BITS Board Meeting for February 7, 2024

AI Generated Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the February BITS board meeting. I want to give a very warm welcome to all of you. It was very nice and warm in Arizona, and then it turned cold. So I don’t know who’s messing with the thermostat, but they should stop. I share your unhappiness. As long as Frost wasn’t at your house today. No, you haven’t visited in a very, very long time. I could be back. You never know. You have not visited in a while and that has made me very, very sad. So I’m just, I’m just, I am just saying. Who’s talking? I could be back. You never know. Who hasn’t visited? Who hasn’t visited? Frost. Oh, Frost. Ah, I thought. Robin’s last name is Frost. And so I told her that. Oh, I see. You’re being humorous. I am being fun. This is, this is called a bit of humor, John. It happens. I get I get a little slow in the uptake. OK, it just happens once in a while. All right. I’m still getting used to that. What? What? What? Humor or fun? Oh, OK. Well, it’s been easy to achieve in bits. Hey, you went to Hawaii. I want to hear about fun. It’s a new concept in here. I don’t want to hear about it. You went to Hawaii. Roll call. Madam Secretary, I can do this thing. President Jeff Bishop here. Vice President Brad Snyder. here secretary robin frost i’m here treasurer diane scalzi is on the way maybe michael babcock i’m here john mccann present david edick yeah he is here i knew he was here and we would also like to welcome all of our friends who have taken the time to visit with us this evening at various points during the meeting you will have the opportunity to have your voices heard and your questions answered and your thoughts expressed. We would also like to let you know that each of you will be recognized I sent out a board packet. I hope I did not overwhelm many people. And if I did, I apologize for that. It was 18 word pages in length. It was a bit long. But we included all of the committee reports and the presidential report and everything in it. So, you know, that way we can be fully transparent with the membership. Can I get someone to move to accept the agenda? I’ll second. Very good. Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Four minutes review. We have two of these to do. I’ll turn the meeting over to our secretary. Oh, okay. We have minutes from January 3rd and January 15th for your consideration. Right. Mr. President, I will move that both sets of minutes be adopted. Unless somebody wants to separate them. Can I get a second before discussion? Second. Okay. Any discussion before we adopt the minutes is reduced. All right. Very good. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. Excellent work there. Robin, thank you. Thank you, sir. You’re a tremendous asset to this organization. I appreciate you very, very much. My pleasure. We will move the treasurer’s report unless, Diane, are you here? Can someone text her by chance? I will. Okay. I would appreciate that. Her phone is on, or was on Do Not Disturb. And so she may not see it. It may take two phone calls. little trick there to bypass that a few i don’t know why i spoke to her like an hour ago so um we’ll come back to the treasury report although there’s great news there um but i think she has some calls to action huge great news there um so i i will tell people that we received uh we received i think four new members today john say again jefferson i think we received four new members today but the one thing i wanted to believe so uh yeah i was like syncing up the moratorium people but yep yep we’ll get to you in a minute on that um but we received So I’m pretty darn jazzed about that. So everyone should feel pretty cool about that. We’re now in the portion of the agenda where it is my opportunity to speak to you about the presidential report. I have sent it out, and I’m not going to spend too much time talking about what was in the written report. If you would like to read it, it’s lengthy. It’s about five pages in length. So there’s a lot to be said over the last 30 days. I just want to call out and John will speak about this a little bit later, but I want to sincerely, and I wish Diane were here because she was pivotal. She’s here now. Oh, she’s here now. Okay. Diane, we’ll come back to you in just a minute. If that’s okay with you. We’re up to item six, but we’ll come back and do item five. which is the Treasurer’s Report. I just want to give a very, very sincere thank you to all of you with with a with a very special thanks to to John and Diane, who who have worked very, very hard and put in tremendous amounts of hours in collaborating and tracking all of the data for all of our members. John will give all of us an update on numbers in just a few minutes, but it’s an exciting time. I can tell you with, I think, pretty good assurity, unless there’s something that I don’t know about. Again, this may be incorrect, but I think this is pretty accurate. John, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it to be true that we are now the largest affiliate within ACB at this point, based on last year’s data. Right, we’re on the way. Yeah. So now we don’t know if that will be the case once certifications come in. But with the numbers that we have, I think we’re safe to assume that we, right now, I think we are safe to assume that we are the largest, both state and special interest affiliate within the American Council of the Blind. And I’m not trying to boast about that. It speaks to the culture and the wonderful spirit in which we’re building together as a group. And I just want to thank each and every person who’s here, both as a board member, as well as who is a member for contributing to that success. We can’t do it without you. There’s a article coming out in the Braille Forum that will speak to bits. It’s called the Bits and Pieces of Effective Leadership. And it’s kind of cute, right? Bits and pieces. I like it. You like that? And it’s written to talk a little bit about what we’ve done as an affiliate. I was pretty humble about it, even stating things like we weren’t sure if this was actually going to work kind of stuff, which I wasn’t sure at the time. And I left it by giving people four principles around leadership that sort of redefined the acronym of BITS. And that was actually included in the presidential report as well. Those being being bold, leading with integrity, trust, and of course, strength. And strength being all of you, the members of this organization. So it’s a fun time. It’s fun telling our story. It’s cool. It’s really, really cool. Again, I’m not going to talk about all the things that are here listed on the agenda. Again, they’re all in the report. I will talk about partnering in just a minute, just to give everyone an update. We don’t have anything concretely inked in stone at this point. but we’re having significant conversations with the Blind Institute of Technology, the BIT organization. Many of you will know them. They’re the group that handles Salesforce training as well as digital accessibility training. And we are potentially doing something pretty bold with them in the future. We’re working really hard on trying to develop that. We are working on establishing, and it’s not done quite yet, but we are working on establishing a letter of intent, which we will then be able to disclose and actually place prominently on the website and talk about more freely about what we’re going to be doing together. Suffice it to say, I think that we have opportunities here to be able to share in the things that we are doing as well as them sharing with us the things that they are doing. So this is all centered around education and training and improving the lives of people and empowering people and giving them opportunities for those that want to take advantage of it. So, again, improving the lives of people. That’s what we’re all about. in whatever way, shape or form that you want to improve yours, whether it’s from a technology perspective in wanting to be a programmer or other type of skill like digital accessibility or Salesforce training or something like that, or simply wanting to improve your office skills. We’re going to meet you wherever you are. If you’d like to learn more about what’s been going on over the last 30 days within bits, I would refer you to the board packet. And that will, That will be a tradition within BITS moving forward, at least because I want to be fully transparent with everyone in our organization. Please refer to that. I did tell the committee chairs and after Diane’s report, I did tell the committee chairs that the packet included all of their reports. So when it comes time for them to give their reports, I have asked them for the sake of time to please be crisp in your presentation. If it’s important that it be said, it’s okay. But I don’t know that we necessarily have to cover absolutely every detail that’s already back in time see we go back in time in the board meeting that’s how this works we have a time machine any questions i’m going to assume not none for me great thank you everyone i appreciate you and appreciate all of your support. Oh, I heard a voice. Yes, Tammy Robbins joined. Oh, okay. It was an announcement about someone joining. Okay, okay. I thought I heard another actual human voice. Okay. Diane. Yeah. It is your turn and welcome to the board meeting. Welcome here. Yes, sorry. I was working on what you asked me to do. Oh, no, that’s great. Oh, good. You have that number? Oh, I can’t wait to hear that number. I can’t not wait to hear that number. now or do you want it now no save it to the end because i think i think people are going to be shocked at least i think i’m going to be shocked but you did cliffhanger i have a couple other things i have a couple other things i can say at the end too if if you’ll give me the time you have as much time as you desire ma’am okay um well okay so michael did um make a recording of the treasurer’s report and it came out i thought real nice so i don’t know who’s going to be playing that i think michael might play it would can you play for us michael i need about two minutes to get set up but i can okay so why don’t you start with the other stuff okay well the while he’s preparing okay well i um i added up all of the money that we took in from PayPal for the months of December, January, and so far in February. And I didn’t get a chance to double check it. So I don’t know how, if it’s entirely right, but anyway, the figure I came up with $5,570. And incidentally, we’ve had two life memberships already this month. One from Christy Smith. Wait, did you say $5,570? Yes, that’s what I said. Dan, does that include the regular $20 contributions? Are you talking just over and above membership payments where we extended the person? No, I’m… I’m talking about just what came into PayPal. Okay. Okay. You know, everything that came into PayPal, I didn’t, you know, take out for anything. Are you kidding me right now? That’s what I came up with. Oh my goodness. And I think I took it off of my calculator. So 5570 is what you quoted, I believe. Yes. We can ask Robin to verify that, but I believe that’s correct. That’s what, that’s what I wrote. Yep. um uh we’ll have you triple check that later because okay that seems high to me but but maybe not i don’t but you know even even when i came in when i looked at the paypal including the fee. I didn’t take any of the fees out or anything. Was $70. And a bunch that came in this afternoon. Yes. Yeah, we talked about that before you were here. There’s been even more since we talked. What? Yeah, there was. It was right up to, like, right after 6 o’clock Central Time. Yeah. Yeah. So I all right. Well, and I, I, I can even, you know, add it up again to make sure that I but I it sure it sure look like I can tell that even on the memory. Where is my. Oh, that’s okay. That’s okay. You’re going to have plenty of time when your reports done because we’re going to go into committee reports. So you probably have an hour to add it up if you like. Okay. All right. So it’s all good. So when you. