BITS Board Meeting for January 8, 2025

AI Generated Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to January 2025 is Murph here by the way Jet January okay good John is here now good the January 2025 bits board meeting 2025 amazing It’s been an interesting day.

I’ll just say that full of wonder and excitement to be had by all oh My goodness, but we’re here.

Let’s get through it Let’s Let’s ask our secretary that being miss Robin Frost to call the roll Good evening everyone President Jeff Bishop here vice president Brad Snyder I am here Secretary Robin Frost I’m here and happy to be so treasure Diane Scalzi here directors Michael Babcock I Am here John McCann here David Edick here and welcoming Mervyn Keck here We would also like to take this time to welcome our members and friends who have chosen to spend time with us this evening And let you know that each of you will be recognized Individually by name in the written minutes of this meeting and with that mr.

President the call of the roll is complete cool It’s pretty exciting that we have a new board member here and so pretty excited about that welcome welcome aboard Merv and although you’ve you’ve been a really strong voice in other ways in the meeting, but Welcome here officially where you now actually have a vote Yeah Awesome, okay I did not know this would get such a glee and wonderful excitement from someone but That actually made me very much smile when I saw that And I very much enjoyed it.

So because because today’s been a little crazy So we have our agenda which has been distributed as well as the committee reports that have been submitted Meaning our consent agenda, and I would like to ask for both of these to be approved So if I can get some adoption of both, okay Okay, second.

Okay any discussion?

Go right.

All right all those in favor.

I in the opposed All right, very good Robin do you want to talk about the meeting minutes?

I think there was a bit of some discussion about a couple of corrections But other than that, I think we’re we’re ready to go here on those for December Actually, there weren’t any corrections for December but I will let the membership know that although the bits and book strongly recommends a Deadline of one month past the ending date of the annual meeting which would be due January 16th The board was presented with the first draft of the minutes of the 2024 annual meeting on the 3rd of January 13 days before that deadline.

I’m already making Suggested and requested corrections so they will be ready in plenty of time for the next annual meeting Okay, perfect.

Okay, so I don’t think that we have I mean we can go ahead and vote on the December 4th minutes Then right, yes Okay, can I get someone to move to move acceptance of the minutes?

I move I second Okay, Diane and David Excellent.

Anyone have any additional items to bring up before we call the question?

All right all those in favor I Mean opposed All right, very good.

All right now This is an exciting time in bits.

I’m I I I Wow I am I Was very happy to hear a number It’s kind of like the tote board.

Remember the old whole boards and you know during the The telephones yes, and when you’d get to the million or whatever it was and We hit a milestone, but I’m not gonna I’m not gonna I’m not gonna say it because I think that’s Diane’s That’s Diane’s role.

So Diane, do you want to say anything before we does someone have the audio to play tonight?

Brad did you get that by chance?

If not, I can get it set up.

Yes, I Don’t have it.

Okay.

I will get it put together.

Give me a couple minutes.

Okay, so Diane do you want her to bring anything up as far as the accounts Yeah, we actually have two Treasurer’s reports tonight.

We have the one for December and which we would usually have and then I did a An annual we had an interim report at the business meeting, but of course that wasn’t complete.

So I have a complete Report covering from January 1st through December 31st of 2024 and we have We used to have three sections on our report now we have five Because I have a section of course for the stripe account which we started in November November and then I have one for the $10,000 grant that bits received from Microsoft and I’m going to be keeping track of You know money that comes comes out of that So that is a separate line item, even though the money is in the checking account and according to Nancy have it ready to go Nancy Fila We can keep it in there as long as we can separately keep track of what comes out of it so Hey You know that will be the easiest way to handle that and that’s what I’ll do as long as I But everyone obviously will have to tell me anything that that gets spent out of that.

So yeah.

Yeah So with that that that’s all I can think of that.

Oh and we have what 105 105 like mirrors, I think Like memberships, right So that’s just amazing to me and so Just a quick caveat Diane.

I only recorded the December one because I couldn’t find the annual One that you had had posted.

So that’s the only one that I have recorded.

Okay, I’ll find it December’s I’ll find it and I’ll read it then annual one yet.

Do we?

John what do we do with that?

Do we just postpone that until December?

We can postpone that because that’s really a consolidation of the year.

We don’t need to address that time We should definitely address the monthly Right strictly speaking the yearly one you we can’t wait till December on that.

I think Let’s not let you go.

Yeah next December.

Yeah Meeting right.

That’s the annual meeting really?

Yeah.

Oh Okay, like the minutes rather like the minutes come like the minutes.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think we’re okay there Diane.

All right Okay, perfect.

So so Diane do you want the report to sort of give give the big card away here Because there’s a big number here Well, yeah, I mean it’s it’s in the December report too because the December ending balances and you know agree with the annuals, right?

Yeah, so so let’s listen to the report and let’s all get excited and do a big cheer Because it’s huge a Bronx cheer what?

Yeah.

No Just a regular old cheer You ready Do it Transfer to checking – two thousand six hundred and forty five dollars and sixty nine cents wait total debits – the beginning Hang on Hopefully I sent you the right file Hold it It says Okay, it said it was at the beginning Transfer to checking – Dollars and six Okay If you want to do something else I’ll get it ready to read And I’ll read it Okay, okay Unless unless Michael can pull the other file.

Yeah, I’m Trying to grab that real quick.

So I probably get that in about 90 seconds.

Okay, we’ll wait No big deal By the way, since there’s an opportunity to slide in here here might I Someone’s Yeah, we’re hearing your speech Diane.

I think all right.

Let me turn it way down and Or I’ll make one or the other I’d like to suggest when agendas are sent out for these meetings that the Zoom info be at the top It is not at the bottom.

It is at the top as well at the bottom Really?

Okay.

I’m yeah, I only saw it at the bottom fine Yeah, I put the link is up at the top and then all the information about it the bottom.

I stand corrected then Apparently I messed up the recording.

I’m not sure what happened here And so Diane if you want I can read through this or if you want to read through a thing you can which everyone’s easier Okay.

Well, um, you know, I’ll get it but um, but you know Something else if you can skip, you know forward in the agenda.

I think Michaels has it right there Do you just want to read it Michael?

I do.

Yeah, I can do it real quick.

Okay, why don’t we do that?

bitch treasures report December 1st 31st 2024 checking beginning balance $12,993 and 25 cents credits proceeds from Terry Lynn fundraising $12.68 stripe deposit $4,376 and 62 cents transfer from PayPal $2,645 and 69 cents American Council of the Blind slash quarterly MMS donations $90 American Council of the Blind slash transfer of Microsoft grant $25,000 total credits 32,000 $124 and 99 cents debit Zoom monthly subscription slash increased meeting size to 500 participants – $53 Techopolis online solution all access slash software Development – $270 – Microsoft 365 business premium licenses – $140 and 5 cents Send WP subscription for web email – $1 Amazon.com $6100 gift card slash annual meeting and ACB door prizes – $600 total debits – $1,064 and 0 5 cents.

This is why we need a braille display people just saying uh ending balance is $44,054 and 19 cents PayPal beginning balance $192 And 53 cents credits 73 regular member dues payments $1,065 asterisk one seven bits life member seven bits life member dues payments $1,400 six international dues payments $120 two donations $170 total credits $3,155 and zero cents debits It’s not right PayPal fees – $105 and 90 cents asterisk to transfer to checking – 2645 dollars and 69 cents total debits – 2751 dollars and 59 cents ending balance $595 and 94 cents Excuse me before continuing Diane said not accurate or made a comment and I’d like that to be addressed now rather than Sure.

Yeah, I’m gonna have to find it in the report though So, you know, you it kind of sounded like I was to stop looking so I’m Over those amounts again real quick time.

Would that be helpful?

Yeah, go ahead.

Was it in the PayPal section?

Yes, I believe it was okay, so I have debits PayPal fees – 105 dollars and 90 cents transfer to checking – 2645 dollars and 69 cents total debits – 2751 dollars 59 cents Okay, anything balance 595 90 94 595 94 You think the problem was in the credit side Diane, um, I think he may have found it, um But we’re gonna get you know, I I did I Did send a printed version out to the board and it will I assume Robin will paste it into the minutes if you’re convinced that the printed version is Irritative and correct.

I won’t belabor this point Okay, well I can’t um, I can’t get I can’t get to my Account right now.

My braille display is acting up or something So, all right, if if a correction is needed, please surprise on the board list and we’ll act accordingly.

Yeah, exactly Okay, do you want to continue?

Please.

Okay stripe November the 26th through December 24th 2024 Beginning balance zero dollars zero cents credits amount collected less stripe fees four thousand three four thousand three hundred ninety five dollars and five cents total credits four thousand three hundred ninety five dollars and five cents debit bank deposit four thousand three hundred seventy six dollars sixty two cents fees minus eighteen dollars Minus eighteen dollars and forty three cents asterisk three total debits minus four thousand three hundred ninety five dollars and five cents ending balance zero dollars zero cents Microsoft grant Beginning balance zero dollars zero zero cents credits transfer from American Council the blind $25,000 total credits $25,000 debits no debits total debits zero dollars zero cents ending balance $25,000 savings account beginning about beginning balance $27,131 Credits interest zero dollars thirty two cents total credits zero dollars thirty two cents debits no debits total debits zero dollars zero zero cents ending balance thirty seven thousand $131 and 32 cents Total for all accounts One hundred and six thousand $781 and 45 cents asterisk one this amount also includes four gift membership purchases and a five dollar overpayment asterisk two for information on PayPal fees, please visit HTTPS colon slash slash http://www.us http://www.paypal.com slash us slash web app slash PayPal – fees asterisk three for information on stripe pricing, please visit HTTPS colon slash slash stripe.com slash pricing Submitted for audit prepared by Diane Scousy bits treasure January 6 2024.

