing is for the IT committee, I did take the liberty of renaming the minutes files from 2024 to the present so that they would reflect not just board meeting minutes, but board meeting minutes and reports packet to more accurately reflect what they contain. So I hope that won’t bother anybody. and they are located in our secret file location. I’ll be quiet now. Thank you. Any sort of organization is amazingly great, by the way. So don’t even ask. Just, you know, it’s amazing. All right. Can I get someone to approve the, to at least move the adoption of our minutes? I move to approve. A second. Any discussion? Very good. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. In your post. Thank you. All right. Diane. And I’m sorry. You know, what’s funny about that is I was reading number five and it actually did say your name, Robin, but I got a little ahead of myself. See, it’s all computer fault. See, I’m going to Visual Studio Code. That’s what I’m going to say. Oh, okay. Okay, good. All right. Go ahead, Diane. Okay. First of all, a couple things. I have them in the report, but one thing that happened was that our Zoom subscription reverted to one year. So the report’s going to show the one year, and it’s not going to show up again until January of 2026. What else do I have for you? Oh, there are a lot of footnotes in this report. There are a lot of, we had quite a few overpayments this last time. So, you know, I’ve reflected those in the report. And I’m wondering if there’s something we can do. And I forgot to contact you about the agenda, but perhaps maybe I can mention it under new business. Sure. Yeah. yeah i i want to i want to try to make it so that people it won’t be so easy for people to overpay and i i have a suggestion on how to do that so i’d like to bring it up you know yeah bring it up we’ll discuss it okay um we’ll see if we can make it happen or not yeah okay right other than that Oh, I’ve been working on the Dropbox files, and I have set up a folder in the Bits Treasurer’s folder called Invoices and Receipts. And I’m trying to pull out, a lot of them are in my own inbox. I’m trying to pull those out and copy them to this invoices and receipts folder. And as I get new ones, I’ll just move them in there. And so one of the things that I was able to accomplish was to put all of the Zoom subscription payments that we had last year into a Zoom folder. We can probably put other Zoom stuff in there too. And I’m continuing to work on that. I don’t know how long it will take me to finish it, but I’m trying to go as fast as I can with it. No worries. Other than that, I think I’ve covered everything except for the Treasurer’s Report. And, you know, we will be bringing out our investment. Yeah. Ready to play whenever Diane says go. Go, here we go. Bits Treasurer’s Report, January 1st, 31st, 2025. Checking. Beginning balance, $44,054.19. Credits. Three regular member dues payments, $60. Stripe deposit, $4,987.55. Total credits, $5,047.55. Debits. Zoom yearly subscription slash 500 participants minus $211.89. Groups.io yearly subscription minus $220. SendWP subscription for web email minus $9. Dropbox slash 2 terabyte storage one year minus $119.88. Total debit minus $560.77. Ending balance $48,540.97. PayPal. Beginning balance $595.94. Credits. 40 regular member dues payments $800. Asterisk 2. 4BitsLife members dues payments $1,000. Asterisk 3. 1 international gift membership payment $200. 8 international member dues payments $170. Asterisk 4. Total credits, $2,170. Debits, PayPal fees, minus $72.84. Asterisk 4. Transfer to minus $2,678.10. Asterisk 5. Reimbursement to Michael Babcock for 6-1 GitBit 6 credits, minus $15. Total debits, minus $2,765.94. Ending balance, $0.00. Stripe, December 25, 2024, January 24, 2025. Beginning balance, $0.00. Credits, amount collected, less stripe fees, $5,018.44 Total Credits $5,018.44 Debits Bank Deposit -$4,987.55 One Refund -$10 Fees -$20.89 Total Debits -$5,018.44 Ending balance $0.00 Savings account Total for all accounts $85,672.60 Asterisk 1. Four members overpaid by $20 each. Memberships extended one year and increased number of regular member dues payments in this report to 40. Asterisk 2. One member overpaid by $200. Asterisk 3. One member overpaid by $10. Asterisk 4. For information on PayPal fees, visit https://www.paypal.com/.us/.webapps/.mpp/.paypal-fees. Asterisk 5. Will appear in February 2025 report. asterisk six for information on stripe pricing visit https colon slash slash stripe.com slash pricing submitted for audit prepared by diane scousy bits treasurer february 2nd 2025 five. Any questions? All right. And then, Diane, you want to talk about the. Investments. This is Brad. I had a question. I’m sorry I was muted and didn’t think I was on the Zoom thing. I believe you said $211 and that was an annual for up to 500. We were paying $50 or 53 with sales tax, I guess, like that a month. That doesn’t sound right that a year is $211. Let me find the figure again. It sounds like it’s the annual. Yeah, it’s $50. Like it reverted back to, well, we were paying $50 a month. $53. We were paying $53 with sales tax. Yeah, I think it’s $49 something, whatever. And I know we looked at changing and going to an annual, and you said it was the same, or they didn’t have an annual for the 500. And I’m wondering if they are reverting us back to what we had before. Yes, that’s what they did. But we had 185 people around that in the office, in the HTML class last night. So we’re not capping out at 100 for sure. But we should look at that. Yeah, we’re still at 500. The dollar amount reverted back. The number of people didn’t. I see Brad’s confusion because $53 times 12 is well over $211. So that’s where the confusion is. Well, it would be times 10 because usually when you pay annually, it’s 12 months for the price of 10. So, yeah, it should be like 500 and something. David? It should be 500. I don’t know. I looked at our plan, and, you know, I looked at our plan to see what it was, and that was the figure, and they gave – I’ll look at it again, though. David’s trying to say something. Yeah, so what I think has happened is it’s paying the annual fee for the regular Zoom Pro account plus the $50 for the monthly. If we can get the other converted, that’d be great. But I think that’s what’s going on. We’re definitely using the more than $100. No, if they got rid of our, if they put us back down to 100 members, would. No, it’s not doing that. It’s just you’re paying the Zoom Pro plus the $50. Yeah, the $149, which is the cost of Zoom. And then the $50 per month is what you’re paying. Plus the $50 per month. And then sales tax makes that difference. Yeah, plus tax, right? Plus tax. Good call there, David. Yeah, that makes sense. I just had to deal with the Zoom invoice myself. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, and I didn’t see an invoice for this either. I didn’t see it come through the… You can check the account. yeah a credit card or something because i think they have the card on file and auto bill don’t yes yeah that’s what they did they build it to my um credit card but i’ll i’ll look at it again okay well we can just log in to the zoom account and check right yeah well yeah you should be able to you should be able to i mean you can’t i mean you can’t i – No, you all have the password, right? – Yeah, but you can check, just log into the account – Yeah, no big deal. – Okay. – And just to confirm, when you said your credit card, actually the Bits One that’s in your name. – Right, that’s what I meant, yes. Bits One in my name, yes. That’s what I meant. – Unless she struck it rich and then she can afford to pay it for us. – Did you win the lottery? of that has happened okay just check this checking because if you did we’ll come for you for a grant oh okay okay anyway anyway so you wanted me to talk about um the investment yeah i thought we would go ahead and get this off you know get this one done early okay because it might take a bit of a discussion so oh yeah might as well okay so um just to review last year um uh marie oh golly nelson nelson marie nelson right marie nelson um john mccann jeff and i um got together and came up with a proposal to invest the money in our savings account with Fidelity Investments. And we were going to invest $25,000 in a one-year certificate of deposit and $10,000 in a money market fund, both with Fidelity. And so started trying to get that done. And Brad can confirm this. We had to apply for a business account with Fidelity and the application was like 15 pages lung and it was not acceptable accessible maybe not acceptable either but it wasn’t accessible with with jaws or anything else so I had an IRA agent or a couple different IRA agents helped me fill out a lot of it but you know we weren’t able to get it done and a lot of the problem was going to involve having to get our you know how we were going to get our names on the on the account so it just didn’t happen and ultimately a bunch of us several of us decided that we should just invest it with JP Morgan Chase because we already have a business account with Chase. So we thought we should be able to set up a time deposit, a certificate of deposit with Chase. But the way our account is set up now, the only person that can add additional accounts is Jeff. I’m not able to do it. I am proposing, and I hope that the board, you know, will vote in favor of allowing me to do this. And then, of course, we have to deal with how that’s going to be done. We’ve kind of heard conflicting information from the manager of my branch i think um as to whether jeff has to go into the bank and sign paperwork to do this or whether we can do it over the phone so um you know that’s where and and brad i’m going to ask you to chime in on this too because you’ve been you know dealing with it you have a person that you’ve been dealing with yeah i i think some of the confusion comes with uh you’ve been talking to someone in Michigan. I’ve been talking to someone in Texas and then Jefferson air. Different states may have different rules. I’m not sure. Your guy in Michigan that I talked to said that somebody has to go into the branch in person to open the account or Jeff would have to go to the branch there where he is in Tucson to open the CD or he can take care of some other paperwork that would allow you or someone else, but