BA/8/03
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 9th July 2003, at RNIB, 105 Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE.
Present: David Boden, Harry Beevers, Iain Millard, Stephen Phippen, Lisa Bhogal, Peter Wilkins, Hans Cohn, Barbara Leighton, Winnie Morrell, Bill Poole, Fred Jakeman, Allan Young, Gail Chester.
Apologies: Anne Donnerly, Isobel Yule, Peter Osborne, Richard West, David McKerral, Mike Townsend, Irene Grayson, Sarah Home.
2. The minutes of the last meeting (14th March 2003) were accepted.
3. Matters arising from the minutes: Bill Poole apologised that, in addition to the vote on the motion to change the BAUK constitution to reduce the quorum for meetings, he should have formally taken a vote on the amended motion.
4. Officers' Reports.
(a) Chair.
(1) Membership: Bill Poole reported the death of Nigel Berry, who had been a member of BAUK representing VIEW. He had made very useful contributions to braille, particularly in the field of teaching, and was a member of the Foreign Languages Committee. He cared deeply about braille, and will be greatly missed. Also, Isobel Yule has decided to step down from BAUK and ICEB in order to reduce her commitments. Isobel also represented VIEW, so two new representatives will be needed.
(2) World Braille Council: The World Braille Council has run into some difficulties. Euclid Herie has resigned as Chair, and is replaced by John Wall. A meeting was held by conference call, but there is a dispute within WBU on the direction the Council should take. Hans Cohn asked whether we knew why Euclid Herie had resigned, given that the Council was his idea originally. Bill Poole said that Euclid's resignation would not affect the Council's existence or progress. There was evidence that some people may want to go back to the strict wording of the original proposal for the Council. Fred Jakeman asked if the Council will discuss wider aspects of braille, besides English braille. Bill Poole replied that this was one of its main functions, and he personally thought that braille promotion should also be high on its agenda.
(3) UEBC Developments: Bill Poole said that he had sent a message to Darleen Bogart on 7th May to ask for advice on what direction Committee 4 (dealing with foreign languages) should take. He had listed five possibilities, one of which was developing a phonetics code, but had said that he was not prepared to work on the latter until the future of UEBC was clearer. He was still awaiting Darleen's reply, but in its absence will spend the time on work within other UEBC committees of which he is a member, and will not reopen Committee 4. Allan Young asked if Darleen was aware how large an undertaking the creation of a UEBC phonetics code would be. Bill Poole replied that he was not sure, but he had tried to explain that it was so.
Bill Poole said he had also informed Darleen of BAUK's recent decisions on its participation in the UEBC project. He would be interested to know what the meeting of the BANA board had decided about UEBC in the light of the position of the two major organisations of the blind in the US.
BAUK's view on using two-cell terminators instead of one-cell terminators for capitals and other typeform passages has been accepted by Committee 2.
Within the Project Committee, a motion to allow the liberal use of shortforms as part words did not pass. The vote was 3-2, but there was no overall majority, which the Chair indicated was required. Bill Poole had voted against this motion. Other views will now have to be considered, in which only extensions to shortforms would be permitted if they satisfied certain rules.
(b) Secretary.
Stephen Phippen said that he intended to send out an updated BAUK membership list, and so asked to be informed of any changes to addresses, etc. He would include email addresses unless requested otherwise.
The BAUK web site has now been set up, along the lines suggested at previous meetings. Since we have done this ourselves, the cost has been minimal, i.e. for a server to host the site – about £35 yearly, and for the site name – about £40 every 2 years.
Gail Chester reported that on her browser the text appeared on a grey background instead of the usual white; Stephen Phippen said that he had not found that himself, but would look into it. She also suggested that it might be useful to include a sample of the proposed braille changes as well as the list, and that minutes of inquorate meetings should not be included.
(c) Treasurer.
Iain Millard said that the BAUK annual accounts had been circulated. Interest rates had dropped this year, and the bank had suggested that we could put part of our funds into a building society to get more interest. He has not yet received an invoice from Kim Charlson for BAUK's ICEB membership.
Barbara Leighton suggested that since the cost for setting up the web site had turned out to be unexpectedly low, perhaps we could suspend the proposed increase of BAUK fees from £45 to £50. A motion to this effect was made, but not seconded.
Allan Young noted that donations for 2003 were £150, but for 2002 were £2870; what was the reason for this? Iain Millard replied that most of the 2002 donation was the contribution from RNIB to fund the UEBC meeting we hosted. Hans Cohn suggested that large donations should be attributed for our records; Bill Poole agreed, but said that this information would not appear in the annual accounts.
The annual accounts were agreed.
(d) Public Relations Officer.
Lisa Bhogal reported that all her work had been in relation to the proposed braille changes. She had circulated notices to various organisations and colleges of the blind.