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. Whenever you guys are ready, I can play this. Okay. So, okay. Diane, are you ready for him to play it? Yes. Mr. President, sir? Yes, ma’am. I don’t know. Did you want the life members to be mentioned by name in the minutes or not? Oh, yes, absolutely. So, Diane, we all need to get her a list. Either Diane or I can provide that. Yeah. John, if you have it handier than I do, because we’ve got that one. I’ve been tracking them separately for AMS purposes and other things. It’s a zip, zip. I’ll just get that to Robin at the end of the meeting. All right. Great. We’ll get that to you, Robin. Thank you. You’re more than welcome. Okay. And are you ready for me? Mm-hmm. Thank you. All right. So thank you, Siri. Voice 2. Bits Treasurer’s Report, January 1st, 31, 2024. Checking. Beginning balance $9,331.48. Credits. Transfer from PayPal $2,245.60. Total credits $2,245.60. Debits. Zoom monthly subscription increased meeting size to 500 participants. Negative $93.35. Groups IO premium annual subscription. Negative $220. Dropbox annual subscription increase to 2 TB storage. negative $119.88. Total debits, negative $433.23. Ending balance $11,143.85. PayPal, beginning balance, $311.66. Credits, 35 regular member dues payments $700. 4Bits Life member dues payments $250 each, $1,000. To ACP Life member dues payments $30. 1 Student Member Dues Payment $10 3 International Member Dues Payments $60 2 Junior Member Dues Payments $10 15 Donations $310 Total Credits $2,120 Paypal Fees: -$71.40 Transfer to Checking: -$2,245.60 Debits: -$2,317 Ending balance $114.663. Savings account. Beginning balance $32,127.69. Credits. Interest $0.29. Total credits $0.29. Debits. No debits. Total debits $0. Ending balance $32,127.98. Total for all accounts $43,386.49. 1. Six dues over payments applied as donations to BITS. 2. For information on PayPal fees, visit https://www.paypal.com/.us/.webapps/.mpp/.paypal-fees. 3. Corrected to change PayPal ending balance from $311.66. cents to $114.66 and to change balance of all accounts to $43,386.49. Submitted for audit. Prepared by Diane Scalzi. Bits Treasure February 6th, 2024. And we’ll have a quiz at the end of the meeting on that URL for the PayPal. And she said my last name correctly. She did. That was impressive. It was very impressive, guys. great any other items uh diane on the treasurer’s report uh no nothing on the treasurer’s report i i did have that item of i don’t know whether you’re putting it under old or new business we will handle that now um and then and then um is by the way mr edict uh david is uh taylor aren’t in the room i don’t know let me check because she said on her report that she was going to miss the meeting yes she did yeah she said she had a meeting to go to she did but then but then i after she sent that mail that she actually was probably going to be able to make it so i was just wanted i just wanted to see if she was because if she wasn’t that’s fine and you know that’s fine yes sir would you consider it in order at this time to address the matter of uh withdrawal to savings. Yes. In fact, that’s, I think what Diane wants to speak to. So that’s to make a motion that we transfer $5,000 to savings. And I sort of made the case not going much higher. Yeah. I don’t think we need to go into all that, but is there a second for that? I’ll second. Okay. Any discussion? Diane, did you want to speak to this? Well, yeah. You know, we’ve been bouncing around numbers on it for the last several days. And I think based on the money that we have and, boy, what we’ve taken in, I mean, that might even change it a little bit. Yeah. When John sent that computation out to the board, I think that that spoke very nicely to why we shouldn’t make it, you know, $6,000. Although the data that came in today, that’s interesting. But I stand by John’s motion. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. So I support it. Okay. So we’re going to transfer $5,000, assuming the board votes yes, to savings. Is that what planning doing, Diane? Yes. Yes. Okay. And, you know, I’m sorry that the savings account isn’t doing better than it is, but, you know, the checking account isn’t giving us any interest in savings is at least giving us, you know, 25 cents a month. Enough for a quarter anyway. But I think that’s something in your budget committee report that you actually address. So that’s good. Okay. Should we call for a vote? All those in favor? aye aye any opposed what is that an opposed for yes or no there no that was a yes okay good sorry right before i’m sorry okay just checking okay very good okay diane did you have another item business if i did i can’t remember it so i don’t think you i don’t think you did but i was just checking. No, I don’t believe I did. Did you have anything else? Sure. And we’re now into committee reports. So, and you’re actually next, Diane. Did you want to speak at all to the budget committee report, or do you want it to stand alone? Well, your package contained the, but in case anyone didn’t get a chance to see it, just to summarize it, we’re working on a budget for 2025. And of course, normally, You would work on a budget for a year in advance, but we have had someone suggest that we needed maybe to do a budget for 2024 also. So we’re working on that. We’re, you know, we’re looking for committee reports. Not committee reports. We’re looking for committee chairs to submit any information on any expenses that they might have for, you know, for 2024 or 2025. And I was I just had to shut up my Mac. So, you know, so we are still looking for that and you can send those to budget. What would that email address be? Actually, have them send them to you, Diane. Treasurer? Treasurer at? Yeah, just send them to Treasurer. Okay. All right. Send them there. Good. Thank you, Robin. You’re welcome. Yes, thank you. That was awkward. So, you know, we’re going to be working on it. We’ve gotten into the business of looking at the – I want to look at the Chase site to see what they might have in the way of – You’re breaking up there. You’re breaking up there. Just to let everyone know. Yeah, that’s what my connection was. The budget committee report spoke to the fact that they’re going to be looking at ways of trying to improve the amount of money earned in the savings account and potentially checking account. So, Diane, did you have anything else to share today? No, that was. Thank you. All right, cool. If you want to try re-adding up those numbers, that’d be interesting. Okay. Okay. Mute. Yep. Okay, we’re going to move to presentation and outreach. category. And Brad, you’re up for both convention and presentation. You can take them in whichever order you prefer. I got presentation. I mean, convention queued up first because that’s alphabetically. Let’s see. Well, I submitted a report and let me see if I can just go through some of the highlights. We had two meetings since the last board meeting, I think January 13th and 27th, something like that. We’re trying to meet every two weeks and two weeks and, you know, make sure we’ve got everything ready to go. We are looking at a number of presentations. We’re looking at primarily, we have a three-part series on AI that we are looking at, AI, intelligence over three days. We’re going to do these presentations. Excuse me. I really should be going down my notes. These presentations are going to be doing the virtual convention, virtual portion. The dates for the virtual convention are June 27, 28, and 29. We’re at the prime. First up is a three-part series on AI. We’ll have each session on one of the three days. So day one, we’re looking at doing ethics and response, ethical and responsibility in using AI. Part two, we’re going to look at some of the main AI platforms. Now this is written in pencil because this changes. Right now we’re looking at tentatively Microsoft Copilot, Google Bard, OpenAI slash chatGTP. And that’s just a tentative list there of what we want to look at. Then day three, we’re going to look at AI in the business place. And tentatively, we are looking to get Brian Hartchen to maybe contribute to the presentation. And we have also been talking with the employment committee about partnering with them on this part of the presentation. We have a couple of other presentations we are looking at. We are looking, of course, iBug today. They did a presentation with us last year, and they want to partner with us again and do a presentation. They usually focus on something that’s got to do with the iPhone, iOS-type stuff. So I’m still waiting to hear from them exactly what they’re going to do, but we’ve got time, and they definitely want to do it. They’re written in pen, not pencil. And then we’re looking at doing, you know, BITS is working on a new website. And so that caused us to start thinking about, you know, other affiliates and chapters may have their own website. So we’re looking at something to do with implementation and upkeep for websites on the affiliate and chapter level. And we are looking at partnering with the Leadership Institute on that one. And Michael Babcock has taken the lead on that for us. So he’s making the communications with them. Let me see some key dates going from memory. Let’s see. March 20th is when we need to have our list of what our events are going to be in to Janet and the ACB Convention Committee. or forgive me, April 17th, maybe I think is the date. We need to have a list of names and presenters and things of that. And then there’s a date in May. I want to say it’s perhaps May 15th is we have to have the names, you know, for sure names and contact information for presenters so that webinar invitations can be sent out. Let me see. I think we’re also, the employment committee is also looking at doing a presentation on their own on something with technology in the workplace. And they may want us to partner with them. They’re taking the lead on that one. So we’re waiting to hear from them if that materializes. And I think that’s all I had on my list. Let me see. anyway i think that’s it so that’s my oh the convention planning committee will meet again saturday again that’s two weeks from our last meeting and we’re going to keep up meeting every every two weeks until we certainly meet that first couple of deadlines for janet’s you know requirements so let’s move on to presentations Okay. We had, I listed in my report that was sent out, we had a number of presentations since our last meeting in January. I’m not going to go down that list, but we did do a part two on the bits and pieces. See, I knew that sounded familiar. The bits and pieces of family tech. We did a part two on that. We did one on the calendar apps for your iOS devices. Debbie Hazleton did a presentation for us on tips and tricks for email, and she went over all the changes going on in the Bits email. And that was February 1st. But the big one was on January 15th. We did a webinar where we announced a couple of the big things, the RIM. And what else did we announce? Jeff, RIM, I think we announced, of course, the Python course. Everybody already knew about that. But we had a big announcement. And the big deal on that was it was a smart call to do that on a webinar because we had over 100 people at one point in that meeting. We did that on ACB Community. It was a public meeting. And that generated a lot of activity. I want to say we had maybe 30-something people sign up during and shortly after that presentation. So that was a big deal. And, of course, during we had our reoccurring presentations, the MacBytes and the AppleBytes that we do, and both of those are done in ACB community. Coming up here in February, we have – hang on. We did – just so I don’t forget anything. Okay, coming up in February, which we are already in February. See, we’ve already had one presentation in February, but I counted that as since the last board meeting. We have MacBytes, of course, will be next Tuesday, February 13th. On February 14th, Deborah Armstrong is going to do a presentation for us on takingcontrolofyourgroups.io. email, help us learn to manage all that email that’s coming in. On the 21st, Herbie Allen is going to do an intro to Discord. We now have a Discord channel going on. I’m not a Discord person, so that may not be the right terminology, but we have Discord now for members. Herbie’s going to do an intro to Discord, talk about the different platforms that you can use to access Discord and just basically Discord 101. So that’ll be on, what did I say, the 21st? And then on the 28th, Herbie does his Apple Bytes. So we will then have a meeting of the presentations committee. We meet once a month on the third Tuesday, which I think will be the 20th. Oh, and we’re already working on several potential presentations for March and April. Herbie, we’re talking about doing an audio editing, and he wants to look at Audacity. That can run on both the Mac and Windows, and he’s going to, and I’m not sure the date on that. I think we had a tentative date written down, but I’ll hold off on mentioning it since I don’t know for sure. And the Education Committee is talking about, Deborah Armstrong and her committee is talking about doing a panel discussion on resources for learning your screen reader and office applications. And she’s got, I think it’s a five-person panel lined up. Debbie may talk about