Date/Time: Saturday, January 12, 2008
Location: National Braille Press, 88 St. Stephen Street, Boston
Amy Ruell, VIBUG President, began the meeting at 1:10 PM. Since repairs were being completed on the steps to the front entrance to National Braille Press and since Ed, Maria and Jeanette had been assisting people in getting into the building by the other entrance, Amy thanked them for their help. The November minutes, read by Amy, were accepted by the membership.
Jim Roberts presented the treasurer's report as of December 31, 2007. According to that end-of-year report, VIBUG had 61 members. The beginning balance for 2007 was $3,045.02. Income was $1228.23, with expenses of $280. The endinng balance for 2007 was $3993.25. The treasurer's report was accepted. Amy and Jim reminded the membership that it is important to submit dues in order to continue VIBUG membership. Dues are $20 per year and can be either mailed to Jim or given to him at a VIBUG meeting. As a follow-up to this report, Jim sent an email showing that as of the January meeting, VIBUG had 14 members.
Amy discussed future plans for VIBUG, including partial funding for a VIBUG representative to attend the CSUN conference in March of 2009 and setting aside some of VIBUG's money in a short-term CD. Members commented that the CD should be FDIC-insured and that Citizens Bank had particularly good options for short-term CDs at this time.
Other announcements from Amy: Amy announced that there are new updates, including the PacMate Omni, that have been recently released. As of this meeting, Amy had a $300 copy of the OpenBook software for sale. The firm of Brown, Goldstein and Levy is at work on a legal case highlighting the inaccessibility of iTunes and is looking for people who are interested in contributing their experiences to this case; see Amy for details.
Other member announcements: John Oliveira announced a planned visit by Jonathan Mosen of Freedom Scientific to the Carroll Center on February 6th. Ed Gilbert announced that the FCC has a site open for people to get coupons toward converter boxes for their TVs. These converter boxes, in addition to new antennas, will be important in 2009, when all TVs are converted to exclusively digital broadcasting. The website to visit is:
www.dtv2009.gov
Sunish volunteered to check on companies making converter boxes and bring information about them to the next meeting. Amy also has information about a bill that blind consumers are working on with Congressman markee to address the accessibility of the televisions and converter boxes.
Following these announcements, the computer question and answer section of the meeting took place. After that, VIBUG's monthly demonstration took place, this time focusing on gadgets. Several presenters including Amy Ruell, Steve Dresser, Sunish Gupta and Ed Gilbert demonstrated voice recorders, cell phones and accessible carpentry tools. Amy adjourned the meeting at 4:00 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Bose, VIBUG Clerk