5. ICEB General Assembly.
Bill Poole reported that a notice had been sent out on 29th May concerning the arrangements for the assembly. The assembly will take place from 29th March to 2nd April 2004 inclusive (9 am to 5 pm), preceded and followed by Executive meetings on the 28th March (starting at 1 pm) and 3rd April (starting at 9 am). Adjoining the ICEB Assembly, the BANA board will meet on 26-28 March, and the Canadian board have a meeting on 3-4 April. Bill Poole said he would like to attend the BANA board meeting as an observer.
Darleen Bogart has to sign a provisional contract with the hotel as regards the number of bedrooms needed for the ICEB Assembly; CNIB may have to pay a penalty for inaccurate bookings. Each country can send a maximum of four delegates, and we have provisionally indicated to Darleen that we would send the full four. We need to give 60 days notice of the names of our delegation, but we may wish to appoint delegates now to allow them more time if they intend to write papers or raise funds, etc.
Hans Cohn asked what the costs for the assembly would be. Bill Poole replied that it would be 129 Canadian dollars (about £60) per room per night. 6 nights would be needed for the assembly. In addition, the flights would be about £400-500.
Hans Cohn queried whether we could afford to send four delegates – it would take half of BAUK's funds. Bill Poole replied that his view is that we should send four delegates unless other factors make funding more difficult.
Stephen Phippen said that RNIB has already asked him to go as an RNIB observer, if not as a BAUK representative. It may be that RNIB would therefore provide at least part of his funding if he was chosen as a BAUK delegate (although the position may have changed because of the recent financial constraints at RNIB). Bill Poole thought that we should also include an "ordinary reader" as part of our delegation; people regarded as technical experts can lose sign of the ordinary reader's view.
Hans Cohn said that he would be willing to go, and may be able to provide funding.
Bill Poole asked for confirmation that BAUK should send four delegates. This was agreed.
The following were nominated: Bill Poole, Stephen Phippen, Hans Cohn, Mike Townsend. Mike Townsend was not present at the meeting; if unable to go an alternative might be Allan Young. [Since the meeting Mike Townsend has confirmed that he can go.]
6. Elections.
The following officers were elected: Chair: Bill Poole; Vice Chair: Allan Young; Secretary: Stephen Phippen; Treasurer: Iain Millard; Public Relations Officer: Lisa Bhogal. Richard West and David Boden were elected as Trustees.
The following were elected as members of the Literary Code Committee: Sheila Armstrong, Lisa Bhogal, Gail Chester, Hans Cohn, Clare Gailans, Bill Poole (Chair), Stephen Phippen, Peter Wilkins, Allan Young.
7. Date of next meeting.
Stephen Phippen reported that he has booked rooms at RNIB Judd Street for BAUK meetings on 17th March and 7th July 2004, but that he had been unable to book a room for the proposed November 2003 meeting. After some discussion two options were identified: to try to get a smaller meeting room at Judd Street; to see if St Dunstan's (in London) would be able to provide a room.
Winnie Morrell asked whether it would be possible for some members to take part in meetings by phone. Bill Poole thought that it would, but it would probably be impractical, as well as expensive, for a large number of people to do this.
8. Feedback to the proposed changes to British Braille.
Stephen Phippen reported that notices publicising the availability of the list of proposed changes had been placed in various publications, including New Beacon and Progress. There had also been an item on "In Touch", and the list is available on the new BAUK web site. He has sent out perhaps 100 braille copies of the leaflet, and a smaller number of the print version of the document. So far there have been very few consequent responses, and of those most were positive. On this evidence we should not find it difficult to move to tidying up and ratification of British Braille.
Gail Chester said that she had contacted schools about the proposals, but it would be September before we could expect any responses from them.
Lisa Bhogal said that translation software developers also need to see the proposed changes. Gail Chester said that she would send a copy of the British Braille draft to Mike Parr of Braille Maker, and Stephen Phippen said that he had already sent a copy to Duxbury, who develop the DBT and MegaDots translation programs.
9. Reports from Committees.
Stephen Phippen said he had received a message from Richard West (Chair of the Computer Committee) concerning the issue of the UK code tables often not being installed by manufacturers in braille hardware and software, e.g. embossers and braille displays. He thought that we should raise this matter with manufacturers again, and wondered if we could approach them at the forthcoming Sight Village. Gail Chester agreed that this was an issue to be tackled, but the meeting concluded that we would not be able to prepare anything in time for Sight Village.
Richard West also asked for names of people interested in joining the Braille Promotion Committee, which was now rather short of members. Lisa Bhogal, David Boden, Peter Wilkins, Gail Chester and Barbara Leighton expressed their interest, and Stephen Phippen will pass their names to Richard West.
The meeting closed.