in this case, we’re only interested in you being able to, you know, open an account or do the kind of things right now only the president can do. And I think certainly that should be something the treasurers and the president should be able to do. And then you could open a CD in the branch. They say that’s simple thing and if we open a money market apparently that has to be done through their through their investment investment services their investment jp morgan yeah and that’s management or my contact in dallas is somebody that i’ve known for a while and he’s now with jp morgan private bank is which is chase yeah so you know he may be able to help you with that as well so yeah so once once once we um you know get our proposal and the other thing that we need to figure out is um how much money uh obviously we can do the same transfer from the check from the savings account But we’ve got in the checking account, and this is less the $25,000 that we have from Microsoft. We’re not touching that until, you know, we’re spending it. So in the account less the $25,000 grant, we have $23,540.97. So, you know, we should be transferring some of that, I guess, into the savings account, and then we can, you know, increase the amount that we’re moving into the time deposit and into the money market fund. So, you know, I’m hoping that we can, you know, get a, you know, maybe come to an agreement on what that figure should be also. I’d like to take these separately if we can. Okay. Go ahead, David. Well, the first question is we don’t know what the differences are on rates. The second thing is we don’t know what our budget is this year to know how much operating we’re going to need. And once it’s set up, how easy will it be to get access to the money market account? Well, that’s what we’re going to have to find out from J.P. Morgan Wealth Management when we set up the account. Usually those accounts are liquid and you should be able to get at them right away if you need to. As far as the budget, are we going to need $23,000? Are we going to need $23,000? Are we going to be spending that much this year? Of course, we’re going to be receiving more money. We’re going to be receiving more money as more folks pay their dues and as we do fundraising and stuff. Right, we don’t have any figures on that, so it’s hard to answer the question. Well, I don’t know that we need, I mean, because it’s important that we move that money out of the savings account so that it’s getting more than 31 or 32 cents a month interest. I think that we should safely be able to do that. Absolutely. This is Brad. What were the amounts we originally, wasn’t it 25,000 in a CD? Was that it? Yes. And that can be done, if I remember correctly, from what? I could do that immediately. I could set up an appointment right away. He said that it’s between, I think, a two-month to a year. And a two-month gave us the highest, but of course it rolls over every two months, and that’s going to change. Could change, yeah. So, you know, every two months we have an opportunity to, you know, do something with that. And then the money market is just like another checking account. You can access that anytime. And I think, didn’t we approve $10,000? And we could certainly put more in there if we wanted. Yes. Yes. And I like the idea of Chase because as far as funding these accounts, yeah, and all we have to do is transfer. Whereas Fidelity, I remember looking at that paperwork that you sent for my wife and I to look, see if we can help you out with that. But, I mean, that was one of their big things. How are you going to fund it? And we have to then, you know, get them a check or wire. You know, it was a lot more involved, in other words. Yeah. I mean, Chase may not pay us as much interest as Fidelity, but I think we make up for it. And it’d still be better than $0.31 a month. Well, yeah, certainly. And it’s certainly easier for us to just do business with Chase. Correct. And you have a branch near where you are. And I believe you said it’s like a 45-minute car ride to the nearest Fidelity office from where you are. Right. Right. I did say that. We most assuredly need to look at administrative convenience. And the other thing, look, Chase has stood by ACB in spades. The leadership program, you know, I think we need to give corporations strokes when they do good things for blind people, as Chase has most assuredly done for ACB National and, you know, its special interest affiliates. So, you know, can I swear to you that Chase is going to do exactly as well as any other institution? No, but, you know, it’s good. It’s competitive. and again showing to our financial friends and you know administrative convenience those have to you know be persuasive considerations I agree John what I would say why don’t we at least get stuff into the money market to our savings account Now, we have, what do we have in, I mean. We now have, not including the $25,000, we have $23,540, what did I say? $25,540.97. All right, why don’t we get at least $20,000. I’ll make a motion that we put, we’ll take $20,000 out of our checking account and get it into savings now. Let’s get that much done. You know what we’re talking about. You mean a money market, but that’s the one that’s harder. No, but he wants to put it into the savings account, which is now getting $31,000. Okay, okay. He wants to put it into the existing. I’m going to be bolder than that and say move $30,000 from, we don’t need $14,000 in our checking account. No, we don’t, but I’m just concerned about accounting for the Microsoft grant. that was my only as long as we can always move that back out fine i don’t care this is less this is less of course yeah i would want to limit it to i think i’d want to limit it also to the 23 000 you know some amount of that i will favor what jeff is saying and i would also be in favor i would also be in favor of putting the 25 in the cd and the 10 in the money market as we originally We can adjust those figures, but Marie has her hand up too. I think she should. Hang on before we do that. Let me, I’m not, I’m not making a motion, but I am proposing that we do a motion. Obviously before we can do anything with Chase, Jeff has to go to the Chase branch. I don’t have to go to the Chase branch. I just need to make a phone call. According to the email that I received from the person that you spoke with. I have it in writing. Okay, good. so anyhow i would say that we can do that this week we we do the certificate of deposit that we talked about and while jeff is either doing that one way or another i was told he had take care of business open accounts do whatever the branch for yeah so that’s what i’m saying we day though well we’ll get to that but anyway but anyway we we do that and then diane can then deal with the chase uh whatever they call it the uh the wealth management wealth management thank Let’s untangle this because this is getting very complicated. It really is. All right. Let’s take these baby steps, people. Because, you know, my brain, I’m getting old. So we need to. I’m getting older. Let me hear what Marie has to say. Yes. Marie, did you have something real quick here before we move on? Sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t getting a prompt to unmute. I just want to say I agree with Jeff. There is no reason to leave that much money in a checking account. That’s absolutely insanity. These days, the financial institutions, you can make transfers so quickly, especially if they’re in the same organization. I mean, well, hold on. There is some limitation because of terrorism and all of these things. They only let you make so many transfers and they can only exceed so much value and blah, blah, blah. But that’s true. And probably so much a month. Yes, exactly. yes yeah so there is some there is some stipulation here but but the money we’re talking about people i mean if we’re not if we’re not rich no but i’m delighted to see us putting into something that makes the money because i’ve you know i’ve complained forever about the ridiculous savings account income i know that 31 cents won’t get us to hawaii will it And it’s a no-risk investment. That’s also a positive. Yep. Thank you. And our money’s already in Chase. So all of those things you’re talking about kind of don’t apply here because we’re not moving it from one institution to another. And I agree with John. Chase has been very good with ACB. Absolutely. I like the idea of supporting that, but we’re already there. And the FDAIC are insured, which is up to $250,000. So even if they get robbed. Well, is that true with the money market? Is that FDAIC insured? Yes, I believe so. Oh, I don’t know about money market. I know about certificates of deposit. Yeah, but money market, I mean. Money market. They’re relatively safe. Yeah, I mean. And I’m not sure what the deal is with Fidelity, because that’s different. That’s not a bank. That’s not a bank, no. It’s a broker. It’s a brokerage firm. Are you wanting to take the other raised hand, or are we moving on? Let’s move on. Okay. Let’s break this apart. No. No, we haven’t made any motions yet. Let’s start with a clean slate. Let’s start with a clean slate, because we’ve got like four or five things wrapped up in all this. So I want to do this really cleanly. So what I would like to do first is there was some discussion on the board list about how we are going to do this, whether we’re going to use Fidelity or we’re going to use Chase. I would like to have someone move that we allow for distribution of our accounts to be done solely through Chase. I still move. We’re limiting it to Chase. Okay. Do I have a second? I’ll second. Okay, now. Now we can open it up for discussion. Follow the rules. David. Okay, David. I think for now, Chase is fine, but I’d like to not limit us in case something else comes up. You can always pass a subsequent amendment. I think there’s always room for change. We believe in change in this organization, and trust me, we’ve had enough in the last year that we can prove that. As long as we can do it easily. Because you wouldn’t have believed what that form was like that we tried to fill out for fidelity. All right. I was very involved. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? Okay, very good. