Date of Meeting: May 12, 2001
The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. by President Amy Ruell. The minutes were read and approved as written.
Amy told all present that several people had been contacted during the month and agreed to do presentations, but all for very good reasons were unable to present. She stated that she had considered presenting, but that she had recently begun a new job and felt that she did not have the time to adequately prepare. She noted that Maria Rueters will demonstrate the web designing tool, Homesite, in September.
Amy also stated that she hoped to get GWMicro to demonstrate the latest version of Window-eyes, with particular emphasis on demonstrating how well it works with Acrobat Reader, and allowing for access of PDF Files.
Jeffrey turner said that he could do a segment on Tables in Word, and Jeanette Kutash volunteered to do a segment on making columns in word.
Jim Roberts stated that we had 50 paid members this year.
We discussed the fact that often people who were not VIBUG members contacted Amy about items they had for sale. All present agreed that we should discourage advertising for nonmembers, as there were a number of other avenues they could use to sell their products.
We discussed the option of having a new mailing list, to promote general discussion of issues, including computer questions, and sale of items. We discussed whether it should be moderated or not. We also determined that it should not be run by an officer, and decided that the issued needed to be discussed at a future meeting when more people could be present and we could ascertain whether there was interest and need for such a list, and whether someone would be willing to volunteer to maintain it.
We discussed the issue of outreach, and talked about contacting the new student group in Bay State Council. We also discussed the fact that the Talking Information Center has a new programming Director who had contacted Amy. We agreed that we should explore with TIC the possibility of considering some form of computer related programming.
We also discussed the possibility of contacting resource teachers to tell them about VIBUG and to try to encourage them to let us know of students who might benefit from being involved in VIBUG.
In our discussion of possible ideas for future demonstrations we discussed whether we should devote one meeting to talking about employment issues. We considered discussing some items that present special challenges, like cellphones. We also talked about devoting a meeting to exploring some of the audio equipment that is currently available. We also talked about setting up a demonstration of the new Digital Talking Book Daisy Player. Additional topics suggested were: Web Braille, interactive tutorials and how they work, and a second meeting that targets updating the list of available computer tutorials resource list. We decided that we should explore the possibility of purchasing several tutorials which could be loaned to members to assist them in learning computer programs. We agreed that this library of tutorials should be maintained and managed by someone who is currently not an officer.
We decided to try adding a new feature to our meetings. We will allot ten minutes specifically for the discussion of computer tips and tricks that people have found helpful. For example, did you know that in Internet Explorer, Alt-D takes you to the current web address. And are you aware that if you want to get a “.com” address you do not need to type out “http://www.;” just type in the main portion of the address, and instead of ending with “.com” do a control enter, and the web address will be located.
We also discussed the possibility of incorporating into the monthly notice the option of contacting Amy with suggestions for topics for future meetings.
Amy spoke a little about viruses, alerting all of us to the fact that there is a virus which deletes headers and subject lines. She also told us that if a little program called “Comet cursor” appears, we should feel free to delete it, as it is a “spy” program. After addressing the day’s computer questions, the meeting was adjourned at 3:20 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jeanette Kutash,
Vibug Clerk