that a little bit more when she does her report. But we’re working closely together, the two of us, on presentations between the education committee and the education and presentation. So that’s it. Great. Any questions for Brad on convention or presentation? I just sent that email to Brian, by the way. Oh, very good. Okay. Is the chef willing to speak to us now? or are we interrupting her marvelous cooking chore there? Deborah? All right. Welcome to my California kitchen. I’m going to channel Herbie Allen for just a quick second for a bit of levity and let you know that if you were here, I’m making a delicious bean, ham, and vegetable soup, which we are going to be eating tomorrow evening. Okay. So now for the report. So the education committee is pretty new. and Jeff had already started a Python class so he can tell you a little bit about more about what’s happening there but our job you can too though because you’re on the administrative side. Okay well let me go on with my committee report first crisp crisp so we are going to be doing some long-range planning but right now because I have 20 members I wanted to give them an activity that would be meaningful for the membership right now. And because we have so many new members, my guess was many people that signed up for free were unemployed. So to make them a little more employable, I thought that what we would do is help people understand all the wonderful resources out there online for free and paid that are independent study that can help you get up to speed with Office and your screen reader. And another reason this was important to me was we’re going to be teaching some advanced courses, things like WordPress. And in order to do those, you really need to be conversant with your screen reader in Office. So I thought, let’s get these guys up to speed before we start the advanced courses. And that will help all of us so much more. And to do that, I have a panel of six people and they’re going to be doing a presentation either at the end of March or beginning of April. And they will be each covering a different resource that’s available for independent study for our members to learn these valuable foundation skills. I have sent a preliminary outline to Brad, but we are going to be meeting on the 16th, one of the President’s Days, so that all of us can do a bit of a meet and greet and our 20 members can start learning about each other’s skills and possible roles that they want to take on. And in that, after that meeting, I’m going to go ahead and do a final outline for Brad so he can assign a date for our presentation. So that’s all I have to say about the Education Committee right now. You want me to say a little bit about the Python class, Jeff? Sure. Okay. So Jeff, with all of his great innovations and initiatives, started this Python class before we actually even had an Education Committee. And the idea was to get people learning a little bit how to write code. And some people are going to move on and want to be programmers and others are going to go, “Oh, it’s way too hard for me now. I know I’m going to have to make so much money.” And anyway, so I think, how many have you got? 150 people signed up? 146. So he’s got close to 150 people sign up. And he’s given them a couple of initial tasks, which are a little bit challenging. And people are going to have to work through those tasks and when they’re completed, there’s going to be also some introductory training before they actually start writing programming code. And if they can get through these preliminary tasks and the preliminary training, which will have the final assessment, then in April they’re going to start learning how to write computer software. So it’s very exciting and that’s what we’re doing. And if I’m starting out, let me know. It’s exciting. We are utilizing the Bookshare in partnership that we’ve developed, and that’s going well. We have a, we’ve had a slight hiccup. I won’t get into it here, but if any of you are in the Python course, I’ll reiterate, please, please honor the commitments we’ve asked of you to not disclose information outside of the group. We have mentioned that a few times to our Python class participants. And so although we have procedures in place to make sure that we are protecting the integrity of Bookshare, the National Library Service, as well as BITS. So we do have processes in place to ensure that things are done correctly in reference to this offering. So, but again, please, please honor the things that we have asked of you to do. Because we want this to be a partnership that will continue on in the future. And any variance to that could jeopardize that opportunity. So we just are asking everyone to please do that. I think that’s enough said. Great. Anything else? Oh, she’s muted. I think she’s going back to her kitchen. Okay. Anyone have any questions on the education front before we move on here? All right. People who are listening in the audience, you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the meeting. We do have one item of business that we will get your input on later in the meeting pertaining to dues. So hang in there. Mr. Babcock. You’re all ready to me? That’s scary. I think we’re going through these pretty good. So I appreciate that. I don’t have anything additional to add to the report that was sent, aside from just so to keep everyone informed, because it was a long report. So no hard feelings if you skim through and just looked at the information that you found to be pertinent to you. We are in the process of severely—that’s not the right word I want. We’re in the process of testing the development site, which is a new website that we’re working on for BITS. And the BITS IT committee is helping with doing that. We’ve captured a lot of information from members. And ideally, what we want to do is make everyone happy. So if you need your password reset, guess what? You’re going to be empowered to do that yourself. If you need to update your address because you moved for whatever reason, maybe you got a new job or something, you’re going to be able to log into Bits and get your information updated. Also, we realize that email is not everyone’s cup of tea. It can get quite busy. And so when there’s pertinent information for members, maybe that means Zoom links or other resources that you need access to. ideally, we’d like it so you can log in your bits account and be able to access that information. Of course, you’ll still have access to the previous recordings of events and all of those so super excited about this. And I greatly appreciate every member’s patience while we things available to everyone and give people the satisfaction of being able to log in and access their stuff. But if the experience is horrible, then it’s going to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. And ultimately, what I want to do is make sure that everyone is satisfied with how things are and they’re able to access the information. So probably in the next month or so, you’ll start seeing more requests. The only other thing that I will highlight from this report that I sent out is, well, two other things real quick. There was talk in the past of you being able to use your password if you already had a bits-acb.org account. And both for security reasons and honestly to eliminate some of the headache from myself, what we’ve actually decided to do is when things are ready to go, members will receive an email that’ll have a link that says, hey, you have a new account on the bits website. Click here to set your password. You’ll click there. You’ll set your password. It’ll actually recommend a password for you, or you can set your password at that point and then save it, and then you’ll be able to log in. So just be aware of that. And the last thing is, and of course, we will communicate with membership prior to that happening, letting you know dates that things will start happening so everyone isn’t caught off guard. The last thing that I will mention is with the Bits website and all of the new capabilities coming to it, there is going to be there, there’s the ability to update your information, as mentioned, using self serve tools. And we’ve already provided some of those self serve tools if you gave bits a different email address than what NUMA solutions currently has for your rim account, really simple, head on over to join bits.org slash email and fill that form out. And within about 24 hours, your accounts will match up and you’ll get that one hour free of access to the rim account. I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention, but right there, I’m going to leave it there. And thanks a lot, Jeff. One more thing we should talk about just because people may not have read it. Discord and WhatsApp. Yes. Yes. Thank you. So we have a new Discord server, which for those who are not aware, Discord is a platform that allows you to engage in conversation both via text and or voice. We’ve got several members that have already joined the Discord server and who are navigating around it to learn it. It sounds like Kirby’s going to be producing some content to help you with learning the Discord server, but really learning the basics of navigating Discord. But really, it’s very friendly and everyone in there is willing to help. So don’t hesitate to jump in and play around and experiment and see what you like about it. You know, if you have any feedback, definitely. share that as well. And then there’s a WhatsApp community and I’m going to be fully transparent. I am not as up to WhatsApp as, as what I should be. And so there is a WhatsApp community, which has channels. I think they call them in WhatsApp. I’m actually not sure what they call them list and they’re up to date and if the gods will allow me to do things but at the same time here we’ll see how creative I can be I can find the link here real quick Michael Dois if you’re listening pop it to the top of my inbox please or else I’ll find it I’ll find it eventually you send it earlier I’ll find it just trying to I’ve gotten so much mail since this meeting started we’ll send the link out to the business members list so people can join. We even have groups set up for each of the committees. So there’s a group for the email management team. There’s a group for the board of directors. There’s a group for publications. Each group has their own private group and only the people on the committee who are serving on the committee will be allowed in those groups. And then the other rooms are going to be open for specific chat type experiences, both either voice or text chat. And there’s also an announce group that’s automatically added to a community. So if there’s a special announcement that needs to be made concerning bits or anything going on, we’ll make it there too. So if you’re a WhatsApp user, then you’ll be able to do that. So stay tuned. That may be in your email box in just a few minutes. I just need to find it because it scrolled off my screen. So I will do that if I have the time, but maybe right after the board meeting. So just stay tuned. Okay. Anything else? Or does anyone have any questions for Michael? Excellent. Excellent report, Michael. And thank you for your tremendous and hard work. Thanks to Demasi for the donations of a lot of software. for the site, and we appreciate that. All right, let’s move on. We’re moving through these pretty quick. John McCann, membership. Okay, thank you very much, Mr. President. I want to quote one sentence from the report that was circulated. Why is it not giving me this? Hang on. It went away. All right. I did say by the time this report is presented, I fully expect that all of the moratorium participants’ records would be correctly reflected in AMFOR. As a matter of fact, I don’t know what happened to the text in my sheet here. It just went away. But that wound up being the case, albeit with a three-hour margin. I have been attempting to create new records where that was necessary. Just a few stragglers that came in on the days before the moratorium shut down, which happened, ironically enough, on January 31st. Though explained, as explained in the report, one person turned theirs back in and I found we double counted. So Jeff kept a very, very conscientious list. He basically created a wait list. It’s like college admissions, okay? Basically said, if we don’t hear from you by X date, we assume you don’t want to come to our college and we’ll just go down the list. That’s what we did. We hit the 625 with the definitive list came into play only on the 6th. I want to give you some updates. And that is that we now have listed in AMS. And again, you’re talking about a snapshot. Things are constantly in flux. Constantly in flux. Had