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Good. So now let’s talk about the amount of funds that we would like to see consolidated into each of the associated accounts. Do I have a motion of that effect? David? David, I’d like to make a motion that we put $25,000 into a CD in Chase. And I’d also like to recommend that we open a money market account and put $10,000 into the money market. We can always change that later, but I’d like to suggest starting with that. Okay. Okay, so we have a motion on the table for $25,000 in a CD and $10,000 in a money market. Is that correct, David? Yes. Okay, just getting clarification. Okay, can I get a second? This is all second. okay go ahead okay so brad seconds it now we can move to discussion i did okay so then what do we want to do with the rest of the money that’s in the hangout just talk about what he just said 10 25 cd 25 10 money market for now those are this is brad Those are the two amounts that we had previously discussed. That we had previously discussed. And we can stick with those. Right. We can stick with that. Or we can add two. Or we can treat it as a separate motion and combine them together later. Whichever you guys wish to make it clean. Whatever you want to do. Go ahead, John. Go ahead, John. I don’t care who gets recognized. I just want to know. Look, no point in sticking with those figures in light of, you know, Just what we have, how our things have ballooned. I mean, even if we went 25 and 25, that gives us what? A 30,000, 30,000 in checking. I think we only need 15 there. I would go, you know, I would go like, like 30, no, 30 to 35 in the money market. And 30 to 35 in the CD. We only need about 15. Now, don’t go super long on the CD because we may need it, but we’re not going to spend anywhere near that $25,000, which we’ll separately account for when we do something off the grant. That’s where things get complicated. We need for that to be reasonably liquid. Correct. Go ahead. Let’s do 30 and 30. 30 and 30, okay. 30 and 30. I can live with that. Easy. 30 and 30. This is spread. We’re keeping track, regardless of where the money is, we are keeping track of the $25,000 from Microsoft and what we do with it. Most assuredly. And my understanding is we can put money in and out of money market at will. I believe we are limited to three withdrawals a month. At least that’s the ones I’ve dealt with before are like that. And I don’t think we’re going to exceed that. I will get all of that clarified, okay? Yeah, I don’t think we’ll exceed that, but we can, you know, put money in and take money out without any, I think that’s the only restriction is you can only have so many withdrawals a month. I mean, just think about a year ago, we didn’t have $60,000 to put somewhere. Correct. No. Can we get a consensus at the motion on the table now with everybody considering it friendly? Iwata is 30 and 30. It’s 30 and 30. 30 and 30 is now the motion on the table. Okay. So again, it’s 30 in CD. Do we have to, is the length of the CD going to be another moment? We need to talk about the length of the CD as well, because there are a number of options. Well, we can, I think they should be separate. Let’s talk about the CD first and just do one. I’ve had a question. I just said, wouldn’t that be a separate topic? Well, I’d say we talk about the CD first and then talk about the money market because the CD involves a time. You know, like they go anywhere from two months. And when I talked to the guy, he didn’t go beyond a year. He just quoted me what the interest was on them. And obviously, the two months has the higher interest, but it’s going to roll every two months. And the interest rate is going to go up or down, whereas a year you lock yourself in. A year would keep it constant. Well, it’ll roll, too. at the end of the year. Well, at the end of the year, but we can fix, but I just don’t want to be. The term is a year, correct. I just don’t want to be having to worry about it every two months or whatever. I really don’t. I think we should limit ourselves. Well, you don’t have to. It will automatically roll unless you tell it not to. Right. It’s just the interest will go up or down according to the market. And the same things happen on the year. It will roll every year too, unless you decide you don’t want it to roll. A year is less frequent. I don’t know. I like to split this baby in half. I was going to say six months because the market’s a little volatile right now with all the craziness of politics. Six months is good. Six months. When I talked to the guy the other day, Terrell, I can’t remember his name, Wilkerson, I think is his last name, at the branch near Diane’s house. He told me two months was 3.5 and a year was 3.0. I don’t, we didn’t talk about the other six months. Six months might be somewhere in between. Probably in the middle. And again, we come back to anything’s better than 32 cents. I agree. I agree. And six months is, I’m fine with six months. And 3% of 60,000 is, you know, that’s. It’s better than. 1,800 or whatever. 0.1%. That’s pretty good. Yeah. So 30, 30,000 for six months. Does that sound reasonable? It does to me. I like it. Okay. We’re only married to it for six months. Robin, I’m really sorry for all this waffling. Yeah, I know. Before we vote, we can restate the motion. Yes, I understand. Let’s restate it. I’m just trying to acknowledge Robin there. That’s all. And I joined with you in that because we love Robin. Yes, we do. And she’s competent. And she loves us. Okay. At least today, maybe. She may not after today. Okay. I also include in the motion that I think that the people that are, you know, you and Diane and whoever’s involved in it will make the best decision. Well, I was going to bring that up. So that’s the next motion. That’s the next motion. And I have, and I have a plan and I’d like to run it by the board because I do not want to to this alone all right so do we pass a motion that says 30 000 for money market six-year term seven money market doesn’t have a cd 30 000 for a cd at a six-month term and 30 000 for the money market that’s where we are so far yeah so i think they’re i think i think 30 and 30 and then we’ll work the rest of it out in the next one. Larry Watkinson has raised his hand. Yeah, he is. I just want to provide, John, any issues of finance where you’re going to do $50,000 to one and $30,000 to another, etc. Those should be two separate motions under corporate structure for nonprofits. Yeah, I agree. That’s what I do. You should do a $30,000 motion and then a $30,000 motion. All right. All right. So we will take the CD first. Let’s break it in half and go I make the first motion Any opposed? all right can i get a motion for the money market i’ll make a motion that we do a money market at thirty thousand dollars um yeah that’s all these initial deposit because we can always all right any discussion i think we’ve discussed this a lot already we’ve already done that okay what was it brad who seconded i seconded yes thank you thank you thank you for your thoroughness and i better plug in my phone before it dies um um right okay all those in favor aye aye in the opposed okay very good now so i i do have a question now then since i’m going to be the actual one doing the transfer so we are well hang on we haven’t gotten that far yet we haven’t gotten that far yet oh okay all right so i’ll wait so so we need to establish these things and and because um the only thing that that here i’ll $50,000 was his house. So, or transferred money around for. So, I would like to ask that, at a minimum, John, Diane, and myself and Brad, unless Brad, you don’t feel you need to be there, but I’d like you there, participate in a conference call with Chase, whether that be meet at a branch or over the phone with their investment group to facilitate the conversation. Well, I have no problem with that. My understanding, though, the guy told me you had to go to the branch. Maybe you found out otherwise. But you need to go to the branch for that other thing that we haven’t gotten to yet either. Yeah, right. So I would suggest you go to the branch and then get us all on a phone call if that’s what you want to do. Isn’t this in the nature of emotion to do all things necessary to effectuate the… Yes, but I’m basically just trying to put out the names there. Larry, did you have another thought here? I’m happy to help. Your secretary is the official record keeper. And if you’re going to conduct matters of finance, the record keeper has a role. But your secretary, at the minimum, is the official record keeper, should be engaged in those conversations if you’re going to… Robin, I guess you’re going to be engaged on it. Whether you want to or not. Yeah, of course. Larry, I take care of lowering your hands. Oh, what happened? Okay, very good. Did I get cut off? No, you’re fine. She lowered Larry’s hand. Larry can unmute anytime. Diane. Diane. She was there. She’s no longer there. I lost everybody for a minute. what was the question or larry says robin needs to be there she’s the record keeper thank you laurence we know we need to i’m gonna okay so um all right so there’s a motion on the table to uh form a subcommittee to assist in the in the process i wouldn’t even form a subc well i like john’s thing do all things necessary and you there if you want i’m i think jeff as long as we have legal treasure in the jeff robin diane for I guess I will call him since Brad. Well, that’s the guy you would talk to about the money market. Yeah. Isn’t that what we’re talking? Well, we’re talking about both. Talking about both. The CD has to be done through a branch. And the other thing has to be done through their whatever they call it. Investment services. Okay, great. I don’t know why they make it so complicated. So I will coordinate with all of you. We will get this done in the next week or so. Okay. There you go. Okay. Okay. Excuse me. No motion necessary. Yes, Robyn. No motion then? Okay. I don’t think so. That was my question. I don’t think it’s necessary. By consensus and just. Yeah, it’s fine. All right. Okay. Any other financial business? Because now we’ve spent almost an hour on this topic, which is amazing to me. Okay. All right. Well, you know. Well, we need to get it done right. Okay. Very good. Okay. All right. That works for me. All right. I will quickly go over the things that I have under the presidential. Wait, can I ask one question? Sure. Can I do some transfer into the savings account now without us having to meet, or do you want me to wait? Why don’t we wait until we get the $60,000 moved around, and we’ll know how much money we have, and we can address how much we’re going to move to savings. or move out of saving no or move from the checking account to savings correct yeah all right okay well we can move decide how much we want to leave and check an account just move everything else to savings and then when you open the money market and the cd it comes out of savings yeah that’s what i was thinking that’s what we were going to do the last time so just move the seven there’s forty three thousand dollars or something in the savings account right in the checking in the checking account the savings account still has like 37 right so move 23 000 into the savings account from the check that you can do that now okay and then and then and then we’ll talk about what we do with the rest of it later okay and then it leaves how much in checking 15 20 something 20 something thousand okay yeah now all right just Just make sure you’re accounting the $25,000. If you want to keep that savings account viable at any level, maybe you move $24,000 so that it’s like $16,000 in change. You see what I’m saying? So I would move $24,000. I would move $24,000, not $23,000. We may decide to just say to hell with the savings. But I don’t want to make that, you know. I believe you only have to have. $500 or something. No, I think, actually, I think it’s $300. But something. Whatever. 