I Think what would be interesting is to find out what our total financial status Dollar amount was last year January I look That would be interesting Just inquiring minds want to know Diane do you have anything else to share?

I I do have a comment is that It certainly looks to me like well, you didn’t see the annual report to see what the You know increase was for that but it’s over $50,000 and So I’m I’m thinking that we’re probably going to need to file a different 990 form then we have filed in the past and we’re probably going to need to get help Putting that together.

I don’t know.

Maybe John has some input on that but It you know It was over the difference between the beginning of the year and end amount on the annual report was over $50,000 That’s pretty good.

Yeah, I don’t know that we’ll need to do that because it talks about gross receipts Which to me means the resale, you know, I’ll need to check the interpretation of that But if we are moving out of the 990 and and at least for one year into the 990 e Zed form I will investigate that.

Yeah, we’ll be a party with you and Taylor and investigating it Mr.

President order some pizza.

Yes the figure Total amounts as of last January’s total accounts rather as of last January’s meeting 41,000 $770 and 83 cents, but that’s roughly 66 Yeah Okay, I don’t even I’m not even sure what to say to that that’s amazing what again repeat the current total 106,000 Total is 106,000 seven hundred eighty one dollars and forty five cents It is sixty five thousand and oh something like I Think we’ve done pretty good there board.

Yeah We should be proud of that.

That’s That’s pretty incredible Considering the fact that we gave away memberships last year I Don’t even know what to think of that that’s really interesting.

All right, Dan anything else No, I can’t think of anything.

Okay Great.

I will now talk a little bit about the president’s report and then I’ll try to make that pretty brief It’s a new year in a new beginning.

So we are going to be looking at a number of things Near the beginning of the year here we’ll talk about that a little bit more in the report, but Everyone should be thinking about you know ways that you can engage in the organization Both at the board level as well as at the member level So if you’re interested in pursuing that then just let us know and we’re happy to engage Renewals are well underway and you’ll hear more about that in the membership report coming up.

But well We we hit the ground running on this one and we’re in really really great shape.

In fact, January is already Going like gangbusters.

I think the last time I looked we had thousands in both accounts so Pretty pretty interesting and and that hundred and six doesn’t even account for Those dollars at this point.

So that’s that’s rather fascinating If you have not renewed your membership, I would kindly ask that you consider that the deadline that we’re trying to meet is February 15th and if we do not receive your membership by then then then you will be removed from the organization until your membership record is brought up to 2025 years So and just let us know if you have specific questions on that We we announced over the last couple of weeks our new bits for phone number and that’s in the agenda so if you want to take advantage of that and a number of people have we’re still working out some of the kinks with that and some of The enhancements that will be coming.

You’ll be hearing about that over the next month or so But we hope to be bringing you a lot of the things that are brought to the email list for those people who don’t like email They can call and get the same type of information So we’re going to be working on that to see how we can engage and provide that level of detail for everyone inside of the organization I Am looking at committees and some structure that I think can help the organization Be a little more effective and so Nothing here to announce tonight, but I will be announcing changes in the February meeting so And those that will be impacted I will get in touch with and let you know what those changes are gonna look like and and we’re gonna try to do this in a way where it’s You know, everyone is gonna try to work together and and make this work for everybody But there’s been some recommendations and I kind of like them, but I think we need to work out some of the detail I have some questions and we’re engaging on that and if you as leaders whether you’re on the board or at the committee level if you have specific things that you’re interested in or advice or Anything of that nature then by all means either drop me an email or give me a phone call Happy to have that conversation with you at any time And we’ll hold all those conversations in the strictest of confidence as well if that’s of concern.

So No, no worries about that we just want to make sure that we’re being as effective as we possibly can be inside the organization and If people are doing like-minded things and let’s try to put people together and those types of things So we’ll we’ll have more to say about that in Coming up in February We will be talking a little bit more about this in the board meeting itself But you know as a 501c3 organization, it’s imperative that we are giving back to the the members of this organization and I think we do I think we do a really decent job of that in the Education that we provide and the benefits with chat and all the other things that we do as an organization But I think that we could do more and this has to do with things like scholarships and grants and Achievement awards and I don’t think we’re gonna have all of those answers determined tonight You’ll hear more about this again a bit later But basically I’m gonna ask a committee to be formed to work on this and come back to the board with some proposals we want to be we want it to be fair equitable and Transparent and With with it really being fair for both the organization as well as the membership, so We’ll see what that looks like and I’m eager to hear what a group of people might come back with in reference to what?

What we would want to do here.

So But I think we’re getting to the point where I think that we could Start to give back a little bit and and do that inside the organization what that really specifically means.

I don’t know yet The Educational opportunities are well underway in the planning efforts for the ACB National Conference and Convention And in fact, we have to have some decisions made very quickly on that front So I know that Brad has set up a meeting for Saturday, which is excellent We have some great people who have already stepped up who are willing to engage on this And have called me personally and said I really really want to help in this area.

So this is exciting and I’ll let I’ll let Brad it at the time of his choosing announce who that might be But there’s there’s someone who is very very interested in and not only helping planning but also teaching at the event so But we are looking at four days of training at convention We are trying to figure out what exactly that looks like from a financial standpoint, as well as What things that we need to be able to do that training.

In other words, do we need full internet access in the room for all attendees and These types of things.

If it does, it’s going to get really expensive Apparently, so we have to talk about that.

But just suffice it to say You’ll be hearing more about that very, very soon because we want to make sure that people are planning for it as They’re planning their hotel stays We’re looking at Probably Wednesday through Saturday Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday With people returning home on Sunday What is the is the plan there so that you’re not impacted on events that are happening around?

The convention itself, but we’ll have more to say on that as we move forward We we are getting pretty large in reference to the things that we’re doing from an IT perspective and the IT committee will talk a Little bit about this going forward that being Larry and teams but we need to be looking at ensuring that the that the passwords and things that we are sharing are secure and Sustainable into the future.

So there’s a proposal to the board that will be coming up later tonight And Again I just want to focus here on I’m just Continuously being transparent and all that we do and all that we communicate We’re here for each and every one of you.

We don’t want to hide behind anything and in fact You’ll find that that honestly I tend to be probably more transparent than than some are used to But I kind of like it that way and I think that’s a it’s a breath of fresh air To ensure that everyone knows what’s happening in inside the organization itself, so All right any questions All right, let’s move into committee reports and I’m using Visual Studio code for this tonight and the version that we’re going to be distributing in February to for our students and this is a this is proving to be really interesting because I’m tweaking things as we go along here to to make it even more efficient for students.

So this is a good Killing two birds with one stone.

All right Let’s start in the area of communication speaking of communication.

We’ll start there at first with reports and Let’s start with our newest board member that being Merv Murph Okay The report is in the packet so the only thing that I really want to add to that is that we are revamping the whatsapp as we mentioned in the report and One thing that we recently did was we created the HTML the markup in the HTML class and We have already started seeing people Try to add themselves to the class and that is by admin approval, so as soon as the class is closed and I get a class list and I will add you to the class and The other thing that I will add is that we are still planning on Really, really getting behind this mentoring and we will be working with other committees and teams to get the mentoring up and running.

So keep watching for that because that’s really something I’m passionate about and I really, really want to get that thing going in 2025 And that’s pretty much all I have.

All right.

Great.

Any questions for Merv?

Okay, excellent.

Rosanna, you’re up.

Forgot that I would do that.

And then David, you’ll be after that.

Good evening, everybody.

We as it’s in the packet, so there isn’t that much that I have that’s new.

We had a very successful 2024.

We now that the bylaws were passed at the annual meeting The handbook is now complete.

It was distributed to the board for its final review.

Once the board has completed their review, it will go up on the website to replace the one that is presently up there, which was a preliminary version.

So we’re really proud to have completed the handbook.

Just a footnote there.

The handbook is a living document.

It is something that Will be subject to change as necessary.

So if there are things that come up or things that have changed, it will be added to the handbook as a change going forward.

So, Unlike some other kinds of documents handbook is a living document.

It is always, you know, open for change.

The other thing I I’m really excited to announce that our mastodon stats are at 260 262 as of yesterday, unless they change today.

That was the last update that I had from Robin.

We started last January with 64 and now have ended our year began 2025 with 262 so mastodon seems to have been very, very popular and I think it will continue to be so.

Our social media platforms, both mastodon and Facebook actually have been good resources for our membership.

We have had new people added to Facebook this year as well.

Mary Ann has done a fabulous job of keeping everyone up to date with what’s going on within the bits community as well as Robin on mastodon.

So I thank them for all of their all of their work.

The bits bulletin is going to be discussed now at the January meeting, which happens to be tomorrow night.

At that we will be working on the winter bits bulletin.

So we will be looking for articles from the membership shortly and we will be sending out information on the kind of information or articles that we will be looking for in the winter bulletin.

The other new things that I have is that As you know, we now have what was it 100 and 105 life members john What a 5105 okay we now have 105 life members, we are working with the IT committee and We will be working to get the life members listed up on the website in a special place.

Not sure where that’s going to be yet, but it will, you know, when that happens, we will let you Know where it is and when it will be up there.

So I’m excited about that.

I think they should be recognized and we’re excited to to have that happen.

My last little bit is that at the January presidents office hours.

We will be Having a kind of a town hall kind of thing on publications.

So we invite you to join the president’s office hours at the end of January.