three or four entered today and they’re not in AMS yet. So AMS reflects 688 BITS members of the present time, 625 moratorium participants. That reflects a mixture of existing ACB members, people who joined us for the first time but who had an association with ACB, and 165 people who had no association with ACB. But they do now because we being a special interest affiliate, well, they’re members of ACB as well as VIF, even if they’re not fully appreciate that fact. So we have 625 moratorium participants, 42 life members, and 21 whose memberships are extended into 2024 by virtue of previous payments, though they did not participate in, elected not to participate in the moratorium. I’m very gratified to see that apparently the IT committee and the membership committee, or at least the chairs of these committees, are on the same page with the need to now address the development of tools that will permit us to automate as much of the membership tracking activity and responsibilities as can reasonably be accomplished. I also feel that even though we did a telephone tree in the context of the moratorium, it’s worth making one more approach to those members of BITS whose memberships expire in 2023 to determine whether we, you know, whether they want to come back in or whether, you know, maybe perhaps BITS is out, just not interested this year or whatever. And also, I think we should pay attention to all of the data we collected in the membership moratorium submission forms. People indicated their interests. We should mine that trove of data to see who should be at least approached to be on various committees. So, again, I stand by the number 688. We continue to roll like gangbusters. I won’t say that I’m sad to see the allegorical Johnstown flood end. We’re now going to deal with the normal drizzle or trickle of memberships come in. The biggest challenge is going to be we get forms without payments and we get payments without forms. So I think what needs to be prioritized, and it’s going to be necessarily a manual exercise for the immediate future. But we need to automate such that, I’ll say this until the day I die, with membership recruitment, membership tracking, membership recording, you have to have one cattle gate with one turnstile. Okay? One cattle gate, one turnstile. The minute you have multiple avenues of entry, it becomes a nightmare. And I cannot, I will conclude my comments here by saying that I am beyond overjoyed that now, except for the people who are straggling in, and that you’re always going to have, okay, except when ACB shuts down and you can add more records just to satisfy their record date requirement or the filing certification. I am overjoyed that we now don’t need to consult two or three or four spreadsheets. All the data is now aggregated under AMPS as it should be. That was always the objective of one which was unattainable until this week. And again, I want to publicly thank Nancy Becker in this meeting for her personal attention. She entered 160 records for those people previously having no records. For me to have done that would have taken about 10 days easily. And that’s my report. I’m going to jump in and ask a question because I think Jeff is muted real quick. Have you, since we turned off the free moratoria membership, you haven’t received any forms without correlated payments, have you? Or is that still an issue? No, we definitely have. Okay. And we’re going to have to go out to them and say, hey, we love you, but, you know. I saw one just today. Perfect. We will end up figuring out how we can avoid that from happening in the future because I was not aware of that. So thank you. No, that’s happening. Diane and I know what’s happening, what has to happen. that we, again, we need the cattle gate. I don’t know how, if we can automate, like if you go out and you pay that you get put back in a form, this needs to be a high level discussion between the IT folks who know, I can present what in a contract world will be requirements. This is what we require. This is what we need. Can you make it happen? That’s kind of a discussion that now needs to be held between Jeff, the IT chair and me, or as many other people as can address that. matter. I can say that I saw one today where the person said that they were submitting the form to what do we call it? Simply updating their records. And they were not members of BITS or ACB. Right. The new website will fix that. Yes. How do you update a record when you don’t have a right? The new website will solve all that. Yes. So thank you guys. Great. Thank you. I could not it unmuted so i had to like tab around and find it so i know alt a was not working for me sorry i got scared thinking that everything i said just kind of no no no you’re good job okay great that all right excellent all right we’ll now move to publications rosanna renee did you want to talk about fundraising real quick we’ll get back to you in just a second rosanna i’m sorry all right well First, I’m glad that I am on the fundraising committee. And my committee members are Marcy Doody, Karen Hughes, Marty Sobo, and Diane Scalzi. The first thing that we talked about was Bits having a logo. The logo that was on the Facebook, which is a, I don’t know if it’s still there or not, it’s a circle with a letter B, was put there by the previous vice president, but it did have board approval from what I understand. So we don’t have a cost for that right now because we’re trying to come up with ideas for a logo that we will present to the budget committee, and then it will be presented to the board. So we are working on that. The next item that we’re working on is a See’s Candy fundraiser, and I have the link, and At our next meeting, which will be on February the 12th, we’ll decide when we want to start that. And then if we can send that, Jeff, you’ll have to let me know. I mean, should we send it to the board for the board to approve? Yeah, we have to take it out of the board approval. Okay. Okay. So then we’ll send that to you first. And then, like, okay. Now, the other thing that we’re working on is we would like to have a trivia contest, which would cost $5 and $10 to play. We have a company that would be giving a prize at the end. challenge that we have is how to collect the money, how we can collect the money without creating a lot of extra work for the treasurer. And so we’re looking for ideas from the board. So when we plan this, when we’re going to hold this and people who want to play, you know, send their money in, how can they pay it through the BITS website? Because I know that there’s a PayPal account and I didn’t know if you had to have a, I’m trying to, I don’t want to create a lot of extra work for Diane, scholars, regarding accounting money. Can I make a comment? I think we would definitely need to keep it separate. from the other money. I understand that. I understand that. That’s why we’re bringing it up because I understand it. Diana was mentioning that, yes, I know Bits has a PayPal account, but we would need to use all of that. Madam Chair, I would make a recommendation that we table this for now and have a conversation with the treasurer and you and your committee and try to figure this out. I can think of a couple of solutions off the top of my head. One being that if the company that is facilitating the prizes, they may also facilitate the process of collecting the donations. I don’t know. So this is, we’re not going to solve that here tonight. No, no. Oh, I’m just reporting. I’m just reporting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, the prize that we’re going to confirm, to my understanding, is from the – oh, I can’t remember. It’s the computer folks in Texas. Computer for the blind? Computer for the blind. Yeah, and they would donate a laptop with JAWS on it and a year of training. And that’s the prize that we’re looking at. All right. Great. Well, let’s continue talking on this one. Sounds a little complicated. So we’re going to need to figure this one out. Yeah, we’ll figure it out, though. We’ll figure it out. Anything else? You’ll get back to me about what? Well, I think you need to have a conversation with Diane on this. So that’s your next step, I think. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Great. Anything else from you? you no um okay excellent okay thank you i appreciate your report this evening thank you and thank you for sending it in by the way that’s great um rosanna i am sorry for the delay you’re up next okay i’m sorry um oh no no need to apologize okay uh just to update publications committee i have my my report is very short at this point um publications committee did on january 11th um that was our very first meeting we did talk about the various aspects of publications and the two sides of publications which would be the social media side as well as the document side. As you know, the handbook is something that will be on the document side, and social media comprises the Facebook, our Facebook, Mastodon, and we’re looking into some other platforms as well so that we can be across the board. And I’m just going to, the report is already out there, so I’m just going to give you the updates that I have. On Facebook, we have added roughly 12 members to the members-only Facebook. It may not be exactly accurate. It may be a little bit more than that. Herbie just added some new people just a few days ago. As of February 7th, Mastodon, we have 84 followers. We are following 94. We will also be celebrating our one-year anniversary, February 23rd of Mastodon. And we also have 375 posts on Mastodon since the Mastodon account has been opened. Our next meeting is actually going to be tomorrow evening and an agenda for that has been sent out. One thing that is on that agenda is to begin to review the handbook and the social media updates. I just want to piggyback something that Renee said in this report, because Renee did approach me with the idea of the logo. And she did call me about presenting it to publications. Jeff and I have also had a discussion about it as well. And there are some ideas, some very good ideas running around with regard to the logo. The one that Renee was talking about was designed for the social media only. It was not designed for the Bits website itself. My understanding is once this is all said and done, Bits will have a logo that will go up on the website and would be used across Bits as a way of recognizing who we are. And that’s all I have on this update. Okay, great. Any questions? Thank you, Rosanna. I appreciate you. And thank you for sending in your report. That was very, very good. I appreciate that. I think that’s helping out a lot. Debbie Hazleton, you are up next. So, actually, Brad, you’re so sweet, but it was not I who gave all that information for that February 1st report. It was the wonderful committee. And, you know, our committee is strong in that almost every day we ask each other, how do you feel about that email? Or how do you feel about that person’s signature? Or were they advertising? Were they cross-posting? How do you feel about that tone? How do you feel about the fact that that was a personal reply and not a group reply? So we are a sounding board for each other and a way of bringing what’s happening into a focus where together it’s a group conscience that’s quite wonderful. So thank you to my committee. David Edick, Merv Keck, Jason Castonguay, Mike Hartwig, and Jeff Bishop, of course. And I’m really happy to be working with these very fine people. So we have, I’m not going to give you everything that’s in the report, but as you know, we have 15 lists. And the reason we’ve done that is because of the high volume from the huge amount of growth. And we know that there are people who write multiple messages in a day. And there are people who wish we would curb the amount that people are allowed to write, that we would say, OK, you’re only allowed to post three times or you’re only allowed to post whatever. We don’t want to do that. That’s treating people like children. That’s asking for people to get to feel like they’re being treated in an unfriendly way. So we are hoping that more of you will go to these sub lists. Many already are. But we hope that the lists will provide a way of increasing depth of topics as well focus and support being with others who are sharing the depth and the passion of those particular areas, as well as meaning that those who aren’t sharing those same topic areas won’t feel bombarded with so much email. So we have moderators for all of them. You know that if you’ve seen it on the list. I have been encouraging the moderators to start topics and invite, say on the discussion list, hey, today we’re talking about such and such, come on