300, 500. There’s a minimum in a savings. Yeah, that’s good. It’s good to have a savings. Easy to get to. I’m sorry, what was the amount? 24? 24 now. Instead of 23. You’re thinking 37 and 23 is 60. I say 24 to make it 61 and odd numbers of $100 in cents. You see what I’m saying? Yeah, that’s fine. Okay. All right. Okay. I’ll make this really quick since we’re kind of running long tonight. Just a few things at top of mind. And even the presidential report was kind of short this month. I guess short is relative. Renewals are in full swing. You’ll hear more about that coming up here in just a few minutes from John. We’re in a really, really good place, though, but would love to be able to see us try to do one last round of trying to see we can get any additional people to renew before we start removing them from rosters and email lists and the like. And I’ll send out an email to both chairs and the board, seeing if we can set up maybe a calling tree of each person takes like 10 or 15 people, maybe we can call some people and remind them about their dues, maybe something like that. So expect an email from me probably tomorrow on that. And whoever can help volunteer to help do that, that would be amazing. Educational opportunities are in full swing. Our Markdown HTML and WordPress course started on Monday with, well, we’ve had some people leave the course already just due to the nature of it. But many other people who are joining at the very, very, and I mean very last minute, So we’re about the same, about 275 students, which is really good considering the length and complexity of the course itself. We’re doing quite well. You’ll hear more about this later, but we are well underway in reference to planning for both the in-person events at ACB, the annual meeting, as well as our sessions prior to that for the national convention. You’ll hear more about that when Brad and the education team talk about what’s going on there. Those are mainly the big items that I had. We have our general asks. One thing I would like to see us start to put together is a welcome letter so that we can attach it to Paid Memberships Pro so that when people join, they automatically get a bunch of resources in their mailbox. So I’m wondering if we might be able to work with publications and the membership committee and others to be able to facilitate that. That would be really helpful so that we can try to get that into the into the queue at least. So if that would be possible, that would be great. OK, any other questions from anyone here? All right, let’s move to committees. We’ll start with communication, and we’ll start with Merv. Merv? Okay. Well, the packet contains the report, so I’m not going to reiterate it. Just say that if anyone needs any assistance, my FastMail address is what you can use to contact me, Or you can use the 61-GET-BIT-6. Or you can even use WhatsApp. So don’t be afraid to reach out for assistance. That’s it. Okay. Very good. Any questions for Merv? By the way, Merv, you’re doing an outstanding job. He’s been very, very busy with lots of email list-related activities. And he’s been a little nuts. And so, sir, you’re doing amazingly great. thank you for all your valiant work um i couldn’t have done this without you this time this has been a bit uh a bit cuckoo for cocoa puffs is what this has been okay uh let’s see so we’re gonna next go to rosanna followed by david and i’ll try to keep everyone abreast as to where we’re headed so that you can line yourselves up to a microphone near you okay rosanna go ahead Hi, good evening, everybody. And welcome to 2025. Oh, yeah, I know. It’s been a long week, even for me, Jeff. You don’t even know. Okay. Anyway, I have a short report. I did send in a packet. So, you know, what’s in there. The only thing, we did meet in January. We will have a February meeting. the Mastodon stats are up to 261 as of yesterday I imagine they haven’t changed in 24 hours we are increasing people visiting Mastodon which seems to be the social media of choice right now seems to be Mastodon Facebook, I haven’t seen any new members on Facebook in the last month But, you know, within the last six months, we have had some new people who have joined the BITS Facebook page. Marianne Murad does post the events and what’s going on with BITS on the Facebook page. And Robin does post them on Mastodon as well. So you can get that information in either place. I just want to remind people that the winter newsletter is going to be due to go out the end of February. That’s our goal right now. So if anyone is going to write articles, we do need to have them no later than the 15th of February so that our editor has time to review them and put them together and have time to put the newsletter together. You know, she does work besides, plus she’s also working with the HTML course, so she has to kind of squeeze it in with everything else. So to give her the time that she needs, we would like to have all articles by, I’m sorry, by the 15th of February. There were topics that we sent out this time. The two topics were braille and technology, and that is in the packet, so you can get the questions right out of the packet if you wish. If you have something other than braille or technology that you would like to share with the membership, then please go ahead and do so, and send those on to us. The email address for the newsletter is newsletter at bits-acb.org. Okay. Newsletter at bits at, I’m sorry, newsletter at bits-acb.org. So that is where you need to send it. The other thing that I want to bring up is We did have a mini town hall meeting at the last office hours in January, January 26th. And I want to thank those people who did come. And we have had some feedback from that town hall. And it was great. It was nice to have feedback from the membership. And we would like to continue to have feedback from the membership going forward as well. So that was a really good thing. We are going to be also working with the fundraising committee on their project that they are planning, which you’ll hear about from Anne, for the convention. And that’s going to be called Bits in Action. We’ll be helping out with that. Right now we are also going to be working with the IT committee to get the publications webpage put together and up on the website at some point. So the newsletter will go up on the website, and we are looking at eventually adding audio files to the newsletter, so eventually you will be able to go ahead and listen to the newsletter on audio file as well. And our next meeting will be in February. It’s coming up next week. I know we’re going to be involved in a lot of other projects going forward this year. I’m looking forward to it and looking forward to working with my committee on those projects and other chairs as well. And that’s all I have. Thank you so much, everyone. All right. Very good. Any questions for Rosanna? Okay. Very good. David. All right. I got three things and I’ll be as quick as I can. First to piggyback on Merv, great job on the email lists. And remember, please join the announce and or events list. If you’re a BITS member, join the events list. It’s where you have all up-to-date schedule information for any event. A reminder, usually the day before or that day, depending on who sends it out. But what I was going to mention about that is over the last month, which is in my report, we have had a few late notice or spontaneous chats some of our hosts have thought hey well unfortunately this event was canceled what about having a chat so i made sure it was clear and we we did we did that and the final of the three things that i wanted to mention we’re going to have a bits chat starting at 5 p.m eastern 2 p.m pacific so um that is not the same so please join us if you haven’t or even if you have we look forward to seeing you and also if you are interested in hosting send me an email it’s in the packet um the board meeting packet as well as you see me on the list posting so thank you Thank you. Any questions for David? Okay. Brad, I’m going to mix you up a little bit here so that you can kill three things at once. Can you talk, because I know this will be really brief, can you talk about your progress on the scholarship committee meeting that we had and then do your two presentation reports? Yes, I can. Kill them all at once. Amazing. I have three committees, so here we go. scholarship and ampersand member appreciation committee. We met this past weekend, whatever that was, the first Saturday, February 1st, and basically Jeff attended and we went over our goals and objectives for this new committee. It’s kind of two committees in one. So we are working on what our committee is all about. And we are planning to meet again, not this weekend, but on the 8th. No, 15th Super Bowl. It’s the 15th. Yeah, day before the Super Bowl. No, after