And meet the publications committee and, you know, talk to us about things that you might want to share with us and we also will give you updates as to what publications is all about.

So we look forward to the membership taking part in that as well.

And that’s all I have.

Great.

I think we could vote on the Packet of the Tonight.

Right, john We certainly got a board wishes to in fairness.

I we didn’t call the board’s attention to what was distributed on December 30 of 21 but if the board is of a mind to be differential and trustful.

Awesome.

Yeah, I mean, I think the only difference is the Constitution change right that was It was just a citational There was no, you know, it was just the corrects it correcting citations candidly so Yeah, I’d like to see us adopt it, frankly.

Okay, very good.

So are you moving to I will still move I will or Okay, make it now second.

Well, it’s a committee thing.

So why don’t you make it as committee chair.

Yeah, make it as committee chair.

Okay.

I would like to I would like to move that the handbook be In its present form be adopted by the board to be posted on the bits website.

Okay, and john your second I don’t even need one.

It’s a Roseanne is doing Rosanna is doing this in the name of the committee.

So it doesn’t even require a second.

Okay, fine.

I’m not any discussion.

I had one question.

I just was looking at it today.

It was recent out, but I noticed that the it refers to blind information technology specialists, Incorporated.

It’s not what I’ve seen on other places.

So that That is our legal name.

Okay.

Another now So we’re not an LLC then right then right now now we’re a traditional nonprofit corporation standard ink.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Sounds good.

Okay.

All those in favor of the board level.

I I Any opposed.

And if you oppose it, you’re going to be working on it.

Very good.

All right, great.

So we’ll get this over to the IT committee and get this updated and all those kind of fun groovy things.

I want to thank everyone who worked on that handbook and for the work that they put in john McCann penny Moss and Robin Frost, and it was a great, a great project to work on.

Thank you so much for approving it as well.

Yeah, sure.

Is Debbie Armstrong here tonight or no I’m here.

I’m here.

You are here.

Did you want to talk before we hand things over to Brad to give his home of presentations and convention.

Did you want to talk about education.

I can also fill in on stuff HTML to Well, I think mostly it’s been you doing HTML because I’m going to test what you do.

So as far as basically bits goes, I think we’re covered for January.

But we are going to start needing more help again.

So if you have something basic that you want to teach, please get in touch with me if you don’t know my email address.

Get in touch with our bits president and he’ll forward it to me.

Yeah, you can handle the rest of the education stuff.

Okay, so February 3 we’re launching our HTML or markdown HTML and WordPress course.

It’s going to run for 24 weeks, which means it will run up through the end of July.

And if we end up taking a bit of a break one or two weeks there might even slip into a little bit of August there.

So it’s a pretty serious commitment.

We have about 210 people who have signed up and there’s about 40 seats and left last time I looked available.

So if people want to get in.

Now is the time to to get your, your self known and you can do that on the website sign into your account and it’s on the homepage.

You can go there and then sign up and where we go.

I’m very, very excited.

We are engaging with Microsoft on this to finalize some wrinkles in some of the Visual Studio code deployment that we’re doing with the bits class installer.

Which is actually going quite well.

If we can just resolve this one minor little glitchy thing.

And if we don’t, then we’re going to be creative and come up with an alternative way of fixing it but Yeah, I think we’re, I think we’re in a really good position to to do some really cool things.

So we’re very, very excited about that.

There’s already been requests about Google Suite.

By members.

So we’ll, we’ll be talking to the education team about that and seeing if we can at least start thinking about how we’re going to accomplish that it’s probably going to be one of those fall You know, move to move to the office realm of things like we did for off Microsoft Office and maybe we do that again in the in the fall, but but but stay tuned for that.

I think that’s the sort of thinking that we’re that we’re doing there.

As far as convention educational opportunities.

What we’re looking at doing and we’re sort of finalizing this to sort of get ahead of getting the word out is doing a day or day and a half centered around You know, really high performance assistive technology skill training for the office suite.

In other words, really, you know, get putting you in a position where you can truly excel, not to be You know, mentioning it and not an office product, but truly excel and do really cool things there and and really make yourself more productive in that space.

And then the, the, the last half or maybe a little bit more.

We’re going to be focusing in on artificial intelligence and how we can bridge the gap with bridging the creation of office documents and finding content and being able to be more efficient in that process.

In in your use of office as well as Windows itself.

So that’s sort of where we’re leaning toward we’re going to be working on that with the convention team and some others.

But it’s going to be important that we also try to have an AI AI focus in the in the training that we’re going to be offering at convention.

Coming up in the in the summer.

So stay tuned for that.

Brad.

Yes.

Mr.

Yes, ma’am.

You skipped a committee.

I did.

What did I see me.

Oh, oh yes, David.

Hey, how’s it going.

Sorry, David.

That’s all right.

You get That’s my bad.

I Big deal.

Well, most of what I’m going to say is in the report.

So I’m not going to repeat myself, but I did forget one minor thing, even though we had chat for over two weeks in a row, or, you know, Yeah, that was crazy.

It was wonderful.

Crazy.

But we did start a little late one day, which was the office hours for For, you know, President office hours on the last Sunday of the month.

But as I always said, if there’s no conflicts, we can do it.

And and highlighting what I said in the report.

A lot of people appreciated the expanded opportunities to get together with the bits.

We answered a few questions.

We even stumped.

We even got stumped a few times and were able to research it.

It was a little later than planned, but Somebody asked about moving folders and I sent that out to the technology list moving emails to folders.

I sent four different ways to the technology list and, you know, we had a lot of good time and And if you missed it.

We even played a whole time radio on the holidays, the two holidays, Christmas and New Year’s.

So please join us.

And remember, chat’s not the same without you.

Yeah, it was a good time.

Thank you, David, very much.

I’m sorry for missing you there.

I, I got ahead of deleting I delete parts of the agenda as I go.

And I got a little a little overzealous there.

All right.

Ah, sorry about that.

That was not intentional.

Understand.

Okay, uh, let’s see.

So just to let people know where we are in in just making sure that people are ready to speak Larry and Michael do is you are coming up after Brad.

So, uh, just to let you know that.

Okay, Brad, take it away.

Okay, well, Let’s start with a convention and to get comes after presentation, but you’ve been talking about it and Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s fine.

Either way.

So it doesn’t really matter which order.

So anyway, convention, obviously, as has already been said.

Convention will be July 4 through 11 at the Hyatt Regency reunion in Dallas.

Dates are that I say already January 4 July 4 to 11 we’re having our there.

The virtual portion of the convention will be Thursday, June 26 to Saturday, July, July, June 28 We’re working on on where we’re going to have a meeting this Saturday.

And we’re really going to start getting things moving.

Actually, I looked at my notes.

We did last year’s first meeting on January 10 so we’re pretty much right.

We’re on the same kind of schedule.

We were we were last year we had six presentations last year.

So we’ll be seeing what we’re up to.

I’ve already spoken with iBug today.

They were one of the groups that presented as part of the BITS virtual Convention and they are very interested and they have some ideas they are working on.

So we got one.

We got one of them penciled in and we’ll see what we come up with.

Saturday when we get that ball rolling.

Jeff’s already talking about the education opportunities that we’re planning to do with.

What is that with the Microsoft grant, I believe, Jeff knows a lot more about that than I do.

So I’ve been learning as he tells us about it.

I think we’re all learning as we go.

Yes, I know it’s a work in progress.

Yeah, you mentioned something about a Instructors at Tyson.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay.

I’ve already communicated Tyson will be he’s he says he’s already, you know, he knows he’s up to speed.

He’s spoken to you.

He will be at the meeting.

Okay, good.

Communicate with him.

Thank you for reminding me about that.

I would like to serve on the education committee.

It looks like again.

Yeah, so Oh, is he?

That’s very, very good.

So Deborah, we should Debbie, we should Debbie, we should Reach out.

So, okay.

And I was gonna write Debbie send her convention planning information.

I think if we’re gonna be talking about this Microsoft, they’d be Can be there as well.

I just haven’t sent that out yet.

I was going to go out tonight, but now she’s here.

So she’s heard it, but I’ll still send her Information.

Anyway, that’s I’ve also asked and Marcy duty be my co chair on the convention planning committee.

She has accepted and So anyway, where that’s where we are on convention.

We are getting started, but we’ve been down this road before.

So we’ve already got some ideas in place.

So real quick.

I think we only have four presentations.

No, that’s not true.

That was an error.

The it’s for Virtual convention sessions during any one time slot.

So we’re not That’s true. erroneous information.

Okay, I’m glad to hear that.

That’s a well intended individual who are being nameless but Anyway, Not you.

No, I never gave up that.

Not you.

I don’t know if he’s here tonight.

I haven’t looked Okay, snuck in.

Anyway, no, we’re we can we have put just referred to in the past we have done There’s three days we’ve done two sessions every day.

We did one one in the morning at 11am the last two years and one in each day in the afternoon at the what is it two or 230 so So we’re still free to do that again.

So we don’t have to do all that that many, but we can if we want.

So there’s no restrictions like I thought I had heard that was I wrote Janet and got that straightened out.

So anyhow, that is what’s going on or with convention now presentations.

Hold on one second, Brad.

Yes.

Since we’re all here as a board and we if we can nail this one down.

That would be useful.

Okay.

Do we want to do we want to do a event like we did last year at convention.

Oh, yes.

That’s the other one we talked to you and I have discussed that, you know, the BITS reception was a tremendous success.

We’ve already been over that when we reviewed everything from last year’s convention.

Personally, I think it was a tremendous PR thing for BITS obviously that we’re we’re doing very well as our dues payment numbers indicate we we have a lot of momentum there.

