Date of Meeting: September 12, 2020
When: 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Where: Online anywhere<
The meeting was called to order by President Frank Ventura at 1:00 p.m. Following introductions, the following announcements were made.
Frank reminded people of the key strokes to mute and unmute for windows computers, macs, IPhone and landlines.
Jerry Berrier reported that we had sent out the letter reminding people to pay their dues. This resulted in us increasing our membership by about ten to twelve people.
Tim Cumings reported that zoom is working beautifully.
Jeanette Kutash thanked people for reading the minutes and sending in their comments so promptly; she has resolved one of the issues brought to her attention and the other one will be researched and further clarified after the meeting. She thanked all for their input, and let all know she appreciated that they read what was sent out.
Bob Resnick acknowledged that our treasury is in good health. There is a button on our website called "PayPal" and you can pay on our website via PayPal or credit card. Dues are $20.00. If anyone has any difficulty or wants to pay in an alternative fashion please contact Bob at: treasurer@vibug.org
Frank announced that since VIBUG's inception VIBUG has always been nonaffiliated with any organization, either disability or blindness related. We've always tried to make people feel welcome and requested when entering VIBUG please leave your affiliations at the door; recently some have felt uncomfortable with some things both posted on email lists and said outside of the meetings, before and afterwards. If you feel you need to talk about something relevant to another organization, either do it privately or check with the officers first. We also have a resource page on our site where we would be happy to post items that fall in to that category.
We have been talking about accessibility for folks who are deaf-blind. In the ideal world we would like to send a Cart reporter, which is basically an electronic version of court stenographer. However, this would cost ten times our dues revenue which we cannot do. We have experimented with different types of artificial intelligence and we are publically trying out one today for the first time. If you are on the windows version of zoom you can tab to "closed caption options" and in that menu there is a "view full transcript" and it will give you a transcript of what is being said. If you are on an iPhone you go into "more" and there is a "view full transcript" and it will give you an idea of the automated transcription service we are using. We will appreciate any feedback we can get.
We will not have any in-person holiday party in January due to the Covid situation. If anyone would like to plan a virtual type of social event for VIBUG, contact us.
We do not anticipate any in-person meetings until early next year and even that is questionable. We need to follow the federal, state and local guidelines and the guidelines from our hosts at MIT, as safety comes first.
We traditionally have a nominating committee and we also accept nominations from the floor. We are asking for a volunteer to be the Nominating Committee Chair. If you are interested, contact the officers. We only ask that you do not nominate someone for office who is on your committee. Jeanette will send out the nominating committee emails at the request of the officers.
We will modify our elections. We will have a virtual email-style election. We will have an email address where people can send in their ballots. The election will be open for a couple of days. Jeanette will send out the email about this after the October meeting.
David Kingsbury suggested that we think about ways to market or promote VIBUG. There are a number of Podcasts, Eyes on Success, Tech talk, ACB Main Menu where if one of the board members were to be interviewed, VIBUG has an interesting story, years of existence, no outside funding, and talking about the things VIBUG does. This might extend our membership.
Frank said maybe we will have a PR committee and we will discuss it outside of the meeting, stating it was a very good idea.
Jeff Bishop mentioned that on Tuesday October 15, 2020 apple was having its event where it would MOST LIKELY talk about the Apple Watch Series 6. They will also have to talk about a release date for IOS 14 as that will require you to have Watch OS7.
Emre Sarbak from Mediate talked about the Supersense app for the blind, and asked for feedback about its features. He also had a lengthy discussion with us about whether his app could be used to improve employment for the blind. He has requested that his contact information be in these minutes. You can reach out to him at: emre@mediate.tech and he will get back to you.
Jerry Berrier demonstrated Audible Sync.
Jeanette Kutash and Maria Cristic demonstrated the Way Around system.
Respectfully submitted, Jeanette Kutash, Vibug Clerk