Super Bowl. Day before Daytona 500. Sorry. I always have to think of what really matters. It’s not the Super Bowl. So anyway, so that’s that one. We’re new. we’re working and we are planning some things so and that’s really all there is to say on that one right now let’s move along to presentations presentations my detailed report is in the packet so you can look at it we had a few presentations last month coming up in February we have basics with business Saturday which actually is the 8th and that’s when I just gonna wrap up his one note he’s going to do part four i believe it’s one note on a mobile of devices if i’m not mistaken um i got mac bytes will be next tuesday um deborah will do um basics with bits i believe that will be the 22nd um and um i believe she’s going to talk about forgive me deborah something to do with, I believe it’s managingyourgroups.io on the web. If I’m not mistaken, that could change. And then Herbie will be back with Apple Bytes. Herbie was not feeling he was under the weather last month, so we did not have Apple Bytes last month, but I’m sure Herbie will be back in full strength this month and we also have a number of other presentation projects in in development and hopefully we’ll have more information about that next month moving to convention we have met twice since the last board meeting on January 11th and January 25th. We are in the process of kind of what we did last year. We are going to have six presentations during the virtual portion of the annual convention. We’ll have like we’ve done the last two years, one each day in the morning and one each day in the afternoon. Our focus this year is going to be primarily on social media. We’re going to be looking at some different apps on both mobile and desktop platforms. And we are going to have iBug today will be back with us. I believe this will be their third year, maybe their fourth. I’d have to go back and check. But we’re glad to have them on board. They will be doing a presentation that has something to do with AI on your iOS device. we will be planning the BITS We’re looking at possibly 5 to 7 p.m. as when Ann gets here for her fundraising, she will talk more about Bits in Action, and they will be participating in the in-person Bits reception. So we’ll hear more about that from Ann. And then the biggie is the training, in-person training that we’re going to be doing. That is Jeff’s the lead on that. We have three days plus one. So it’ll be Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and an extra day on Saturday. And that is still in development. So I’m not going to talk too much about the details of that. But we’re very excited about that. There’s been a lot of planning. Jeff has a committee. We are meeting every Saturday afternoon. And wheels are turning. And plans are being turned into action on that. So stand by. I believe a formal announcement about that will probably be coming pretty quick. Um, and that is, I believe all I’ve got on my convention planning. Like I said, there’s details. If you look in the packet for my written reports and that’s all I’ve got for this month. Wow. I know now take a breath and sit back. Thank you. All right. And he did all that without my notes. Wow. Good for you. Yeah. Uh, anyone else have any comments or questions for Brad on any of those topics? A lot there. All right. John. Yes. You’re ready for membership. I can. I’m always happy to do that, as I imagine. You know, I will run by the figures that were in the report briefly. And I’ll also compare them to last month’s figures so you can see where we are. Okay. Right now, we’re at 992 members, but with 325 of them needing to renew the number, as Jeff sort of alluded to, is it 667? Yeah, we’re one above the devil number. 667. And there was another one, by the way. What’s that? You have another person, by the way. This doesn’t account for two people. One, I have been told by Nancy, we don’t have in AMS, so I have to create her record. And there’s a person from the UK who I’ve got a query into, Nancy. I don’t think we have this individual, but I don’t know that for sure. So these things are always… The date I’m going to give you is as of noon today. Very good. Yeah. Okay. It’s as of noon today, which I think was stated in the report. Okay. Four expirations, 325, meaning technically they are, you know, I mean, if that figure doesn’t change, they’re going to start getting dumped in 10 days. That is down 39 from the figure in the January report. Okay, the 2025 expirations, 476 people. That’s up 59 from the 417 in the previous month’s report. 2026 expirations is 76. That’s up eight from the 68 reflected in the January report. Our 2027 expirations held at four, and I’m glad that’s as few as it is. And BITS life went up from 105 to 111. Okay. So when you add 325, 476, 76, 4, and 111, you get 992. Again, take away the 325 and you’re at 667. At some point, Jeff, I think we need to probably discuss how we best get an email out to what’s presently 325. Like, okay, you know. Yep. And we need to cross-reference the paid memberships pro orders that came in prior to you gaining access to those emails. So we’ll do that. Okay. I think I’ve got them all, but we have on occasion discovered one or two that fell through the cracks. We can get you a spreadsheet very easily. Okay, cool. Thanks. Okay. I think I’m done. I think unless anyone has a question. Okay. Any questions for John? All right. Yes. I just have a curiosity question. Last month, John said that we would have had like 24 or 25 delegates if this was convention. I was wondering where that stood today. It’s a lock for 25 at this convention. Okay. If you’re telling tales at a school, I’m hoping that that will not be a relevant stat going forward. But that’s an ACB amendment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not for here. I mean, I’m just proud that we kept two-thirds of the people who came for, you know, that we offered. Yeah, exactly. I’m a bit of a stat, kind of a stat geek. And we’re not done. we’re not done we got 10 more days so you know we might hit 700 i don’t know we’ll see i i think we let me share one other thing with you the highest that we had ever achieved was 179 okay and now we’re at 667 so we’ve gained we’re up 488 from our previous best and best almost seems like a joke compared to the world we’re in now i mean this vindicates itself with a vengeance the the moratorium thing. I was a little bit skeptical when it was proposed. I can’t even begin to put words how it’s boosted us and, you know, together with everything else, like the classes, the credibility of this organization is off the charts. What, Robin, do you know, or can you look to see what our membership numbers were last February? Sure. If they’re stated, I will tell you. That would be interesting. I would just like to know. I bet you they’re close. Well, what we certified last year was about three of 753 or 756. Again, mine, that’s above. You know, I think the closer we get to February 15th, I think we can sort of assume that maybe as many as 80% of the 325 will say, tried it, was okay, you’re going to ask me for money, not thanks anyway. But so be it. Screw it. You know, if 80% of those 325 million… I’m just curious to look a year back. That’s all. Oh, I agree. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions for John while Robin’s frantically scurrying? Okay. Michael and Larry, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get a call on Ann, and then we’re going to end with you guys, because we have some things to celebrate on the IT side. So stay tuned, people. Okay. Anne. All right. Good evening, everyone. And I am ready to go. My report is in the packet, but I do want to highlight some things, maybe all of these things. I don’t know. First, I want to recognize that Marcia Adudi is our co-chair, so I’m very happy about that. And then we are still working on our mission statement. So as soon as we get that tied down, we will let you know. But the three exciting things that we want to talk about is these three words, Bits in Action. Now, what does that mean for us? It means that on the day of our reception, July 9th, we’re going to ask every Bit member who’s in person, every Bit member who might be in hybrid, every BIT member who’s just walking around in their neighborhood or in the community or wherever they are to showcase how proud they are to be a BITS member and their dedication and strength in numbers and wear a t-shirt or a hoodie or a sweatshirt or one of those tote bags from Blind Girls Design. So we’re going to be wearing our brand to show how proud we are to be a BITS member. Now, why are we going to do that? Well, not only for that, but we’re going to be taking pictures. At the convention, we’re going to be taking pictures. If you’re hybrid, we’re going to ask you to take pictures, take selfies. If you’re out in the community, you know, shopping, at a museum, wherever you may be. If you are using technology, we want you to take a picture or have a selfie. Bits in action. Bits members, we are about technology, right? doing something with your accessible technology. So when you’re at the convention, you’re showcasing that you’re there, you’re going to be in a meeting, you’re going to be walking around, you might have your phone in your hand. You’re going to be doing something with technology. Take a picture of it. But most importantly, have on something that says FITS. It recognizes you as being a FITS member. Now, what are we going to do with these snapshots? Where you heard Rosalyn say she’s working with a fundraiser. So it’s going to be in the newsletter. And working with IT team, they’re going to be working on doing something on the web, whether it’s a gallery of images or just some place on the website. That’s going to happen. Then at the end of the year, when we have our annual meeting, we’re going to have some lucky winners of something who’ve been showcased either in the newsletter or on the website. We’re going to pull some of those names. Now, what are you going to do with those snapshots? You’re going to put your name on it. We’re going to have a template. You’ll get more information about this. You’re going to have your location because we’re all around the world. And you’re going to have a little something about what you’re doing with your accessible technology. And that’s why