over. Some people have written welcomes, particularly Nikki Keck in the Braille discussion list, welcoming and sharing. And I’ve seen some really nice conversation there. We think that the gentle that is moderated by Belle Collins will be a major focal point because I think we’re changing Jason provided the footers of the email with the Discord channels. And I guess that WhatsApp is coming, but it’s not been released yet. But Jason has graciously put that in the footers for each channel. And again, why Discord? Why WhatsApp? Because we want to give, we think that by giving many different opportunities, it’s like in the chat, we have, you know, more breakout rooms. We’re hoping this will make it so that it isn’t all on one list. It isn’t people feeling frustrated, like, I got to get on this one list and write 50 million messages. Well, there are ways to go and have conversations. So we hope that helps. And we hope that it is enjoyable. The discussion list is still too busy for some, and we are concerned about that. And so we are looking at it because one of the things that makes it so busy are the individual replies that really ought to be a reply to sender. And they’re a reply that goes to the all list, but they’re really writing back to a specific individual like, yeah, me too, and yes, and thank you very much, and things like that, that really need to be individual replies, reply to sender, not reply all. So we’re looking at, again, whether or not we’re going to change the way the reply function happens in this in that discussion list. And we’re mixed about it. And so we may be polling you the membership. And I’m sure there’ll be more discussion with the board on this. It really is. It’s a mixed bag. And we already know some of you don’t want it. You know, we get we get people who feel that like they know what we ought to be doing. And it’s one of those things. If it were that simple, we would have done it differently, even more so sooner. It’s complicated. But we have reached out to a few people about cross posting. Not allowed. It really messes up groups.io. I used to do it. I never knew it was a. I don’t know that I did it in bits, but I used to do it on other lists. I thought it was smart, you know, but sending out to multiple lists at once. No, it’s a, it’s a no, no sending out, putting, you know, something in the BCC field and doing that. No, it’s really not helpful. It messes up groups.io. It messes up threads. We also, I’ve reached out to a couple of people about we want you to identify yourself somewhere in your message. There’s another list I’m on where I see Braille Chicken Whisperer. I’m like, wow, I don’t know who that is. Or we’ve seen the chocolate chip cookie, the evil chocolate chip cookie. And I’m like, bring me that cookie, you know, or bring me that chicken. But it’s okay to use a clever name. We just want to know who you are in your message, you know, just sign your name. And we’ve also reached out to some, and we probably will be reaching out more about advertising. We don’t want to see blatant advertising. And some of it talk with you about what I offer or see if I can help you. That’s different. But we’ve had people who have had blatant advertising in signatures with your fees and your services. And that’s too much in people’s faces. We’ve had political statements occasionally or blatant religious kinds of things. And, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s something that we don’t want to be seeing. It’s something that’s in our rules and guidelines. And so, yeah, staying away from politics and, and religion and, and advertising. We are looking at other opportune ways that maybe you can, that others can say, these are my services. And there are some that are written in our guidelines. We think that there are other ideas being shared and we’ll see. But, you know, when I was growing up, I hated it when they said, well, all this copy, this ink print, everything that’s in the ink print is here in Braille, except for ads. And I would think, I want to know what those ads are. So we’re looking at if there’s a way we can do something about that. Let’s see. Is there anything else? Yeah, I talked about the replies. Yeah, reply to sender. Oh, and we did cover a lot on groups.io in that presentation. It’s probably still okay that Debbie Armstrong is doing that for her. her group because some people didn’t get that and we hope that the recording is going to be out but yeah that’s Jason did a lot of that and and I think Merv added some to that and David and so that was a great presentation and the questions that we got you all guided us with your questions and mostly about still too much email. So I think that’s all I have for now. I’m so proud though, that, that everybody’s been getting along and there’s a lot of helpfulness and kindness on the lists. And, and it has calmed down from before we started with this many lists, but we’re still looking at ways to make it easier, better, more friendly. And I think that’s all I have for now. Anything to add? I think Debbie has, Deborah Armstrong has a comment. Yeah. Hey. I just wanted to clarify that my presentation will not be the same as Debbie’s. Debbie’s presentation with Jason and her helpers was about how to access groups.io from your inbox, from your email client. I’m going to work specifically on how to access it from your browser, i.e. not using your computer. If you want to go ahead and use someone else’s computer, that’s what my presentation will be about. Thank you. I’m back on mute. I think we did do some of that as well. I think David added some of that, but that’s okay. Repetition is a good thing. We’ll probably do a deeper dive there. Yeah. And the Debbie’s doing our stuff. You know, hey, you can’t go wrong. May I ask a question? Sure. Sure. I saw something earlier today about, you know, they were talking about replying to sender. And apparently if messages come through in HTML, then you see the link, you know, to reply to sender. And if they come in plain text, you might not. I’m curious to know how that’s going to wind up. We don’t know yet. I don’t know yet. We’re still investigating it. We’re still working on it. Okay. Okay, great. But, you know, if we change the reply function, it might help sort that. I don’t know. But, yeah. Go ahead, Jeff. We’ll look into it. We had two other hands, but I’d like to know who those hands are. David? Kevin Roberts? We will take questions later. So, Kevin, hold on to your question. so if you can lower that hand there we go um and uh you can either leave it or you can lower it you want david and then they can raise their hand at the appropriate time because we’re good we have an item of business that we’re going to cover before we actually get to other hand raises okay all right anything else from you debbie hazelton i don’t think so i don’t think so i hope Just thanks to the committee and thanks to you and thanks to everyone for cooperating and being so wonderful to work with us in all these changes. Nothing’s written in stone. Nope. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Ms. David Edick, the Zoom committee. All right. How’s it going, everyone? Look at this. In our meeting here, we’ve had over 80 people at its peak when people had to come in and out for whatever reason. That’s great. Chats have been like that, too. Okay, not quite as high, but, you know, over 30 people. 40, 45 in chat, David. Yeah, 40, 30, 45. So it’s been great. Put out a call for Zoom hosts and have gotten a ton of responses. And before this, I’ve had a handful of people talk to me. And because our existing Zoom hosts have had requests need to practice breakout rooms, we’re going to be meeting Friday and do a practice session with a few people. And I’ll probably invite some new people. So we have some things to work with. It’s been great. My goal is to help everyone where they’re at. And you might teach me something new. That’s great. And I’m willing to learn. But we’re going to practice. We’re going to get anybody who’s interested in hosting for their own self or for ACB or whatever. You know, let’s practice. Let’s work together. So anyway, that’s basically it. We’ve got a lot of response and we’d love to see chat come back Friday night. So thanks for the interest. David, I’m wondering if we might be willing to explore. And I didn’t ask you this before, but I thought about it on the way home today. I’m wondering if we might be willing to explore asking someone like Belinda or someone on the ACB community team to help facilitate or co-train a class. In other words, not necessarily going through the community process, but having someone represented from the community process. Oh, absolutely. I’m all in favor. And I’m even, you know, I know breakout rooms and, you know, that stuff too. So, you know, now that things have slowed down with us, you know, I can help too. Yeah, that’d be great. I would like it centered around the document, and I would like them to take the quiz too. Yes, definitely. I think it would be great if you could start facilitating a conversation with Cindy and see if that would be something that our chats are getting large enough that we have to do something. So if you can please start those conversations and see where that might go. I’ve seen some community chairs, or excuse me, community hosts reach out to me today, and that got my idea going as well. Great. Okay. Board members, this is a very, very significant thing that we need to get solved relatively quickly because we’re now getting to the point where there’s a lot of people at these chats. And if we don’t have a handle on it, it could be a problem. So we need to solve this one quickly. So, okay, great. Anything else from you, David? Nope, that’s it. Mr. President? Yes, ma’am. I just wanted to highlight the fact that it’s been very gratifying to watch David working in collaboration with both the email management committee and the publications committee to update the announcement messages for BitsChat as well. Yay! Love that. I have done that and I’m working on some of the other chat-based announcements as well. He didn’t want to toot his own horn, so I did it for him. Toot, toot. You noticed when I last sent out the chat message, I think a week and a half ago, it was a lot more, I felt, welcoming. And thank you, Debbie Hazel. Love that. I love that. I think there’s one like on the announce list or something somewhere that references Wednesday nights and things. Did we get that cleaned up yet? That’s going to be by the time it goes out again. That’s great. Okay. Because I’ve gotten emails about it. Me too. Okay. Okay. I’m just checking. Okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, David. Thank you. Anyone else? Hey, look, we’re almost done. This is amazing. Okay. We have a few minor things left to do, and then we’ll open it up for questions. Next, we’re going to move to old business. And the first item on, actually the only item of old business, unless someone else brings is to talk about the dues schedule ratification. This is the process in which we voted as a board to change our dues structure. For a reminder for everybody, this is to lower the life membership dues from 250 to 200 and to eliminate the organizational dues of $25 for 2024. So we wanted to give the membership a 30-day period to comment. And board members, have any of you received any comments? No. I have not. No. Okay. I am going to accept raised hands if you have a critical comment to make pertaining to the changes to BITS due structure. If you feel it is germane to the conversation that might be a value for the board to reconsider, then we would like to hear from you. Okay, we have one hand. One hand. Nicolette. You’ve been asked to unmute. Hi. I’m sorry. It’s a bit noisy here because I’m in my chair. That’s fine. I had surgery and it’s going up and you caught me in the middle. But I mentioned to Brad a long time ago. I mentioned to Brad a long time ago that I thought it should stay at 250. And I became a member at 250, even though there was a discussion of it coming. And especially if you’re going to be offering all these other perks, I personally think it should stay at 250. Because other ones are 300 and more. So I think we’re getting an amazing bargain for $250. So that’s my input. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other hands? I do not see any other hands at the moment. Mr. President. Yes, sir. I move that the new schedule as released for public comment to the membership for the terms of the Constitution on January 7th, which is before us now after the expiration of that comment period, I move that it be adopted. I’ll second. Okay. Great. Thank you, John and Mike. Any additional comments or discussion? Jeff? Yes. I just want to acknowledge the life membership individuals who have mentioned that they wish it would stay at 250. And I don’t want them to feel like they’re not being heard. Absolutely not. And I acknowledge your concerns as well. Yeah, 100%. Can I make a comment, Jeff? Certainly. Okay. I kind of agree that 250 is a good idea. But when we have membership this high, We do not have to pay the ACB portion, and that may change in the future. I think $200,000 is a reasonable compromise. As someone who’s been a life member of BITS, I’m all in favor of it. Great. Thank you. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I was voting for in favor. I understand. I’m not making that mistake again. Jeff, will that now an opportunity be posted on the website? Yes. We will get the form, the joinbits.org form changed. I don’t know if, Michael, you can do it quicker than I can because I’m going to have to wait until after the board meeting. But we just basically have to do it. Working on it now. Okay, perfect. And Jeff, I have one other back consideration I probably should have brought up during the bank. Do we even want to mention organizational membership with the location? It’s going to be removed. Vacated. You said vacated on it. So that line just goes away. It goes away. Beautiful. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. So, Michael, that radio button for organizational membership, just delete that and then change the one from two feet. Okay, got it. Yes, sir. Sorry. Sorry. – And then just to be consistent in the PayPal on the– – Oh boy, yeah. – On the PayPal part of it, how do we go about changing that? – That’s all, well, the only place that we need to change and I need to, if someone wants to help me locate the pages and send me the links to where we still, I thought I captured all of them, But if someone wants to log into the website and give me a hand on that to tell us where the PayPal, because some people are still somehow paying on the old Bits website. I don’t know where that path, how they’re getting there at the moment. I just haven’t had a chance to look. So they’re the ones that are paying without submitting forms? Correct. Yeah. So if someone finds that path and can shoot me, just capture the URL of that page. If someone can do that tomorrow. It’s off the, I’ll do it, Jeff. Okay. And Renee, we’ll get to you in a few minutes. Renee has her hand. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, I was going to mention the main website on the old, you know, on the current website still has that. If we could just change the PayPal code. We’re going to, we’re going to, we’re going to forward them to joinbits.org. That page that’s there is going to forward you to join bits. Awesome. That, that answers my question. And it’d be good. Okay. Renee, we’ll take your hand if it’s germane to the subject. It’s not germane. It was something I’ll email you. All right. Or you can raise your hand when we get to agenda item 10. Okay. Don’t worry. Give me three minutes. You’ll get there in just a minute. I’m doing that problem. Okay. All right. Any other- Yes. I just wanted to clarify. We revisit the due schedule annually or as needed, correct? So those who may be feeling a bit discomforted, it is revisited. It is revisited. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, there’s, listen, we’re a living, breathing organization. There has been discussion about whether or not we want to allow people to have to make multiple payments for their life membership. I think if we could figure out a creative way of doing that website, that might be interesting. I don’t know. So all things are on the table, guys. As long as we give people 30 day notice i think i’ll you know i i i don’t know that we have a significant limitation there um debbie is it debbie if this is pertaining to dues then we’ll take your hand take you but if not we’ll wait it is in that um you know i feel i don’t know this for certain but I feel that our dues for just a regular, not life member, but our dues at $20 are one of the highest. I don’t know if we are the highest. It could be GDUI. I don’t know how they are now. GDUI beats us. Well, to me, if our dues are one of the highest across the board, I don’t think I really am in favor of life membership dues coming down to, you know, at least 200. I think that $20 is high. And so that’s, you know, that’s how I weigh that in my mind, thinking that the 200 rather than 250 makes sense. Thank you. that could be restricting to the membership. So I would love us to get to a point where we someday could say that we are sustained by grant funding for our membership. We’ll see if that happens. I don’t know. It’s a dream I have. We’ll see if it comes through, comes to fruition. That does not discount, of course, life members, because they’re making a commitment to the organization. It’s a token and it’s valued. That’s one thing I want to make sure we have represented on the new website is Bits Hall of Fame for all of our life members. That’d be amazing. Okay. Any other old business? Okay. I added culture of Bits board meetings and introduction of guests. I don’t know that we need to change our path here. I think unless the board feels it’s important that we should, I just wanted to just put these out here to see if anybody had any comment on that specifically, as well as taking comments from board members, board members throughout the meeting. I think personally that if it’s germane to the subject, meaning, for example, We were talking about this change for dues structure that we gave the membership 30 days to comment on. I think that is important for members to comment on outside of the normal public commenting period. But other than that, I would at least, well, I’ll leave it at that. I think that’s kind of where I stand on the issue. Does anyone else have any comments? Jeff, I’ll make a comment here. It may or may not be necessary. This issue had been brought up on the discussion list, and I don’t know that I can be any more articulate than Doug Hunziker was. I think in this whole discussion, the whole consideration has been an intermingling of concepts, transparency, participation. I think we are golden on transparency. We have office hours, and we circulate. I mean, look at the voluminous reports that were sent out to the memberships. Anyone who wants to observe the goings-on of this board has ample opportunity to do so. Participation, I think, is another matter, and I’m certainly not across the board in favor of not allowing it, But I do think it needs to be corralled into its own section and controlled. To fail to do that is to basically render the distinction between board members and rank and file members utterly moot, except for that board members have votes. And there comes a time when doing something works to the antithesis of directly in opposition to what it seeks to achieve. I have no problem with having a comment period at the end of the meeting. and maybe in very rare circumstances, episodically allowing it during the meeting. But I don’t want to presume on people’s positions, but any broader rights, if you will, or permission, then that would be something I would have difficulty with. Yeah. Yep. Does anyone else have any comment? I think this is the opinion of the board, to be honest with you, but I just wanted to make sure that there was not any. No, let’s hand them out. Yeah. Yep. Nibbid. Yes, sir. I think I’m in agreement with John, just being clear in my own words. If there’s a big decision to be made that’s going to affect the membership in some way, I think it’s important to have them weigh in on that because if we’re making something near the beginning of the meeting and they have to wait until the end to comment, well, their comment’s no good because the decision’s already been made. Yep. felt like at other meetings in the past so this is brad well i like like we did on this deuce thing i like the idea of the i don’t know i know that was in the constitution but a big decision you know a 30-day period for people to weigh in with comments and um i mean i know they can write president at bit-acb.org and there’s got to be I believe there’s also a board email address people can write to. Yeah, we need to get that updated, by the way. But, you know, you can look at it two ways. We’re having a discussion if we stop and you start opening the gate for comments, and then that can go on for a while. So I don’t want to prevent people from making comments while the issue is still, you know, on the stove, so to speak. But, you know, there’s a balance of it. But I did have another comment. And I don’t know. I brought this up once upon a time in another board. And I realized this is just how it’s done. I’ve never liked the term guest because the people we are calling guests are, in fact, dues-paying members who actually have a right to be here. Rather we, you know, it’s not like, oh, okay, we’re going to grant you. Yes, we’re being very benevolent. you can come and listen to the meeting. No, you have a right to be here. So to me, I’m not really a guest. You remember. And then with that said, you know, we’ve gotten to be a very big affiliate now. And I’d like to see us explore our board meetings being on ACB media, like the national board meetings are. So just open it up. Members as well as non-members can listen in. I think it’s just more exposure for bits. That’s fascinating. Probably something the board to think about. I second that. We’ll talk about that on the board list. I don’t think that we even need to pass a motion for that. Let’s discuss that. I don’t know if they would allow it, but let’s find out. It seems to me we can just – there’s a form we fill out. we did a webinar and that was on ACB Media. I suppose. I mean, we might have to talk to Rick more and find out what’s available. I think we’d want to do something other than Media 5, but I don’t think it’s without precedent. I’ll bring it up tomorrow. I have an IT meeting with him tomorrow, so I’ll bring it up. Okay. Anyone else for comment? I have a thought, but it might be out of place. but Doug has his hand raised. Douglas Hunsinger. Mr. President? Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t want to interrupt. I just wanted to mention that when calling the roll, I have referred to them as our friends or as those of us who have chosen to join us. I don’t think I’ve ever used the term guest. No, I used the word guest and that was me. So I bravely apologize for that. Maybe we can think about officially changing what we do. I mean, I’m not saying make that decision right now. Just think about it. I don’t think we need to do any. I don’t think we need to vote on that. I think we just do it. Okay. Doug, is this germane to the topic at hand? If so, go ahead and keep your hand up. We’ll unmute you. I send them the unmute request. I wrote you the note about participants. You bet. You bet. As part of the thing. So you know where I stand. I do. My additional comment is this. Even with things like the dues and when they’re changing, all of us got plenty of notice regarding this. And we all had plenty of time to send comments to you or to any of the board members. So unless something comes out of the blue, I would only think that we would use member participation throughout in rare circumstances. And I would hope the board feels the same. And I’m not trying to close anybody off. After all, you all are so transparent and we can talk to you anytime. So I don’t see where the board meeting has to happen. I know. We’re so transparent. you can actually see through us, Doug. I know. You’ve lost so much weight, Jeff. I know. Well, not only that, but I mean, you know, look at David. You can see right through him too, see? Yeah, that’s for sure. That’s how transparent we are, see? Okay. We’re just ghosts. We’re just a figment of your imagination. We’re just ghosts. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you, Doug. All right. I don’t think that we need to take a motion here or anything. I don’t think there’s anything to act on here from a board perspective, but I just wanted to make sure the board was in agreement. I have one other item of new business, and it’s to announce a town hall event that will be taking place. The board does need to determine a date because we need to tell National when we would like to do this. So everybody be thinking about that while I describe this. We have almost 700 members of this organization, of which 160 of them are brand new to BITS, and they’re learning about our organization. So we want to make sure that new members, old members, everybody alike understands who we are, as well as who the national organization of ACB is. So this is a get to know BITS and get to know ACB sort of town hall event where we’re going to invite leaders from BITS to speak. We’re going to invite leaders from ACB, like the president of ACB and the executive director. And, you know, I don’t know who else they might want to have speak, but give them an opportunity to speak to the membership about the national organization. That’s important that we’re holding hands across the divide here as the affiliate as well as our parent organization. So when I spoke to President Lewis about this, she said, give me a date and I’ll see if it will work for us. So, chair of presentations slash all things calendar, do you have a recommendation of a date in April that might facilitate this? Is this a Sunday thing? Is this a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday thing? What is your feeling? Or Monday night? Well, Monday night’s not good. Well, Monday night’s not good because there’s TikTok and some other things that people like to go to. You know, so far you’ve been doing these on Sunday night. It’s kind of an informal night for these things, but you’ve been getting good turnout. So you don’t object to a Sunday night? No, well, not for that. You and I spoke once before, and I told you I prefer to do presentations on a weeknight, generally Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, something like that. Yeah, got it. Okay, I’m just making sure. And then, you know, Saturday is chat. We’re looking at expanding chat to Friday. But yeah, I think Sunday’s good. If anybody, whatever, what do other people think? All right. So who has a calendar? Who’s got the, who’s, Madam Secretary, do you have a calendar in front of you, Madam Secretary? What are the Sundays in April? At the moment, I do not. I will, I will. Let me see here. We have one right here on every iPhone. I understand that, but I’m on a computer. No, I know. All right. So it’s going to be, the Sunday is going to be 7th, 14, 21, 28, because Easter is the 31st of Sunday, 31st. So Monday, April Fool’s Day, you know, Monday, just kind of like they line up the way they did in 1929. That’s why I remember that. 1-8-15-22-29. You get five choices. Do I get a third paycheck? Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Okay. Ooh. Oh, maybe not. I don’t know. I shouldn’t get excited. I’m sorry. Okay. They don’t take out my insurance and all that out of that. It’s just a check. So this is why I’m excited. Anyway. we need to look at the national I think we’re done with like leadership conference and that’s early March CSUN is third week of March so what if we do April 15th or do you think that would be a bad day for tax day yeah tax day I got mine done already okay it’s the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th, correct? so I think we either should do the 21st or 28th Anyone have an objection of either one of those? Why don’t we offer both of them and they can pick one? Sounds good. Anyone have an objection to that? I’m not hearing one. Okay, that’s what I’m doing. What did you say? One, eight? I got seven, 14, 21. Seven, 14, 21, 28. That’s for the Sundays, yeah. That’s the Sundays, isn’t that what we’re talking about? Yes, that’s what we’re talking about. Okay. Yeah. Okay, very good. He said 1-8- I did. I thought that was a He was looking at the Mondays. He was looking at last year. Just ignore me. Ignore the man behind the curtain. Okay. Okay. All right. So we’re going to offer them the 21st or the 28th. Very good. I will email WS tonight. Okay. Anyone else have any new business before we open up the floor for comments? Jeff, I thought of something that came to mind, and I’m not trying to throw a curveball, but we’ve had a lot of growth in membership. Do we need more representation on the board? That’s going to take a constitutional change, and I would recommend you speak to the chair of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee. Yeah, the only thing that gives me some angst about that is, you know, how much we’ll retain. But I don’t think we can wait to ascertain that before making the changes. I quite concur. I don’t think you can credibly administer a 700-member affiliate with as small a board as we have. We can do it in the short term. But beyond a certain point, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, if we’re going to continue to ask people to step up to the extent that they already have, then it’s only right that these people are going to figure, hey, look, as a volunteer position, I at least want to stake in governance. And you’re 100% right. So I have ideas. I don’t want to share them quite yet. I think it should be based on the number of members should govern the number of board positions, potentially. I don’t know. John, you figure it out. Yeah. I have ideas. Okay, great. Okay. Any other comments or any other business? Let’s go back to where you said the 21st and the 28th, not that the whole world revolves around me as it should, however. Well, it should. I mean, I’m sorry. I will be out of town. There’s only one Brad in Vitz, right? Yeah, well, yeah. : I don’t know actually. Hey, Michael B., can you sort the membership roster and check in? : Anyway, I’ll be out of town that weekend of Sunday the 21st. I’m going to New York City. Got a weekend planned with my son. But anyway, if that’s the weekend it is, then so it is. : Okay. We will check and see if there’s only one Brad in this. Okay? : There’s only one B in each. And no offense if there’s another Brad. I’m sorry. I don’t believe there is. There’s certainly not a Bradford. There’s not a Bradford, even though you don’t go by that. There’s only one Bradford. There’s only one Bradford. I can guarantee you that. Yes. Okay. Very good. All right. I can afford these names in my sleep. Excuse the jovialness of tonight, guys. I’m sorry. It’s getting late. Okay. All right. One last call for any new business or any comments from the board before we open the floor. having heard none anyone who has a comment for the board may raise their hand when when do you oh yes i want your number yes number is it right are you magical yeah no i i um yeah i redid it and I came up with the same number, which was 5,570. And let me see. Where’s my calculator? I can’t believe that. That is shocking to me. Let me see. I’m trying to get my calculator to turn on here. Okay. Party. Okay. The amount just for December and January was 4,600. And that does not include any life members that came in between July and November. No, the only thing I added up was what came into PayPal in the months of November. I mean, December, not November, December and January. That is shocking. you start counting the life members from your submission on december 3rd jeff unbelievable okay all right anyway i i i’m just i i i’m floored by this okay um anyone have any comments thank you diane for double checking five hands raising five hand raise okay let’s go rocket Item 10, officially. Seven others. I would have paid. The phone number ending in 716. You can unmute. Yes, this is Jamaica Miller, and I’m sorry that I had to call in with my telephone number tonight. You’re fine, Jamaica. My computer crashed, finally. I had to send it off to get fixed. But my question is, my local chapter for the Council of the Blind would like to have someone come speak from BITS about what’s going on with BITS. And I just wanted to check with that. Is that something that someone could do or not? Sure, Jamaica. Just email president at bits-acb.org, and we will – plus you have my email. So if need be, give – I will reach out, and I will ask Cindy to supply you with – I believe I’ve also – actually, I sent everybody in the organization my phone number inadvertently. so you have my phone number as does everybody else on this list so That’s great. Okay. Little Jeff faux pas there. Oh, my jeez. Okay. Who’s next, David? Mary Hopp. Hi, Mary. Hello. Two quick compliments and a question. I was thrilled to receive that packet today. I read every word. It was great. I did. How long did it take you? Can I just ask you that? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes. wow how fast the screen reader talks turn your screen reader up i was i was using my braille display good for you but thank you for thank you for devoting the time that you did to read that i appreciate that well i like i like knowing what’s happening because the last bits i didn’t know what so that wasn’t good yeah you may be careful for what you wish for Yeah. Well, I just think that this is run so professionally and I’m just really awestruck by it all. My question is, I have missed four of the trainings that I really want to attend. And I know that you’re working on the website. I do appreciate that. And I know the board is extremely busy. We’re working on editing, too. Okay. I was just wondering if there’s got to be some people in here that maybe could make those trainings into podcasts and put them on an ACB media feed like some other organizations have done. Yeah. We need to have a discussion about this as a board to find out, is this something we want to do and release them publicly? Or do we want to keep it a perk as being a moment? Oh, okay. I understand. I didn’t think of it in that way. Yeah, I don’t know. And so I don’t I don’t know that I have an answer for you tonight on that. OK, stay tuned. But I just have a lot. I don’t get to come to a lot of the trainings. We’ll add it to the agenda for next month and we will discuss this at length. OK, OK, that’ll be great. Thank you very much. Madam Secretary, please make a note of that so I don’t forget to add it to the agenda. Yes, sir. Thank you. Because knowing me. Okay. Kevin Roberts. Mr. Kevin, how can we help? Okay, first of all, I’d like to say hello. I’m an Oxfam U member here. I joined when the free thing was going on. Thank you. And I’ve got a couple questions. I was reading the packet. I actually did take time to read the packet when it came out, when you sent that out, Jeff. I read it. And I read it on my phone, actually. And I actually read it with my voiceover. The way you got it for a minute. Okay, a couple of questions. One, I was reading about the due levels. I’m guessing there’s the free membership. Is that full voting or is that a full voting member or how is it? Because it wasn’t really classified. It’s a free membership. It’s a fully classified work. Yes, it’s a full voting member, sir. Okay, good. And to the recordings, where do recordings get posted for? Do the recordings get posted to Boyd News somewhere or is that going to be on the website? be on the website is out or what’s that going to be because i missed some when i came in a little so yeah you want me to tackle that real quick jeff sure so the recordings as uh we had just talked about a little bit they need to be edited and cleaned up for the more recent ones those will be published to the new website whoa and i’m throwing phones apparently uh those will be published to the new website when they get available past recordings are available and That was the one thing I forgot about. Past recordings are available at bits-acb.org. If you search your email for, I forget what we set the username to, but there is a username and password that’s a generic username and password that you can use right now to access past recordings. And then just stay tuned for your account for the newer recordings. Is that email in the group or is that email as a sub? Because I don’t remember getting anything for that. It went out just a couple of days ago. so it should have been emailed to you in the bits members uh list yep okay what was what was the for that so i can search for the subject for it you’re gonna have to you’re gonna have to i don’t i i can’t do that right now kevin yes so kevin if you just drop an email to us we can uh we can look for that um i’ll see if i can find it before the end of the evening so go ahead and stay tuned and we’ll stay tuned just stay here a minute we can’t we don’t have it right in front of our faces right here but we’ll get it for you we’ll get it yeah i just wanted to say uh thank and i’m looking forward to helping out and joining whatever i can so yeah sure thank you thank you kevin and thank you for becoming a member we value you very much welcome welcome thank you thank you very much thank you kevin hi nikki’s here nikki okay hi you wouldn’t let me unmute it kept telling me oh you’re not able to unmute so i i texted brad and i think he unmuted me Anyway, thank you so much. Okay. Number one, I love Digest. I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. That’s the best thing that anybody could have done. And I think ACB does a bit of it, but you guys are just doing an amazing job. So now I only get 250 emails every day instead of 300. But that’s okay. I’m