And I believe that You know, it’s an opportunity to not only engage with our members, but also expo provide exposure to those who are still God, if there’s anybody out there who doesn’t know about BITS.

This is a good opportunity.

Yeah.

Let them know, let them come visit with us, you know, it was it was good.

And I’d like to see us take the success from last year’s reception and perhaps even expand on it, you know, we We had around plus or minus 100 people there last year, and I would like to see us do it again.

It’s a good way.

It gets our name on the program.

Yeah.

We already were.

But so yeah, if we need to, you know, get approval.

I’d like to see about we could go ahead and do that.

Okay, well, I think we can.

I don’t know that because you’ll have to discuss what the budget will be for it.

And then come back to that with the for the board, but David, go ahead.

We, we came out in the black.

So Yeah, yeah.

But we didn’t lose money on it when you and I, you know, we decided if it costs us a little money.

It was worth it.

But we, we came out actually ahead.

Yeah.

Okay.

Maybe a comment.

David was first.

Okay.

I’d like to make a motion that we go ahead and use last year’s budget, you know, we budgeted last year.

And depending on what you want to do to make that a little bit bigger so that we can improve on last year’s.

And I’d like to say, let’s go for it again.

Make a motion that we go for a reception.

Okay.

Does that include the prizes?

Yeah, if we want to do the same thing or something better.

Something better.

Something different.

We do something different, but we do something.

Yeah.

This is do something.

Okay.

I don’t know that I’m prepared to quote the numbers.

No, not yet.

But Your Diane’s got some, let’s see what Diane’s got.

Yeah, I was going to say, and, and, and I’m sure we’ll probably expound on this when she gives her fundraising report that we were wondering about, you know, maybe trying to do some fundraising during the reception as well.

So Right.

We could do that.

Yeah, I don’t think we’re ready to, you know, just the fact that everybody wants us to proceed.

We’ll, we’ll proceed with planning.

And if we, you know, when it’s we have something solid, I think we’ll come back to the board just to make sure everybody is I’d recommend In approval.

Maybe getting something by February.

Okay, so February, March, we Barely everything We’ll work with Robin and make sure we know and understand what the numbers were and and then we’ll We’ll get that to the committee and then we’ll figure out what that.

Yeah, we’ll figure it out.

Okay.

I’m sorry, Brad.

That’s fine.

Yeah, it’s obviously we’re at the beginning of convention planning.

So there’s There’s a lot of unknowns, but they will soon be known.

Like I said, we’re about where we were last year, but we have a lot of ideas because We had a lot of new stuff that went on last year and we’re looking to build on the success of that and do more stuff with our education opportunities at in person.

Anyhow, let’s move to Presentations I submitted a report.

I’m not going to go verbatim on it, but the focus during December was really on the annual meeting.

And we and then, you know, get ready for, you know, everybody get ready for the holidays, despite of all that we still managed to have two presentations.

We had the scheduled normally Monthly, you know, Apple Mac bites.

We had Mac bites on I think the 10th and we managed to get a basics with bits in there on I think it was the 19th 14th yeah yeah 14th and then we weren’t able to get the set we were ambitious and thought we might do another basics with bits, but Our presenter had some scheduling issues with family obligations and which we probably should have just not even tried to get it in there, however.

Coming up in January, we will have we got five presentations on the schedule.

We’re going to Start off with basics with bits this Saturday, January 11 Jeff is going to do part three of one of his multi part.

I like to say multi part because you never know.

It’s four parts, but it could end up being five or No, no, no, no.

Four.

No, no, stop.

No.

You never know.

No, no, I do know.

He’s gonna do part three of four.

So we’re going to do that this Saturday, we’ll have a Mac bites next Tuesday, the 14th on the 15th, we are going to do part two of the encore slash revisit Bits and pieces of family tech revisited.

We’re going to do part two is on mobile devices.

We did Windows In November and We did Windows and we had a big crowd in here.

We had 30 something people.

It was pretty good crowd.

I was.

And when we go on for an hour and a half, I believe.

So it was pretty good.

Maybe more net lot of questions, but a good information.

Herbie will be back with Apple bites.

I think that’s on January 22 and then we will have Part four of basics with bits one note on January 25 so that’s five count on five presentations in in January.

My card wick has agreed to serve as a co chair on the presentations committee.

He’s always got a lot of good ideas.

I served with Mike also on the tech talk planning committee.

So I have experience working with him on on these planning things and he was always a contributor.

The past couple of years in the presentations committee.

So I’m looking forward to Mike stepping up his his role on the presentations committee.

And I think that’s all I had.

Well, we continue to meet on the third Tuesday of the month planning.

So we have a Our next presentations planning meeting coming up on January 21 I believe it will be.

And that’s all I’ve got on presentations for now.

Great.

Any questions for Brad.

Sir, President.

Yes.

Just as a point of reference, since it was asked about Emotion was made in May to budget a top limit of $1,000 for the in person reception just mentioning as a point of reference.

But that did not include the No, that that was just the Other didn’t include I did not Know that I know that included the rifle price.

I believe that particular motion was simply for the cost of the reception food and beverage.

But I can keep looking Okay, that’s fine.

I’ve got Believe the price was a separate motion.

I think it was.

Yes.

Okay, good.

Well, I’ve got my My report from the Whatever the invoice was that we received from We’ll come back with a number ACB and I’ve got all that itemized out in a report from I think back in November when we finally got all that Our October, November, whichever one it was.

So, okay.

Yeah, but I remember we I want to say, including the, you know, what helped us out was The affiliate donation that we received.

Now we should do that again.

We should do that.

Yeah, we can do that again.

And I, you know, hopefully we’ll You know, like I said, we have more members.

I think hopefully we can build on the momentum from last year.

I just thought it was a really good event that spread the word about BITS.

And we’re going to charge a bit for the educational event too, by the way.

So there’s going to be some money there too.

The one thing I learned from last year, we charged 15 that we know when people would sign up, we charge $15 out of which $3 went to the house, you know, ACB.

And then we gave, I got a $10 drink, we gave people a $10 drink coupon and a raffle.

I would like to increase that to 20.

We’ll probably, we’ll talk about that later.

But that was something I talked about at the end of it.

I thought that was, you know, we were actually in the hole a little bit on that, I thought.

But I think 20, and I wouldn’t want to go much higher than that because, you know, I don’t want to scare people off.

All right.

I’m not, the point is not to make money.

The point is to not lose money and mostly promote BITS, both those who already know about it and those who don’t yet.

You know, just come and see us.

So anyway.

Excellent.

Okay.

Larry.

Hello, everybody.

So I’m going to be making a request of the board to approve within our existing monies that we have already been allocated on the total funds to approve the purchase of one password.

We have started to do an inventory of all of our passwords.

We need to get those released in something other than in a spreadsheet and something that makes us more vulnerable.

If a secure password is not secure, you certainly need yourselves exposed.

So I’ve been working, trying to get totally priced out with one password and we’re corresponding with each other.

But it should not exceed $50 per month.

That’s on the high end.

Again, that would keep us within the original $2,000 that we had to go forward with on that.

So I will be asking that Zoe make a motion to that effect tonight on the board, hopefully, just to seal the deal that we’re continuing to do things.

Can I ask a question?

Should we, do we make the motion now or do you have a specific?

Are you definitely going with one password?

We’re definitely going with one password.

Unless, unless I don’t, I don’t think it’s going to exceed $50.

So I think it’s going to be more like 30, but I think, I think being judicial and allocating the 50 is probably best.

I would be willing to make the motion because I agree that all the passwords should be in one place.

And I’ll second it.

Okay.

All right.

I’d like to join in for discussion.

Yeah, exactly.

I was just going to ask for discussion on it.

Okay.

I’m not sure that I’m fully understanding.

I mean, I have no issue with it in principle and I’m sure I will vote for this, but why do we have multiple passwords?

Are we, I mean, are we talking about Stripe and PayPal and what’s going to be.

PayPal websites.

So go ahead, Michael.

Does this mean that they will all be one password?

And are we putting our eggs in a basket doing that?

Okay.

Well, I’m not understanding.

That’s why I’m asking.

So I would be happy to give you the explanation.

Yeah.

It will not all be one password.

However, what it will do is allow us to have Stripe as a password, PayPal as a Stripe word, website.

And when we set up the website into certain areas to where certain members can get in to do certain updates like yourself, the membership, you may not have full privilege to go in and completely take the website down, turn it upside down.

And so what we would do is assign you a password that you would have in the event that you were not able to fulfill any further work.

Then we would shift that password over and either update it.

And then part of a maintenance routine is we’ll need to decide at some point what our password rotation will be in terms of changing passwords, because it’s a good practice to update and change passwords in the enterprise environment.

And this is Michael Doze.

And I just wanted to point out when we say one password, that is the product, the service, it’s called number one.

That’s the number one and password.

So we wouldn’t be using the same password for everything.

It’s just the software managing it would be one password.

Right.

So we would have multiple vaults.

So, for example, the right in the accounting vault where Diane would have access to things like Stripe and PayPal.

And you know what I mean?

Like, in other words, I just summarize this is all about tightening security without correct.

Understand without getting too much into the weeds, which I’m already glazing over.

You know, I think I’m an intelligent guy, but some of this stuff like what the heck, you know, I’m not going to belabor this.

If them that know better than me say that this is really necessary or desirable from a security standpoint, I’m on board.

So, yeah, it would be good to have because now we all have, you know, passwords all over the place and it would be good to get them.

And I would also so then basically you would set it up so that not everyone would have access to every password.

You could correct determine who gets access to which password.