you’re in this picture. Wearing your bits per finale proudly. So, bits in action. Keep those three words in your head. Bits in action. Now, the next thing is we are still working on another product line. So to help us streamline those efforts, a survey is going to go out and it could be a three tier survey. So, Jeff, I don’t know if you’ve got your copy yet, but we’re asking the board to fill out a survey. That’s the first tier. Second tier is going to be the chairpersons and their committee. And then the third tier, if we need to, will be membership. And what we’re asking you to do is take a look at the things that we are looking at, narrow it down. So virtually by the majority of you guys picking some things, one or two things, so that we can focus on those for the next kind of activity that we’re going to be working on. And then the last thing is, and with that, you know, we have to come back to the board or whatever our proposal is on that. And then the last thing we would like to ask the board to make fundraising a budget line item. Because we’ve got two projects right now coming through. We’re going to have more things coming through. And we just would like to be a line item in the budget. And not separate projects that we’re doing, of us coming in. And our next meeting is February 19th. David, wow, that was a, man. Can we bottle up that energy and just have that at 6 o’clock in the morning when we get up in the morning? Man, oh, man. You’re like a firecracker. Yeah, it’s just called coffee. No, and I don’t even drink that. She’s better than coffee. I’ve never heard her conduct a Mitten phone chapter meeting that way. Yeah, there you go. We need the same energy there, Ann. Well, I just got started with you guys, too, so hold on. okay all right uh thank you for your report that’s a lot of interesting things going on but i would like this is i guess more of a question to you and or the board i would like to see bits find a way to get more of this merchandise into the members hands so they could get good pictures um i mean i think everybody should buy something i’m not saying that but uh what can we do to encourage people or promote this stuff is there what do you guys think am i um well i know of she’s going to be there her organization and at the reception she’ll have a table at the reception but that’s not to the day of and i’m glad you brought that out because i’m going to start asking on behalf of my committee for the board and chair people and their committees to have this to get a showcase that maybe around late May or June, one of your images will be there to get started, to kick it off for that day. So I thought I’d throw that out there now, too. Yeah, so I just want to see what the board thinks of what we could do to get some of this into people’s hands. All right, board, I’m ready. What you gonna say? Oh, you guys. I’ll get another tote bag or a tote bag. I want that backpack. I heard you, Jeff. No, not yet, but you know what? Fill out that survey. Okay. All right. I got to find it in the 10,000 email I have in my inbox. Yeah, I’ll probably get a t-shirt. But the idea is that maybe that we’re promoting it maybe will entice people to buy it as well because uh this is a little tangential is she doing backpacks i’m sorry dan i thought she is not john she is not sorry um and do you um have any uh figures at this point or Every June 4th, we’ll renew our agreement with her, and she will then send us whatever is our annuity from the purchases made during that previous year. So we’ll get money in from her, and we’ll start a new agreement. And that’s automatic. And she’ll tell us, obviously, we’ll find out how much and what we’ve sold during that period as well. Correct. Okay. Yeah, I guess a couple things I heard that some people say the prices are high. I’m not sure what we can do about that. But is there any way we can do some sort of a giveaway ahead of time or a promotional, you know, to help members deal with that? I mean, it’s just an idea. I mean, we don’t want to go through all this campaign effort and get no, get no, no, what do you call that? No sales? No t-shirts with their pictures. All right, Michael. We’re an organization about educating blind or sight impaired individuals on how to use technology, both at home and in the workplace. And I think a way we could possibly start this promotion or not started because I really appreciate everything the fundraising committee has done to put this together because I’m excited about it. But a way we can leverage this as well is maybe on one of the basics with bits or another call, Trisha could come and explain how she uses technology to run her business and what are some of the challenges that she has. We could possibly partner with Ivy to help promote that to Ivy as well, because it’s specifically about using technology in your business as a blind individual. I love that. I think we can have it as a special presentation on one of our Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night type presentations. Yeah. And I was wondering if the IT department, I just thought about this now, could or who does the presentations or the classes could have a one day class or two-day class at different times about being able to take images you know your snapshots how you were centered how will you use the camera to take your image your selfie i know the perfect best member to do that me too and uh that’d be well you could either get you could you probably want to get two people to do it uh and i’m thinking i don’t want to speak for them but uh judy dixon wrote a book on the subject and um someone like uh i don’t know like uh michael or lauren or i don’t know i don’t know we have lots we have we have options yep yes well that’s my report mr president Yes. February 2024, we had 625 members. March 2024, there were 719. Ha ha. We’re in the middle. Okay, cool. That’s amazing. Thank you. Wow. Okay. All right. Okay. That’s pretty cool. This is Brad. I think an interesting number is what we had after the free membership drive ended and how many we had after that. And I know we’ve gone down, but a lot of those were free membership people that, you know, stuck their toe in the water and for whatever reason have not renewed. But what’s interesting to me is what we certified and then which was in the 700 range and we ended up at nine something. So hopefully, you know, we are a lot of people who came in after the convention by the office course. And one other stat I’ll give you. I don’t think it’s quite a 10 figures, but I think there are like high single digits, maybe seven or eight. I wish I gave you an exact figure. That many number of people were moratorium only and elected to become Bits Life. Correct. It could be as high as 10, but it’s a significant number of people went from like a freebie to a $200 commitment. Yeah. And we went from 34 life members to 111. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know about it. I mean, that’s. It’s insane. it’s great that’s 70 at 77 life members do the math people uh yeah so not bad that’s some good fundraising right there all right uh any other questions for and great report man you you wow you’re killing it okay uh any other questions for her all right larry i’m going to hand things over to you thank you michael doyce too right yeah so actually um and brad can know so i’m going to change how i do things a little bit i’m going to ask the vice chair of the committee as well as brad to start first start out and then we’ll have Michael Doyce speak on the same issue and anything that Michael would like to talk about for February. And then I will wrap it up with them. Hopefully we’ll be less than five minutes. So, Brad, you’re an extended member of the IT committee and we have been working on a project for you. Yes, we have. And I held off in mentioning this in the presentation. Say it again. I killed you to wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we set away for the big thing. We are very happy to announce that the IT committee, and in particular Michael Deuss, has been burning the midnight oil to get our presentations up on the BITS website. It is still a work in progress because there is a ton of content that we want to get up there. But we are happy to say that there is content available on the website. And Michael has started with most recent content first. We focused on the last three months of 2024 and whatever has happened during January 2025. So I think that was the most important thing up there. And then we’ll start working on going backwards and have a team that will continue to work on the framework that Michael has put in place. But I know a lot of people have been asking about this for a while. We’re sorry it took a long time. IT committee has been so busy. We’ve had to deal with memberships and elections and all that kind of stuff. But, man, oh, man, I am so happy to see this stuff up on the website. And I cannot express my gratitude to all the effort that has been put in on this one. And kudos to you, Michael. I really appreciate your efforts. So if you haven’t checked it out, you go to the website, look for media. It’s up along the bar along the top. You’ll click on that. It’ll take you to a page. And you’ll see lots of headings, which are links. And you can find board meetings. the annual meeting. Right now, just the most recent annual meeting is, I believe, what’s up there. But there’s older ones will eventually get put up there. But most important is the new stuff. You’ll find Apple Bytes, Mac Bytes, Basics with Bits, individual presentations, and there’s much more to come. So check it out, see what you think, and let us know your feedback. Hopefully you’ll love it. Michael Deust, do you want to talk a little bit more about that and then some of the efforts run away. Absolutely. Thank you. Hi, everybody. So, yes, like Brad was saying, it is very exciting to have the media page available to everybody on the site. You will see that there will be some changes, and there is some older content that is up there that just needs to have a little bit of work done to make it conform with the rest of the content that is new. But a lot of this, more things than just Q4 is up there that can be listened to. There are download links. So if you want to add those to your Victor Reader devices or to your book player of choice, you