getting there. Number two, Capital One has a new savings account that gives 4% interest. So you might want to check that out. I don’t know. I’ve been with them since they were IMG Direct, and it’s all online. I don’t know whether that would be helpful or not. But they may have offices in different places now. I have no idea. But I’ve only, only done it online. But it is 4%. And there’s no fee for it, and there’s no amount that you have to have in there. You know, if you have $100, they give you the 4%. So it’s Capital One. And the last thing is, how long does the RIM subscription last for free? Like if a person gets it, does that mean it goes on forever? Or do they have to start paying at a certain time? Well, you always get, I mean, if you’re not a member of BITS, it’s 30 minutes per day for free. So you never have to pay if you don’t use over 30 minutes. Oh, okay. So as long as you’re a member of BITS, then you get an hour free forever. Per day. right now right now that’s good through 2024 so right thank you so much we will reevaluate that business arrangement at the end of 2024 well and this has been a great meeting thank you so much thank you okay i’m done we have tarrell i’ve been and i don’t know i know i know you guys have a lot going on and i feel like when i bring this up i’m just overloading you but um i’ve been looking at another email list it’s the audio description project email list and a lot of discussion has You know, myself, maybe two or three other people have reached out to one or both companies and, you know, not a whole lot is done in that space as far as accessibility. There are minor accessibility stuff, but I’ve seen people from device to device, platform to platform, there’s not a lot of consistency from OS to OS in accessing either audio description or app navigability, stuff like that. Would there be a possibility of partnering with these two organizations to… Hold on one second, Terrell. Someone is unmuted. Okay. Okay. Go ahead, Terrell. Jeff, I’m hearing you. Okay. Would it be… Can someone grab that person who’s talking in the background there? Not you, Terrell. Yeah, I’m trying to find them. It keeps moving around. Okay. All right. I’m sorry, Terrell. Okay. Can I go ahead or do I need to give you time? No, no. We were trying to. There was some inappropriate language being used, and we’re trying to solve that problem. So I just wanted to make sure someone was on top of it. Okay. Right, right. Okay. Yes, thank you. Would there be possibilities of partnerships between, you know, bits and these companies to maybe get more of a better voice as far as accessibility? Yeah. I think what I’d like to have you do for me, Terrell, is I have not been as up-to-date on, I’m not currently subscribed to either one of these services at the moment. So I personally have not. This is not to say this is not important. That’s not what I’m saying. But I’m not on top of this. So if you want to write to me and provide me some more detail and some more documentation on the current state of the issue, we will begin looking into it. This is something that I think we’re going to have to advocate for at a higher level than just bits, although bits is pretty big. Is it okay if we have a phone? Is it all right if we have a phone call at some point? I’d rather you start with an email with a description, and then we can follow up with a phone call, certainly. Right. Okay? All right. Okay. Okay, so you know how to reach me. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Jeff, can I jump in here real quick to follow up on Kevin’s message? It was sent to the announce list. So if you’re not on the announce list, that may be a reason to get joined to that. You can find it in the archives of it, and the subject line is providing access to the BITS website for new members. Are you sure it went to announce? It did not go to main, because I was looking for it on main. It should have went to BITS-members. Mine went to BITS-members. I’m seeing it here on BITS. Oh, it is BITS-members. Yep, sorry. Holy, oh, my God, you scared the jeez out of me. Sorry, yep, BITS-members. Okay. Can you email that to Kevin? Yep. You have the roster of email addresses. I’ll get that sent over to him. Great. Thank you. Okay. Who’s next? David? Pamela Francis. Pamela. Good evening. Hi. How are you doing, Jeff? And hello to all. Better because you’re here. How can we help? Thank you. Thank you, kind sir. A couple of questions. First, do we have our website on the main ACB page? Yes. And B, what are we doing, if anything, to encourage international partnerships, given the fact that we do have international members? This is a great question, and I think this is going to take some involvement of determining who the people are to partner with. I think that’s amazing. Yeah, no, I think there’s other people too. And I personally have not explored that yet, but listen, we’re not done in this area as far as partnering. So I appreciate this question very, very much, and it’s very much valued. I don’t know. Well, let’s figure it out and see exactly what it looks like. I’ll do what I can to help you because I think I might be able to give you some outlets. Okay. Well, that would be amazing. Thank you. All right. Good enough. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. All right. David? All right. We got Liz. Hello, Liz. Hello. Hello, everyone. I just wanted to circle back to the conversation around when members can give input at board meetings and relay that in the GDUI or Guide Dog Users Incorporated in our board meetings, we have a period when we’re about to take a motion or things like that, that we will ask first for board member input and then member input. And then at the end of the meeting, we have a public comment as this is. but we have found that that has worked well because it as was mentioned here tonight, it’s really kind of counterproductive to have an open comment period at the end after you’ve already voted on things and then members can’t comment. So I just wanted to bring that up that it works well for GDUI. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. Much appreciated. Have a good evening everyone. Have a good night. If I can agree with that, that’s how Washington Council does that. even when they’re in person. So that’s where I get started with that. Okay, great. Who’s next, David? It’s getting late. So how many more hands do we have, David? You know, I think is the last hand. Okay, perfect. I know that we have one board member that he needs to leave for. So, okay. Hi, Jeff. I will keep it short. No, you keep it as long as you need. Well, thank you. That’s very kind, but I really want to compliment everyone on the quality of the reports. And I loved the format of that email, sending them out and everything. And that’s the kind of thing on the ones that are important to someone that you can keep instead of just what you’re hearing in the meeting or maybe taking your own notes. And I realize there are times to go ahead and give a report or part of the information or updated or whatever, but I guess I’m just concerned if, well, I know the board already voted, but I also know things can be changed, but if it’s going to be opened up to everyone and put on one of the media channels, that then will things make sense to those people if they don’t have the extra information or if they have the extra information given in the meeting, then that lengthens an already long meeting, or perhaps then some of the chairs are, well, why should I do both? Why should I write up this nice report if I have to go through it anyway? And just maybe something to contemplate the needs of the members versus the needs of the general public and how to maximize for both. I love that. That was very well thought out and very kind of you to bring up. You bring up some very valid points. I think what I will do is I will at least get the information to find out whether or not this is even something that the community would, I don’t even know. Can we broadcast a two and a half hour board meeting every month on media? I don’t know. They may tell us no. So this may be a moot point. But let me at least get the data and then I’ll bring it back to the board and we will discuss it at the next board meeting. This is not something we’re going to do overnight. Right. Well, thank you. I mean, I personally, as I valued that document, I mean, you can tell which way I would be leaning. But it’s about everybody in the organization, certainly not just about me. And of course, your Python stuff is so beautifully written, too, with the help, I realize, of the team. But just so informative and easy step-by-step to follow. So that’s all I had to say, but thanks for listening. Thank you. I will say I was a little fearful that when I sent out the board packet that I would have gotten people very angry with me for sending an 18-page document. But so far, I’ve gotten nothing but positive comments. In fact, I got an email from a member who was just jumping up and down with glee about the board packet. Oh, it’s wonderful. So I was like, wow. That’s very kind. You had headings and even all the way to heading level five. I did. I did. I went a little OCD. No, I like that. I really like that because then people could skip. I mean, I just sat there and let it read and did other tasks and listened at this same time. Well, you skipped the presidential report, right? Because that was boring. You probably wanted to skip that, right? No, no, no. That’s very important. Okay. But I do like all the different lists, splitting things out. But anyway, thank you so much. Thank you for putting up with my attempted humor tonight. I’m sorry for torturing you like that. Okay. Since we called on her, two more hands were raised. Rosanna and Caroline. Okay. I’m going to take Caroline first. I’m going to make this very, very quick. I was not going to say anything, but I just wanted to comment that I am actually president of my board of directors for the DeafBlind Center here in Winnipeg. And we’re currently going through a nonprofit board training session, six units. And one of the things that they are highly recommending is to do exactly what you’ve been doing with sending out that packet. because that way everybody has a chance to look at things in advance and it just makes it a lot easier in meetings. So just adding my feedback there. Thank you. And I just want to thank you for being here. It’s so great to hear your voice and thank you for becoming part of the BITS family. Oh, absolutely. I, uh, I’ve been thinking a lot about you and your family and, uh, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re thinking of you. Okay. Catch up again. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for being here. You’ve made my heart happy. You bet. Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That was nice. Okay. Rosanna. Very, very quick. One of the things that has gone through my mind, and I don’t know where it would fit in, but I’m wondering once, you know, we have the new website and that’s up and running, I’m thinking that is there a way that we could work on creating an angel wall, even if it is a virtual angel wall, to recognize those people who have been dedicated to bits who are no longer with us? I’d just like to see it be considered. Don’t lose track of that thought because that’s one I think that we should and must do. So I think the difficult part will be to be able to get the tributes and all of that written up for past members. But that’s a good problem to solve. Okay. So thank you, Rosanna. And thanks again for a great meeting. Thank you. All right. Our next board meeting. Wait, David, is there another hand? No hands that I see. Great. our next board meeting will be on march 6th i better not be is it yeah march that’s correct six yeah that’s correct okay okay i’m not gonna do that again okay i got that wrong once okay after the conclusion of the leadership conference yes you too can continue your leadership skills by coming to our board meeting and spending two and a half hours with us exactly yes because we love you everybody everybody big hug okay um all right so march that will be the next uh board meeting and can i get a motion to adjourn so i can go eat dinner i move i second all right excellent i don’t think we need to vote good night everyone thank you for being here we love all of you thank you so much for uh being this has just been an amazing night and uh thank you so much for all the feedback we’ll see you on a list near you and at the next good night everybody good night the adjournment time was 6 18 yes sir thank you 6 18 well 10 18 east coast time 18. oh yeah the world operates on eastern 7 18. i was gonna say six it’s not goodbye Thank you.