That’s correct.

That is correct.

And David, I want to just clarify one thing for things like our website.

And sorry, I’m picking on Rosanna.

If Rosanna was going to publish the BITS bulletin because of the website functionality already, she wouldn’t have access to view members or other areas that she doesn’t need access to, or anybody else would have their own rules defined within the website.

The website would be a little different because the website is based on your BITS account and what privileges you have on your account on the website.

So that would be a little different, but that would be more for like the main office administrator account and for financial things as well.

Right.

Correct.

It was mentioned and we’re getting more and more and more of these passwords, by the way.

Oh, yeah.

It’s becoming a much larger problem.

So I just wanted to clarify it because it was mentioned about the website.

Yeah, we would have to get our hands on that.

Make no mistake about it.

One password would apply to pieces of the website.

Yeah, it would.

Because we’re talking about the server and there may be some restricted file areas on the server for some of them.

K-memberships, pro-memberships.

TechOpplus, all access and all that stuff.

So it would.

I mean, there will be different gates that you can access and we can set up on user accounts in the WordPress itself.

But the bottom line is, is that that’s essentially what we do, John.

I’m happy that we’re glazing over.

Don’t add sugar because I don’t want you to be a sweet glazed donut.

All right.

Delicious.

So.

And I’ll take a couple of questions.

Unless there’s other questions, I would defer to the board for and then I can continue my report.

Or do you want me to do the report and then take action?

There’s a motion on the floor.

I think we need to call the question.

Who made the motion and seconded it?

I did.

And David did.

And David.

Mike, did you have a question as well?

It’s a point of clarification after the motion.

I’m fine with that.

Okay.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Motion passes.

Michael, you had a comment?

Just a real quick question.

Just because I want to I’m.

I as as obvious, I voted for that because I fully support one password and the accessibility and solutions that they have, but didn’t we as a board vote a budget for the IT committee?

Does the IT committee need to bring these motions to us every month or do they have the authority to do what they need to do?

I just want to make sure that everyone’s on the same page.

I’m feeling I as a chair.

I know I have a budget.

I think it was three grand originally or two grand or something like that.

We’ll have to get Robin if you can find that someday in the minutes and email.

I appreciate that.

That was like three grand for last year and this fiscal year as a chair.

Whether you guys vote on or not, I I’m making long term commitments on behalf of the organization where we have some reduced fees for joining in, stepping in.

And I think it’s good for it to be tracked.

Now, if you want me to do it through a nothing method, so the budget and finance committee has record of that, I would certainly be good direction from you all.

But but I at least getting it in the minutes, I’m getting the dollars amounts recorded in the event that Babcock assassinates me or something.

And I don’t need to know what what is the clarification?

I want to reflect that we were we basically that last motion authorized, like up to 50 a month.

So we went with 600 and understanding with the belief that it would not come near to that.

But right.

OK, I just wanted to make sure that I felt like they could do what they needed to do without asking for board permission every time, because I thought that was the intention behind giving that line item.

So thank you.

Yeah, well, we’ll follow up with Robin on that.

And you’re getting a workout, Robin.

Yeah, can I also go ahead and I also say that, you know, with all the changes that have been coming here that, you know, I need to get together with the budget committee and am I can I have the same committee I had last year or do are you going to be appointing other people?

I am not appointing anyone on that’s not a committee I’m changing.

OK, because, you know, you know, we’re going to have to have a meeting maybe to come up with a with a different budget because and we did base that.

I don’t remember if we took into consideration the fact that a lot of the fees that we were paying last year were introductory and that they’re going to go up.

That’s that’s not customary, actually.

But yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So, you know, we’re the only thing the only thing I would recommend is that you add Taylor and Larry to the budget.

Yes.

OK.

So that would be something I would recommend that you do.

Yeah, because we are going to need to get input from like the IT folks on what we should budget.

So I’m willing to do that if they’re willing to serve.

All right.

Any other comments?

Yeah.

Go ahead, David.

This is a quick one.

I’m thinking of this off the fly, so I hope it comes out right.

I think that the budget is good, that Larry can do it.

He needs to feel as needed to do.

But he’s he’s coming to the board, bringing it to us.

And we’re backing him.

We’re endorsing what he’s doing.

So I think it however however we want to do it is fine.

We’re just saying when we vote on these things, we’re saying, hey, Larry, we support what you’re doing.

It’s a great job.

And it’s not.

It’s the team.

No, no, no.

We understand that.

I’m just saying you as a representation of the team.

So great job.

And I really appreciate it.

So this is Brad.

Yes, Brad.

Yeah, I’m thinking it’s not so much that we even need to vote on it.

It’s within the budget.

It’s just very gracious of Larry to bring it to our attention and let us know what’s going on.

I don’t think he really needs us to.

We did vote on it.

No, I don’t even think we needed to do that.

It’s within the budget.

Thank you, Larry, for that.

You know, bringing it to the board and letting us know what’s going on.

May I continue with the report?

You may go right ahead.

OK, so we are in what in the industry oftentimes is referred to as a code freeze on the Web site.

We implemented this back in December after a series of meetings with the I.T. team and with Jeff.

And we invited the vice president and all other chairs to some of our meetings.

And the priority of the organization at this point is to get the audio library, because we’ve had a backlog of audio files that have been folks have been anxious to get up.

And so we’re using that as a platform to then determine how we’re going to lay out the rest of the Web site so that folks can obtain the information.

The net off of that is we’re going to get a couple of pages that Michael Dois and his team is working on in the tech group for us to kind of sample.

We’re meeting every week at three o’clock in the afternoons.

We go until we’re done or until Jeff has office hours or some or an election or something like that.

And so actually, we’re done with that for.

I want to do that again for a while.

I want to see if you’re paying attention.

But anyhow.

Yes.

And so as a net result that we’re not deploying new items onto the Web site after this phrase is over with.

And that is result.

There will be some emergency work that Michael is continuing to do with his group when we run into some issues.

And yes, as a result of that, there might be some hiccups with some folks on the membership issues.

Just been going in and kind of working those.

I have even sent people to Jeff to help them over the hump.

I’ve tried to help more than I get myself stuck.

And so we know that we’ve got some things to work on, but we’re prioritizing audio first and foremost so that we can get a platform.

And then we’re going to work further to get the other priorities up, of which we will continue to move forward, hopefully in February, to start making some other decisions.

Michael Dois, you have anything to report on tonight?

Thanks, Larry.

What I wanted to mention is to give everybody an update.

We have uploaded pretty much all of the content from Q4 2024, and we’re going to try to make sure everything is uploaded that is available from this month by the end of this month and have that as a kind of a guide to go by for archival content as well.

The audio is on the site and the transcripts are as well.

They are AI generated transcripts.

So the next step is to put the pages together to connect those and get approval from the rest of the committee, which should be this weekend.

And then we can start putting these pieces together on the site.

And I’m really excited to see this project be complete because I think everybody is going to enjoy what we have.

The goal here, folks, is we’ve been making a lot of changes to the BITS website, as you all, I’m sure, are very well aware.

And our goal is to get this more as a static website where everything is ready and set up properly.

And so we don’t have to make very drastic changes every time we want to do something.

So so hopefully this will kind of cement some of these ideas and concepts on the website.

So going forward, you know where to go and when to go and how to go to get what you’re looking for on the BITS website.

So with that, Mr.

President, that is the IT report from myself and from Michael, the vice chair.

Unless there’s questions.

May I ask Michael a question?

Sure.

OK.

So, Michael, this this work that you were just describing that you’re doing, is this part of what we are getting with Techopolis?

It is.

Yes.

And the plug ins like Magic Links and all of those are being uploaded, updated and things like that.

So we’re going to be looking at what other plug ins that we have at Techopolis that could benefit the website as well.

So that will happen after the freeze that Larry was discussing after this project is completed.

OK.

And was the description that I put for your, you know, the description of what you’re doing.

I think I put web development.

Is that an OK description to put in the treasurer’s report?

That is that is acceptable.

Yes.

OK.

All right.

Thank you.

And it’s fair to say with Techopolis, with the plug ins that they’re using, some of you as members will see the presence of a plug in.

But a lot of plug ins, when you have positive actions and things happening on a website and going on, a lot of those plug ins are just kind of happening in the back and you may not know that it’s a plug in.

Yeah, you don’t even know.

HTML has written, been written to support a task.

And so you may or may not have visibility of that, but you may all of a sudden see a little bit more efficiency with magic or with or how you might link to your membership or profile, etc.

So it plug ins are really the invisible thing on a website a lot of times.

Just so you are aware with that, Michael, unless there’s something else for you, I would defer back to the president.

Our report is Pamela Francis had a question.

I’ll take that right now if you want.

Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean interrupt.

No, 2000.

Two thousand dollars was approved, as noted in the November minutes.

Thank you so much for that update.

And this president after Pamela, I’d like to make a brief comment.

OK, that’s great, John.

Pamela.

She need to.

I gave her permission to unmute.

There she is.

She’s good.

OK.

OK, question for the IT.

With all the audio that’s being uploaded, do we need to allow for extra money for extra service space?

Not at this point, we’re not making a request for that.

No, everything is perfectly with the audio and the archives that we have.

We have plenty of server space.

I’m just curious because I just wonder how far back our archives go.

That is going to be a governance decision that when we have time, when we get things up and operational, we’ll be working with our quasi legal counsel and some other folks within the board to do sites and governance.

Although we may archives and stuff, it would always be available upon request.

But we’re not prepared.

And we’re nowhere, nowhere, nowhere near making a suggestion for the board to guide us on governance on that.