can do that. You can download the file and you’re able to get those when the download links are available. And again, those will be added to more items that are on the website. And we will be training an elite team to go in and work on this content for all of our previous archives as well, which is very exciting. So we will be working with a team of folks to do that so that they can post these going forward, which is very exciting to have that. And they will also be able to help with content throughout the website. So when new content becomes available, we can have it to you guys faster. As far as our efforts, we will be working to streamline the Bits website. Sub menus are great, but a cleaner interface of when one option per menu item is even cleaner. I would point out Apple.com has a huge website. It’s immense. But their menu is only one-click menu items going across the top, at least the last time I looked. So that works for Apple. I think it can work for Bits, too. So we’re going to make this process easier to get around the Bits website. You’ll only have to find the information that you want whenever you’re logged in. and not see the information if you’re logged out just as before. And we will be working on adding sidebars, putting things in the footer, moving things around to make things a lot more user-friendly so that people can find things. So that is a big focus for the month of February. So that will be in the works. We are also working on making sure that everything is easy to find, visually appealing, and we will be working on some other areas as well. And, Larry, if I missed anything, if you want to pick up from there. In your role as vice chair, you lead the development team. Would you be willing to give some thanks to your development team and who they are? Yes, of course. So for our plugins and other work, we have Taylor Arndt. Taylor has put it, she wrote the magic links and has also helped on other plugins that the site uses. So thank you, Taylor. We have Lauren Bradford, who helps out with some of the visuals and other parts of the site. I want to thank Lauren. And we have, let’s see, we have so many people that help out. behind the scenes. But we’ll talk more about our folks that will be working on the site going forward, probably at the next board meeting. So we’ll see how people do in training. So I want to thank everybody that’s involved. And also the chairs. I want to thank you as well, because without you guys and our board members, because without you guys, we wouldn’t have direction on where to bring this website. So everybody involved deserves a great thank you. And so Michael had referenced the chair’s help, and we’ve had them. I have opened up our meetings, and I invite all the chairs to our weekly meeting. We meet each week to discuss the issues that we’re trying to work on and getting input. We’re sending out links to folks and asking them to check them and to give us thoughts and ideas. And I really do appreciate Brad’s effort and help because we will be better as a result of it. I might mention the AI component of our translations of taking the audio word. We have gotten some folks requesting that they really would like to be able to have kind of the written part of what goes on. And it truly is not 100% accurate. And as Brad had mentioned before to us, like the board meetings, it just ends up with gibberish and garbage. And so we are going to surgically only use the minutes from the board meetings. So those will always lag behind the audio recording. But where we do a presentation and it’s somewhat more straightforward, you will get those written translations as items are being posted. So look for those as well. I also want to, and I know Jeff will talk a little bit more about it later, but the IT committee and the rest of the administrative team that’s working on the WordPress class, we have come together. We’re all working to bring that product to you. Jeff has been a wonderful leader on that. There’s so much we’re learning from him by his own mistake of teaching us. And in addition to that. Oh, thanks, Larry. Hosting office hours and other stuff. So we aren’t only working on the webpage. We’re working on other infrastructure things to support the organization. And again, I want to just acknowledge that we will have three new, I think it’s three new or four new content editors who will be joining our team after training on Saturday, provided that training all goes well. And eventually we’ll be looking for some more folks to assist us. But I’m going to tell you, this is all about business. And if you can’t meet the requirements we need, we may ask you to not help in that role. We may ask you to help in a different role. And so I know some folks are out there wanting to help, but we’re doing this cautiously, safely, and that was six. Because there’s more behind-the-scenes background stuff. For instance, we need to put into place a password management system. We’ve talked about it here before the board. We need to continue to manage things like the assets. We’re talking about the Zoom account earlier today. That is an application asset. And we just need to kind of work together so we all, as an organization, know what we have, when it expires, what happens to it, and what is the service we’re paying for so that we can do some things. So that’s our report for tonight. Once there’s questions, Mr. Fred Zavent. I have a question. Yeah. Okay, so you did indicate that you may still in the future be looking for people to help with, like, because, you know, I might be in a position, or I would be in a position, you know, once our dues things slow down, you know, maybe to be able to do some audio editing and, you know, things like that under your instructions. Audio editing is going to stay with Brad this time until he makes some other decisions like that. But Brad, I believe audio editing is going to stay with you. Yeah, it’s fine with me. I’ve got a team of three guys who are longtime podcasters editing their own podcasts. And I’ve kind of divided up the workload among those guys. And right now I’m just doing my best to keep them busy. Okay, thank you. But there’s possibly Diane you and I can talk You know at some point about what work we may have that you might be able to pull yourself into Is there any questions at all? It’s not a like to pass it back to the president to resume the meeting Any hands out there at all We have hands but I think you probably want to wait till the end of the meeting for those We’re almost done, actually, guys. We don’t have too much time. Pass back to you, Jeff. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Larry. I’m leaving for a moment. All right. Mr. President? Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Just one more figure for you, since you asked about membership. As of March 30, 2024, which is when certification takes place, if I’m not mistaken, before the National Convention, we were certified as having 731 members. Okay. Everybody would. All right. All right. Well, we’ll we’ll powwow with chairs and board members and see if we can get our calling tree set up. That’d be great. OK. And if anyone wants to help volunteer for that, we would be happy to give you some data. Not all of it, but some. OK. For privacy reasons. OK. Old business. Anyone have anything under old business that we need? Mr. President. Yes? You skipped the education committee. Oh, we already kind of talked about education. I was wondering about that. But, um, uh… I didn’t want the chair to feel overlooked. No, no, no, no. It’s fine. Um, Debbie, are you here? She may be, she may be deep in the bowels of the HTML course. I have given her the prompt, but… Oh, good. Okay, she is here. Okay. I’m here. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, sorry. Okay, so very briefly, I’m going to be doing Groups.io on the fourth Saturday of February. That is the 22nd. I would really like to have members listen to this. I’m tired of hearing all these complaints about how there’s too much email. You guys can learn to read it on the web, and it will save you so much time. I’m doing that with Basics with Bits. The education committee has not yet met because we are so swamped working with the HTML class, and there’s no reason for us to plan anything else right now. And that is, oh, and I need people for March for Basics with Bits. The same people have been dedicatedly doing it over and over again. I need some new people. If you have a skill that you can teach to beginners, it’s okay. If you are yourself, just an intermediate user. In fact, I think it helps beginners to listen to someone who is not a geek teaching them. Again, second and fourth Saturday of the month. So that’s the end of my report. I’ll go back on mute now. All right. Yeah, we’re busy little beavers, not only planning and executing on the HTML course, but also for conventions. So we have a busy group of people, and we’re already planning the fall, people. So we just never rest around here, which probably should happen more often than it doesn’t. All right. Acknowledging it is the first step, right? Okay. All right. Any old business? Okay. I think, Diane, you had a topic for new business. Is that correct? oh i i probably you wanted to talk about a procedure for not allowing members to oh yes yes um you know we we get an i i haven’t checked to see how many we have but we have a lot of people who are paying a common figure is 40 you know when the dues are $20. I did have someone pay a life membership and they wound up paying $400. I did issue a $200 refund to that person last night. So, you know, hopefully they’ll get it and cash it and everything. But I’m wondering if there is a way to fix the membership application so that, I was thinking maybe you could do it by building in the proper amounts of money that they owe, you know, depending on the type of membership that they’re applying for. That’s there now. What they’re doing is they’re adding an additional donation amount, and that’s what’s causing the problem for you. So what’s happening is there, and you’ll see that on the spreadsheet, what’s happening is they’re going to pay their dues, which are 20, right? And then they go, oh, well, I’ll add another 20 to the donation amount. Therefore, it makes it 40. That’s what’s going on. Okay. So then you’re saying then that I should classify those extra amounts because we’ve been extending their memberships for another year. You can do that or you can classify them as a donation, whichever you prefer. I think we need to be uniform about it. So I’ve just been making a notation in the notes field of the AMS record saying paid 40 without making a judgment. I’ve not been extending them. And I don’t think we should automatically, especially if there’s a way of discerning from the PMP spreadsheet that it’s intended as a donation. The one thing that’s important to me is that I’d like to have some indication of that rather than guessing or rather than having to call up these individuals, which is pretty much where I was. So it’s comforting to know that the correct notation of donation in addition to the payment is on the PMP sheet. I haven’t seen that, and I need a little coaching about how to do it. No, I haven’t either. I haven’t either. Well, you and I need a little coaching on accessing and interpreting that sheet, I think. Not huge coaching, but, you know, there’s a way to get to it, and I can never keep it in my mind. I better write down a cheat sheet. Yeah. That’s another description. I don’t have to belabor that here. but yeah okay so you know if that’s the case then and of course i wonder how far back i should i should go with it and everything too um just maybe to the beginning of when we using pmp and stripe or yeah yeah which is only like three months and it was only four there’s only five or six people that are in this category i think and by the way just and i’ll discuss this with you i have put a call into you but you know you were jammed up and didn’t return it but there’s another person who paid double paid on the life membership i won’t mention her name here you know she okay all right and i’ll talk with you about that privately okay all right this is um okay so you’re so you’re saying that that we’re already able to tell um what’s a donation what’s a gift membership um that’s what i understood jeff to say who’s using the gift memberships a lot of the gift memberships i’m i’m figuring out who who’s using you know who has used them but um all right well i i won’t i won’t uh pursue it any further than if there’s a way for me to be able to find out um thanks okay great brad yes brad i’m wondering is there I don’t know how to phrase this to manage the ability of people to not pay beyond, like for example, we can turn off donations. So donations are great, but there should be something that clearly that’s separate. If you pay your dues, let’s say right now, your dues expire in 2025. You can’t pay, shall we say until November 1st. And then you can only pay for either one year or a life. That’s your only choices. I don’t want to misspeak on it, but I’ll look. I know, just to make things simple for the bookkeepers. I will look into it. Someone has to raise their hand. Who raised their hand? It’s David. Yeah, David. Sorry, just trying to be respectful. I don’t like the idea of discouraging people to, from paying, um, dues beyond. I mean, this is a frustration thing with, uh, adding a donation. I agree with that, but I don’t like discouraging people from paying, uh, in November. If they, if they got the money in September and they want to pay for the next year, I don’t think we should discourage that. We could, we could discourage them and encourage them to wait to pay that. So they don’t pay for five years ahead of time, But, you know, if someone really is insistent that they want to do it, I don’t think we should turn their money away. They just want to be a member next year. Let’s not make any hasty decisions right now. Let’s table this and talk about it at the next meeting and let Diane and John sort of mesh together on what the current status of things is. And then we’ll come back and we’ll hash that out. Okay. Jeff, I was trying to raise my hand to let you know. IT, leave us alone. Let us in the IT committee work on what we can do to look at WordPress or membership parole and see if we can come up with a solution. We hear the problem. We will work with Diane and with John, and we will work on a solution. Sounds good to me. Okay. Jeff, is that all right? That’s fine, yeah. Okay. Okay. I have three additional things unless anybody else has any other new business. And these are going to be really short before we go call to the audience. Anyone else have anything real quick? I basically have three things left here. First of all, who is going to go to leadership? Is anybody here going to the spring leadership meetings in Washington? Okay. That’s an easy no. Okay. Is anyone going to CSUN? Yes. Yes. Yes. So there’s four of us that are going. So, okay. So we should try to do like a dinner or something, peeps. Because we don’t see each other face-to-face that often. So I think Larry Gassman is already trying to do something. I bet you she’s going to say, can you get a shirt and wear it at CSUN, right? Is that what you’re going to say, Ann? Yeah. Not a bad idea. Ann? Oh, I’m so sorry. She lowered it. I’ll get her back up. Hold on. Oh, that’s okay. Maybe she didn’t intend to do that. Okay. And then the final thing is, okay, she’s raising her hand again. While we’re waiting for her to come up. There you go. Yes, Ann. The bubbly Ann, I’m going to start calling you. you’re not bubbling over much yeah it’s not bubbly right now i gave you the prompt let’s her bubble got burst uh-oh okay there i go there you go yeah well i was gonna i raised my hand to say i’ll be at c-san and I’m presenting at CSUN. So I’ll be there. Okay, so all five of us have to go out to dinner, okay? So let’s… So who is it? Jeff, Larry, Ann, Brad… Brad and Michael B. Michael B., okay. Yeah. We almost have a quorum for a board meeting. Ooh, that doesn’t get interesting. Just kidding. All right. Okay. All right. You’re not getting there until Tuesday, right? I’m not getting, yeah, probably Tuesday. I got to teach Monday night. Larry Gassman has, well, you can teach out of my room down there. Larry Gassman. We’ll figure it out. We’re not going to do that here. Okay. Okay. All right. And I got to make a flight. Anyway. Okay. My last statement is really two things. One, board members, please send your email communication to the board email list on groups.io. Members, if you have something that you wish to communicate to the board, you can email that to board at bits-acb.org and all board members, excluding Merv because we need to get his account fixed, have access to that. So, and we’ll get that account problem fixed for you. I don’t have access to it either. You should. Okay. She doesn’t have it set up. That’s what she means. I have the email address, but not the So you don’t have a sheet? Really? You don’t have? Correct. As far as I can see. Okay. Alright. We will… Does anyone else have anything for new business? Hey, we actually, we’re going to make it out of here by eight o’clock. Okay. Just our members, two hands so far. Okay, two hands. Let’s go. All right. Jamaica, right? First is Donna. Donna. Hello. Are you going to see son? No. Well, you should. You’re close by. You’re close. I don’t even know what that is. No, you’re confusing her with Donna Pomerantz. This is Donna Pomerantz. Oh, I’m sorry. Wrong Donna. I’m sorry. Wrong Donna. Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. That’s okay. That’s my bad. Yes. She’s in my old stomping ground. Yes, I am. So I have a question for your IT people. Okay. Go ahead, Larry. As regards to the website, am I missing it, or is there something that I can turn on dark mode? Michael? If she’s looking for a contrast setting, we do not have a contrast setting to switch to dark mode. Right now you would need to rely on your accessibility equipment or some settings within your system. That is something that we’re looking at doing in the future. Is that right? That’s what I want to hear that you’re looking for in the future. I don’t think my iPhone might do it. Well, if you invert on your – come into the chat. It will help you. Okay. Yes, you’ll need to use Smart Invert. I’ve looked at several plug-ins. I have not been satisfied on any of them. So we’re looking into that. I appreciate that. It will make things a lot easier for me. if you do because it’s all that white is like oh i understand yeah yeah it wipes out smart invert it’ll do it we’ll walk you through that thank you guys michael i have a couple thoughts on that so So next is Jamaica. Okay. Okay. My question is about the surveys that are coming out. I don’t think I’m going to be able to do the surveys. We’ll call and help you fill it out. Okay. Thank you. You’re more than welcome. And next is Pam. good evening everyone hello um happy new year to those of you that i did see at the first in january um i’m just curious if when you were talking about the membership numbers and people who needed to pay and that sort of thing do the international people have access to the credit card system that we use now. Yes, they do. Okay. All right. Sometimes the PayPal fees can get a bit expensive. No one’s left out. We got PayPal and we have Stripe. We have more ways to pay now than ever before. No, folks, I was just curious. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, bank account. Okay. homing pigeon all right hey thank you much oh got another hand there we go go ahead Marvin um hello everybody ah yes in Australia we have credit card we We have a MasterCard, Visa card, even AMAX, I think, in Australia. When my mum paid for me for my renewal back in November 1 last year, I was just checking the other day or a couple of weeks back. Yeah, I was able to pay with Visa in Australia. All right. Very good. Thank you, Marvin. All right. Our next meeting will be on March 5th. 5th. Robin, that’s correct, right? Yes, sir. Okay. Just, God, you never know with me. Okay. March 5th will be our next date, which will be just prior to CSUN. Good times are had by all. And we will be a month into the HTML course by then. So, thank you, everyone, for being here tonight. I greatly appreciate you. If you have not renewed, please, please, please consider doing so. I will be in office hours yes okay thank you I just wanted to remind you yep tonight because I don’t believe I don’t I don’t believe in going to bed early yeah even sleeping he said remind him earlier Brad so yeah all right guys thank you thank you I’ll close the room Thank you.