But there is a policy that will be developed once we get things launched and we have things stable.

Thank you very much.

I certainly appreciate it.

Sure.

OK, John, those are you on it?

No, you’re fine.

Go ahead, John.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I don’t want this to come across as overly critical, but I just want to make an observation and maybe get the briefest of feedback or a sense of whether I’m off base here.

I think like most blind people, I really, really like direct links to things.

And it seems to me and this may be just a consequence of the word, the word, the process, what’s the word I’m looking at, the word processing website, just the dynamic of how it works.

But it’s heavily menu driven and sometimes it’s hard to find things or know exactly where to go.

I’ve seen places like when I open up the top menu, it’s login is there twice.

There’s a lot of confusion and I’m hoping that we can make it less menu driven and maybe more direct links.

I think the counter to that may be aside from maybe technical problems, given what we’ve elected to adopt and embrace and use.

I know that some a lot of sighted people consider that that makes the site look cluttered.

My immediate response to that is this is an organization for blind people.

A heck of a lot of sighted people.

Although we have to be visually appealing, I don’t dismiss that out of hand.

But we hear you, John.

And in fact, that’s where we are going to find a balance.

And because we invite the chairs such as yourself to our IT meetings.

We discussed it extensively.

Yeah, good.

I haven’t made any of those, but OK.

I’ve heard you.

I’ve heard you and I’ve heard Rosanna.

I’ve heard from other chairs.

I’ve heard from members.

We hear you.

OK, we’re going to work on it and we’re going to make you very happy.

And that is it.

So I’m sorry to cut you off, but I will hear you.

I would like I would like to make another point on this.

And that is, like Larry said, we are looking at different solutions.

I’m I’m always a big fan of the less sub menus you have to go through, the better.

But at the same time, I don’t think everything should be on one page.

I think of what like how Apple has their page where they just have their main menus and then you can drill down to what you want inside of those.

And that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about.

So we have what we’re doing is we’re having a few options for everybody on the board and the chairs to look at, which will be which is how we’re proceeding with this.

And that’s part of this project as well.

OK, excellent.

What I I’m hearing two things and I’m happy with both a that it is a balancing act and be that you’re on it.

That’s all I need.

And yeah, great.

OK.

Questions, I am happy to turn it like I’m back.

Robert Bates had a question.

Miss Bates.

OK, I gave her permission to go ahead, Barbara.

Can you can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

OK, I had a little bit of experience with doing menus.

And one of the one of the things you do is you put several large categories on the front page and under the categories you say what is in that category.

So if you have, for instance, log in, you say log in different types of logins that are available under this.

The same thing with members.

If you have like a member, it’s like, oh, it’s different subjects you can do with that link so that, you know, when you go to the link, what you’re going to find.

Barbara, I would like to invite you because I’m not going to do design by committee tonight here in this meeting.

We just don’t have time.

But Barbara, I think you make some good points.

Would you please write to me your ideas at Larry dot Watkinson at bits dash ACB dot org.

And I would really appreciate your suggestions.

But OK, and we really are grateful for your input.

But I just certainly don’t do web design by committee in a board meeting.

I understand.

I was just saying that there are ways to get over the congestion by putting this like a roadmap.

OK, this is this is this is where you want to go.

This is what you can do there.

I think we got it.

Barbara, I really want you to write me, please.

I this is this is helpful.

OK.

All right.

Larry, Larry Watkinson.

I’ll take care of it.

Larry.

That’s basically that org.

I’ll email you, Barbara.

All right.

Thank you.

OK, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

OK, Diane, I think we already talked about budget.

Do you have anything in addition that you want to bring up there or do you just want to wait until you guys meet and come back with a report?

I just, you know, I, you know, we we will I will let the rest of the committee know that Larry and oh, my gosh, I’ve already forgotten who the other person was.

Larry and Taylor Taylor, that’s right.

We’ll be joining the committee and, you know, then, you know, I do want to get input, of course, on because, you know, I think that the budget that we have is might be unrealistic.

So, you know, and we need to change it.

So our meeting.

OK, that’s great.

And.

Is she here?

Is it bacon?

Yeah.

Yeah, she’s here.

And John, you’re up next.

Oh, thanks.

I you’re going to.

All right.

I got it.

All right.

Thank you.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Happy New Year.

Thank you.

The fundraising committee report is there, but I like to expound on a couple of things and like that.

We talked about having a reception at the convention number three and four, some things that the fundraising committee has been talking about, like having a fun annual event where we can incorporate other affiliates to participate.

It would be a cost to be having a representative to participate in the activity, as well as having a fundraising activity during the course of our reception.

So I was wondering if I could be a part of the convention committee to bring some of those things to clarify whether we can and cannot do some things and take it back to the fundraising committee.

But we’re looking at doing some exciting things, looking at new products to add.

We’re looking at marketing and various avenues throughout the year.

And we’re looking at doing something fun with some of the activities, hopefully by the next meeting.

I’ll have a cold chair.

Wasn’t able to get that at our last meeting.

And our next meeting is coming up January 21st at seven o’clock p.m.

Eastern Standard Time.

So if you are interested in joining the committee, please let Jeff know so you can be added.

We’re looking at doing some exciting things starting this year and going forward.

All right.

Excellent.

Any questions for Anne?

Amazing.

Yeah, they’ve been very busy, so this is good.

All right.

One more question.

So I have a question.

So can I be added to the convention committee?

I that you have to share, Brad.

Oh, we can talk later, Brad.

Yes, I’m sorry.

I didn’t realize I had to push the button.

Yeah, we’d love to have in on the convention planning.

That’s that’s great.

OK.

Thank you for what you wish for.

And yeah, yeah.

Be careful what you know and helped out with the convention last year.

So I know I’m kidding.

OK, great.

OK, see, the committee keeps growing.

People were stepping up.

John, I think you have a lot of cool things to talk about.

I do.

And I’ll make this brief.

I’m the stat man, as people know.

So as of nine o’clock this morning, which is when I finalized my report and sent it, we have a total membership right now.

Keep in mind, this is including the carryovers from twenty twenty four who do not get dismissed until if it were 15th.

Right now, our membership count stands at five.

She’d be nine hundred fifty eight is actually two more that I haven’t been able to put in the AMC yet because they had to be imported.

But let’s take the figures as distributed in the report.

Parent membership, nine fifty eight broken out as follows.

Twenty twenty four expirations, which, as I say, won’t actually happen until the middle of next month.

And I’m sure this figure will be much less at that time.

Three sixty four.

Twenty twenty five expirations is four.

Seventeen.

Twenty twenty six expirations is sixty eight.

Twenty twenty seven expirations.

Yes, some people are actually out that far, although probably unintentionally.

So is four bits life one oh five.

The aggregate is nine fifty eight.

Our guaranteed membership would be nine fifty eight minus the twenty twenty four expirations, which is three six four.

That takes you down to five nine four.

So we’re currently at nine five hundred and ninety four guaranteed members.

It’s inconceivable to me that that there’ll be a huge number of the three sixty four that won’t.

You know, I won’t even presume to guess on how many that would be.

But and I don’t like to fixate on this metric, because while it is the traditional metric that’s been used to gauge the respect or the stature in which an affiliate is held, it’s one that I don’t think should be validated going forward in that time of universal enfranchisement.

But we’d be at twenty four votes if we did nothing else.

And I think we are going to go significantly above the six twenty five, which actually only needs to be six thirteen to get that twenty fifth vote.

In any case.

Yeah.

In any case, the only other things I would say again, taking account of the two people that came in after the report was generated, we’ve had 30 new members.

In other words, never heard of us, never joined us before.

I would say about maybe six or seven, not so much a quarter, but six or seven are totally new to ACB.

And their records have had to be created from scratch from the data on their membership.

And what happens there, just not to get too deeply into the weeds.

I cannot do any bit specific fields when I create the initial record that it has to be blessed and entered by Nancy Beck or someone in the national office, usually the Minnesota office in this case.

And it’s only when that record’s been added that I can go in and fill in the six bits specific fields that is bit certified.

A membership category, membership expires, method of payment, date of payment and whether the person’s moratorium or not, which is kind of moot going forward, but it’s nice to track.

I would also say that there’s been a significant number of people who are moratorium only that have that have joined, which validates the the gamble we took, you know, at Jeff’s behest, leadership beating the drum for it.

A lot of people have have joined who were moratorium only.

And I would say maybe about four or five of those individuals not only joined, but gave us life memberships.

So that’s indeed that that’s incredible.

I wish I had the exact figure.

Someday when I’ll do a manipulation and get that exact figure.

Lastly, I will note.

And this is in the report that there’s a significant disconnect between the membership count that paid membership pro has and that Ams has, I’m regarding Ams as definitive.

And I’m not going to agonize about bringing them into sync.

I think as I said in the report, I think it’s a question of the historical data which was imported or entered into paid memberships pro.

I think there are probably some duplicate records there.

I can speak to one such instance in the life membership.

I started to freak out when I had one or four and paid memberships pro at one or five, but yeah, it was a duplicate.

Again, let’s wait till we do the certification.

We’ll get it all fixed and that’ll all get synced up.

So that’s that’s what I got.

Yeah.

And do you want to do you want anything?

I kind of bylaws.

No, I think we’re good for now.

Yeah, we are.

OK, I was just going to say there are some tweaks, but I’m not prioritizing any new.

No, no, no, not for now.

Not now.

OK, we’re going to move to all the new business.

Unless people have questions for John.

OK, I’m going to try to because it’s getting late, so I’m going to try to expedite this a little bit.

I’m going to merge items B and C and prioritize them first.

This was the ask for a scholarship and volunteer appreciation award committee.

I don’t know if we need to or or how we want to handle that.

But I’m first looking to see if who might be willing to chair that committee.

And I would like that to be from the board, if possible.

Because I think it’s going to need some oversight on that.

So do we have any volunteers at the board level to assist with that?

Don’t all speak up at once.

I don’t know, I just don’t think I have committee chair type characteristics, but.

Yeah, this is Brad.

Even one committee or two committees, scholarship and I think we can handle this volunteer appreciation.

Yeah, I think you could do it in one, to be honest with you.

It’s a little bit different, but I think you could probably tackle both of them.

I would definitely want.

I’m hoping Robin will be willing to serve on it.

I don’t know if she wants to share it, but she’s got some thoughts around this.

And I think many of us do.

But the board will add to this policy.

But I think we need some people that are going to put some thought to this.

And let’s figure out what that structure is going to look like.

It’s different than what I usually do.

So I’d be willing to give it a try.

Something different.

OK.

So we have a chair and a co-chair at this point.

Or vice chair.

And I will let the two of you figure out who should serve on that.

David and I is that.

Yeah.

David and you.

Yeah.

And that sounds good.

And if you on the board are interested in at least providing your input and providing, you know, some help with that committee, that would be really helpful.

And I know that there are members.

Renee Zellickson comes to mind and some others that are interested in definitely providing input into this space.

So that would be something I think you’d want to be thinking about.

OK.

Real quick, because I think this will go fast.

The phone number now that we have.

Do we want all board members to have access to that?

Or what is the board’s feeling on this?

And how do we want to handle that?

I mean, I guess it makes sense that at least the officers do.

But the board members wish to have I have no problem without board members having access to it.

I’m just asking the question.

What is the board’s desire on that one?

Anyone have any strong feelings on it?

This is Mervyn.

Merv, I have a question.

Yeah.

I only need access to it if if there’s any need for me to have access to it.

I think you would be one of the people that would need access to it.

Because what if they what if they leave voicemail and say, I’m having a problem with, you know, email or whatever.

Right.

Yeah.

And then I definitely need access to it.

Yeah.

You’re you’re already a given, Merv.

Cool.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Whether you want it or not.

Who are your givens?

Just I was trying to be polite, but I was.

No, no, no.

You’re fine.

I think I think I think.

Welcome to the board, Merv.

Yeah, it’s probably going to go to the I think right now I think everybody on the board should have access to it.

And then if we feel that there are others, like, for example, Michael Dowie’s probably make sense.

Other than that, I don’t I don’t know of anyone else at the moment.

But that doesn’t mean, you know, because these are people that are going to need to have access to the bits accounts.

So it’s sort of an implied restriction there.

So.

I think I think and Larry as well, so I think I’ve been having someone exactly primarily checking the voicemail and then exactly whoever needs it.

And we’ll be able to allow you to eventually allow you to make calls from that number as well.

But that will come later.

So, OK.

OK.

And I had a question and I’m not trying to spring it on anyone and maybe, Diane, if you can address this or at least think talk about this one with and we don’t need an answer tonight, but I would like to get an update on next steps for the fidelity account and investments.

So if you could at least just let the board know what the what the working plan is, because I think there’s a few people who are volunteering to assist you with that process in a number of different ways.

So if you can maybe come back to us with a plan or at least a thought.

No, OK.

So I don’t have to do it tonight.

I could like you don’t have to do it tonight.

No.

OK.

No, no, no, no.

Because I think you want to have a discussion with probably Larry and Taylor.

Yeah.

And and, you know, I’ll try and get back to the representative that I was dealing with before, because I know exactly what I want.

But I just have to find out how to get it.

I get it.

All right.

You know, I want to inject here, you know, and I think it’s wise to punt it off to that form is that I have sent Larry and Taylor, both of whom are not on.

Yes, they have been sent the EIN and all that.

We stated, OK, fine.

Diane, you also requested our actual EIN letter.

Did we ever get that from the IIS?

Yes, I I have it.

I haven’t scanned it in.

I haven’t scanned it anywhere yet, but I got it a couple of days ago.

Amazing.

Could you scan that?

Because I actually need that for something for the send WP so we can get that for a lot cheaper than org.

Well, I mean, yeah.

So if you can get that to me, I will point that would be great.

I’ll scan it and post it in the treasurer’s amazing.

I love you.

Dropbox.

OK.

And the only other item of business that I’m aware of, which is under new business is we are starting to get donations for free memberships from members of of of bits.

So people who want to generously donate to help others join the organization.

And I think we need to add some formality around that and actually collect that money and put it somewhere so that we have that represented well so that we can make sure it’s accounted for well and be transparent with it and all of those fun things.

Right now, it feels a little dodgy in the way that we’re handling it and that that’s probably my fault and I’m willing to take that.

But I just right now I’m I’m, of course, putting them in the treasurer’s report and I can filter a spreadsheet on gift membership purchases.

And I can also, I’m sure, filter one when I get more on the ones that are being used.

OK, so if someone wants to do that, we need to make a way of them doing that on the website somewhere.

So again, we’re in a freeze right now, but that’s something we should be thinking about in the way and figuring out a way to do that.

Yes.

Is this different than the gift membership?

Well, yeah, because it is a little different.

In other words, they want it.

They’re just saying, look, I want to give five memberships.

You guys figure out where they go to.

Gotcha.

OK.

So you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Or I’m interested in helping students.

So I want to give two student memberships away.

Yeah.

You know, so I think I think it would be better to to have that money go to a pot somewhere or at least be accounted for somehow.

Yeah.

And then and then, you know, we can always add more lines to the treasurer’s report.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I make a recommendation.

Yeah.

The first is if we have a way to track the gift memberships, which through paid memberships pro, I think that’s a good idea.

Yeah.

I want to give a membership to my wife, which doesn’t apply.

That, you know, unless she dies and comes back to life, then you have to do it again.

The life membership.

But anyway, she’s a life member already.

Oh, she dies and comes back, though.

But yeah, you like membership again.

But if the bottom line is, if I want to give somebody that, you know, that’s tracked through paid memberships, we can track that.

But a donated membership is I don’t know who it’s going to yet.

So I give money to bits and say, I want this to go to.

Yeah.

I’m just going to have to show it as a right now on my report.

I’m going to track it in stripes as a gift.

Maybe David already said this, but we keep track of where we give these two as well.

The recipient.

Oh, I’m doing that.

Yes, we can.

So a gift.

We could have the gift membership is what’s through stripe and a donated membership also is something a separate line item, I guess.

Well, we’re just showing a stripe purchase amount somehow.

Right.

And the only other question that I’ve got is, are there any restrictions we’re putting on in general for these donated memberships?

Does somebody have to be truly in need?

How are we going to evaluate that?

Or do we just take them at their word?

I can’t afford a membership.

So, well, I will tell you what I will tell you.

I know Larry has an opinion on this, but I I will tell you that I don’t think that that it is our.

Right.

From a privacy perspective, to interrogate people about their personal lives, right, that we need to make some assumptions that people are being honorable about expressing their concern and that.

We’re a nonprofit organization, right?

It’s not like we are, you know, a for profit company.

And so I think you need to meet people where they are.

And I mean, I mean, with restriction, I mean, there’s obviously some there’s there’s going to be some things that are blatantly obvious.

I’ll give you a quick example.

There’s a PTA events was a dance or whatever, the carnival, whatever.

We were there one time and it is the.

I asked how much is the the cone of ice for the kids to get a snow cone?

And they said, well, we got these free membership or free membership, free freebies that we were given by the PTA to give out.

And I said, well, we were ready to pay for it.

And he said, well, if you don’t pay for it, it’s going to be lost.

So bottom line is they didn’t care who was going to.

And it was the event was almost over.

But, you know, I would have been able to do either way.

So I just I think I think the way that I’ve been handling it right now is is if I feel like I need to ask at least a little bit of a probing question, I will gently without digging into it.

Yeah.

But if but if someone says, hey, you know, my rents doubled or, you know, I mean, we’ve gotten all kinds of of of people who’ve come forward on some things and or, you know, the big one is people who live in other countries.

Yeah.

Where the American dollar.

I mean, you know, a 20 dollar membership might cost the equivalent for them of 200 dollars.

Well, that’s not fair.

Right.

I mean, I mean, we should be cognizant of that.

And we have we have done that in the past.

And we and I think we should.

I mean, membership dues should not.

I mean, I’m going to say this.

We need to get in my opinion, and this is not official stance for bits, but this is just personal opinion.

We need to get out of the business of dues as quickly as we possibly can, where it makes sense.

And money should not be the barrier to learning and to and to thriving.

Right.

That’s not why we are here.

And so, you know, it’s a testament of what we have done.

We have grown our financial status 60, you know, sixty five thousand dollars or more in a year, which, you know, that was not one of my goals, by the way, as a leader of this organization.

It’s a pleasant one.

But I will just say that I think it’s a testament of the people who believe in this organization.

And it’s a testament to the Bitz family that we have.

And and they will they will contribute, you know, if we ask them to do that.

And I and I think and I think that we we need to make sure that we’re not putting barriers in front of people to be able to achieve more.

Right.

And and that that is my personal opinion.

And I’m not asking for a vote.

I’m not asking for a policy change or anything of that nature right now.

I’m just stating Jeff’s opinion.

You can take it or leave it or whatever you want to do with it.

But that’s that’s that’s my, you know, that’s why I believe what I did, what we did last year was the right thing to do.

Right.

And you give someone a free membership.

And, you know, donated membership, however you want to call it.

And when they can, they’ll donate.

It’s.

Yeah.

And what I have told people is, hey, if we give you this, when you have the resources, give it back.

Right.

And that’s not a that’s not a demand.

It’s just a hey, when you get it, when you get the chance to do it for someone else, remember, it was done for you.

That’s all.

Pay it forward, you know.

Yeah.

So.

OK.

You know, that was the spirit of my question.

I just wanted to to make sure that we’re not getting too in depth into people’s personal lives.

And we just I know I think we need to stay way out of people’s personal lives as much as possible.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I have another question.

Yeah.

Larry has a question, too.

Yeah.

OK.

Real quick.

I was contacted by somebody.

They were going to the joint bits that are paying, you know, signing up for the first time.

They saw fields that said discount code.

I told him I had no clue what that is or where you get a discount code or the people that do the gift memberships, you know, when they give their correct.

Yeah, that makes sense.

OK.

Yeah.

They get a discount code and an invoice number.

And we can even do things like, you know, at certain times of the year, we can we can provide, you know, discount codes and say, hey, you know, if you you, you know, $10 off a bits membership or whatever.

I mean, you know, who knows what that looks like?

OK.

Yeah.

I gave somebody a just a membership and they got a email with a web link in it.

Yeah.

That works, too.

Yeah.

OK.

And all that does is fill in the discount code.

So that’s yeah, I keep them all when I get one of those applications.

I put them on my spreadsheet.

And then when somebody redeems the code that matches it, you know, then I then you then you put them together.

Yeah.

And I cross reference who donated and who it was given to.

I put that information in notations on my spreadsheet.

OK, Larry, you had a question.

I do.

Actually, I wasn’t in a voice of opinion.

I was going to suggest to you as a 501 C three.

This is a policy decision.

I recommend to you guys that you consider assigning that to your scholarship committee who’s already dealing with scholarships and the criteria, because what you can’t do in a 501 C three is you never want to set a process to where it can have the appearance to an outside favoritism that somebody is individually benefiting at the expense of other ones, not benefiting accession as it relates to the officers and board members of the organization.

So I would agree.

Good, good, good, good, good, good point.

Although I will tell you that everyone who has asked for has been given a membership at this point.

But it’s John, I know, will probably would agree with me that this when it comes to these types of deal.

I agree.

Yeah.

Well, that’s what I need to figure out.

So it makes sense for that committee.

And then also the other question is if they have if somebody has a need, where do we send them?

Yeah.

OK, we’ll figure all that out.

That committee has a little work to do to make it up to Jamaica.

And by the way, if you have questions, it’s now time to ask your questions, so we’re ready for you’re good.

You can unmute.

Raise your hand if you go.

Hi, this is Jamaica.

I have a quick question about the about the the if if I if I were to donate some money to the to the to the bits program, can I can I do that?

Yes, you of course.

Anybody later later later on in the year?

I would like to.

Yeah.

Anytime.

You know, maybe donate some money, but I just don’t don’t have it.

You know, I just don’t know yet.

So no, that’s fine.

No.

So, yeah, sure.

Just give me just give me that.

And this second thing is that I.

Would like to try to be a part of that, the the.

I also would like to be a part of the convention convention committee.

Julie, no, no.

I’ll send you.

Well, I already got your information.

Just consider yourself on it.

OK, got last year just like Gainesville.

Add you to the list.

I will send you information about the meeting Saturday.

All right.

OK, thanks very much.

I’ve eaten it.

OK, Janet, right.

Go ahead, Janet.

You unmute yourself.

Oh, there we go.

I had a question.

If I became a lifetime member and I already paid my dues till 2026, what happens to my dues that I paid for 2026?

Do they just get donated back into the.

That’s up to you, we would.

I mean, we we have been considering, you know, we we have been just like, I guess, considering them donations.

Yeah, at this point, we are considering the no, especially if it’s been, you know, I mean, if you just did twenty dollars like yesterday and then you did 200 to become a life member, that’s different.

But if you did that two years ago, then, yeah, we’re going to consider that.

Well, I did it a few months ago because I started out.

I started out as a.

And you did it, I think the rule of thumb that we have is three months.

I started out as a monetary or whatever.

We we adapted 30 days, didn’t we?

Yeah. 30, 30 days.

Yeah.

Mr.

President.

Yes.

I’d like to make the recommendation that if somebody is paid through 2025, even if they paid it in November, that we don’t give them a refund, but figure out how to give them a discount code so they only pay.

Well, I I paid in 2026.

Yeah.

Well, even still, it’s still a.

Yeah.

Given the discount from the current year is, you know, when that gets complicated.

But that’s complicated.

Yeah, I’m not.

I we will take it under advisement.

I can’t guarantee you what we will do, though, but we’ll think about it.

When I was just asking the question, because I figure that’s what happened.

But I wanted to make sure because if I get the money, I will give it.

So there you go.

But I did in my local chapter, it was like one hundred dollars for the life membership and it was five dollars.

That goes for a year.

And it was six months between.

And they just said pay the difference.

And so, OK, there we go.

All right.

Well, we’ll I mean, that just becomes a paperwork nightmare.

So yours is probably a smaller group than ours is.

Right.

Yeah, that’s that’s that’s that’s going to be a bit of a nightmare.

So I don’t know what we’ll have to figure that one out.

Plus, if I can inject here, plus we’re having a hard enough time synchronizing the vagaries and the peculiarities of our system with paid memberships pro.

Now, I’m not suggesting the paid memberships pro should become the tail that wags the dog.

But there are administrative costs, guys.

And where those administrative costs evolve is, you know, when you have people sitting two, three, three and a half, four hours a day trying to monitor and track this stuff.

Yeah, it’s a it’s pretty heavy.

It’s pretty heavy.

Yeah.

OK, Larry.

My hands should not be raised, I’m sorry.

OK, fine.

Who’s next?

Shane Popplestone.

Shane.

First of all, good evening, everybody.

It’s been a pleasure to sit in on this board meeting, learned a lot, actually.

Tonight I learned I learned something every time I come into this board meeting.

So, you know, it’s always learning experience.

OK, I can buy you.

I had a question for you, Jeff, and maybe this needs to go to it.

I don’t know if I sent you a couple of emails.

And I forwarded them to Larry.

So Larry will be getting back to you on that.

OK, I just wasn’t sure if you’d gotten there, but they got lost because my husband, I guess, really.

Yeah, yeah.

I have been on vacation and I have not I’ve gotten your emails and we will get back to you.

OK, let me know if you think.

Thanks so much.

OK, great.

Who’s next?

I go ahead and I gave you permission to me.

Here you go.

Is it OK?

And now the lifetime member and wondered what do I do?

Do I get in touch with the treasurer when I don’t make a donation?

Is that when I make a donation?

We will work on the planning on doing that.

We were planning definitely planning on like giving twenty five or thirty dollars a year.

That that’s what I want to do, so.

OK, OK.

And I just wondered why don’t we have a donate?

Isn’t there an actual donate link under there or a link or.

Yeah, there is.

Yeah.

And you got to join.

But you could like not join.

Just donate.

Yeah.

OK.

We’ll make sure that that’s there and working.

Yeah.

OK, because I didn’t know whether I should let the treasurer know that.

And I am a life member.

So you are.

Yes.

Yes, you are one of the one hundred and five.

OK, you’re proud.

OK, Pam, I think that’s the last hand.

Mm hmm.

You know, the worst go, Pam, you can admit good time for dinner.

Yeah.

Hi.

I have a comment with reference to your basics with basics, with bits classes.

Yes.

We had we had several people in chat the other evening who were very, very elementary.

And there were those who were commenting on your one note.

Class saying that it was a little more than they could handle.

What I’m wondering is when you say basics with bits, doesn’t that basically mean elementary versus?

I think most of the time, yes.

Yeah, because because what’s what’s happening, but the feedback is well taken, though.

What’s happening is that there are those who are coming in to chat saying, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Sure.

Why am I taking this?

I think we’ve we’ve been running basics with bits for almost a year.

And I think with with some some very limited exceptions, they have been very elementary.

But your point, but your feedback is very welcome.

And we’ll and we’ll make sure that the education team is aware of it.

Very good.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

One last call for hands.

OK, our next meeting date is February 5th.

Madam Secretary, if that’s unless I’m wrong.

That’s correct.

OK.

God, knowing me, I would get it wrong.

OK, so unless anyone else has anything for the good of the order, I would like to.

Oh, oh, one more.

Nicolette.

Go ahead, Nicolette, you can unmute.

Hi.

Now, it’s not not allowing.

No, you’re there.

Go ahead.

I just want to congratulate everybody.

I think I’ve been watching over the last couple of years how this association has grown, and I think it’s wonderful.

And all the classes that are coming on and and all the things you’re doing are just amazing.

So I just want to welcome everybody aboard.

It’s a wonderful, wonderful ride.

And thank you so, so much.

Thank you for being a part of.

Yeah.

Happy New Year.

And thank you for being part of the family.

It’s amazing.

I think all of us should be very, very, very, very proud of the work that we’ve done over the last year.

I don’t I I honestly don’t know that we’re going to be able to replicate that again, but we’ll see.

I don’t know.

That was a pretty monumental people.

Hey, Jeff.

So, yeah.

Two things.

Number one, I can tell you that as as of this point, this is the best board meeting we’ve had all year.

And that’s true.

Number two, I’d like to make a motion to adjourn.

OK.

And I don’t think it requires a second.

See everybody in February and bye.

Well, we’ll work on other stuff about the one.

Good night.

I will take us out.

Good job, everyone.

Thank you.

OK, we’re going back.

Bye.

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