BA/1/05
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 30th November 2004, at RNIB, 105 Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE.
1. Rollcall: Iain Millard, David McKerral, Lisa Bhogal, Maggy Grubb, Allan Young, Steve Pendleton, Bill Poole, Sheila Armstrong, David Boden, Stephen Phippen, Marion Ripley, Rhoda Carratt.
Apologies: Gareth Davies, Peter Osborne, Sue Clamp, Fred Jakeman, Jill Allen-King, Janet Bartholomew, Richard West, Irene Grayson, Sarah Home.
2. Minutes of the last meeting.
It was pointed out that Janet Bartholomew's name was incorrectly stated as Jane. Maggy Grubb said that item 5 should have stated that their concern was over the poor quality of braille produced by candidates, not received by them.
3. Matters arising from the minutes.
Lisa Bhogal asked whether any more consideration had been given to the appointment of a Public Relations Officer. She now felt that she would be able to continue with the post which she had held previously until next July, though she was not keen on having to publicize UEB should we get to that stage. It was agreed to reappoint Lisa as PRO.
Marion Ripley asked what had happened with Richard West's braille promotional document. Stephen Phippen replied that he had sent it to the members of the Braille Promotion Committee and to Bill Poole for their consideration. Bill Poole added that he thought the document needed more work. It was agreed to circulate the document to BAUK generally following any amendments arising from this feedback.
Marion Ripley then said she would be interested to hear Bill Poole's view on Helen Brazier's message to BAUK from the National Library for the Blind which had been circulated earlier. Bill Poole replied that he had been surprised to read in that message that NLB did not see itself as a braille promoting organization. BAUK's principal role is not one of braille promotion, though it did do some. Marion Ripley explained that the Moon Forum are drawing up plans to promote Moon, and they thought it reasonable for them to do so. She argued that braille was a comparable situation, especially given the drop in braille readers over the last 10 years. The meeting agreed that braille promotion should be included as an agenda item for the next meeting, and any ideas that Marion can bring would be welcome.
Lisa Bhogal will be included as a member of the Braille Promotion Committee.
4. Officers' Reports.
(a) Chair.
(1) Unified English Braille Committees. Bill Poole reported on the new UEB committee structure and membership, with the idea of seeing if any other BAUK members are interested in taking part. There is a main UEB Committee (UK members Bill Poole and Stephen Phippen), with various specialized committees subordinate to it: Rule Writing (UK members Bill Poole, Chair Antonnette Botha); Formatting (UK member Stephen Phippen, Chair Reinette Popplestone); Mathematics, whose task is to finalize various technical issues in that area (UK member Stephen Phippen); Linguistics (UK members Bill Poole and Hans Cohn, Chair Jean Obi); Contractions, whose task is to achieve agreement in areas of existing difference, e.g. bridging rules (UK member Bill Poole). As regards the last topic, the UK has already moved towards the position agreed at the UEB London Conference, though other countries do not seem to have made similar progress.
Each of the above committees ought to have a full member from each country. Observers are also allowed; Bill Poole commented that he would be happy to step back to being an observer on some committees. Committees operate mainly by email, with a minimum of face-to-face or telephone meetings (due to cost).
David McKerral asked if there was a web site where further information on the project could be obtained. Stephen Phippen replied that there were links to the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) and UEB on the BAUK web site.
Allan Young observed that the Rule Writing Committee would need to wait for decisions made by the Contractions Committee before finalizing their work in that area. Bill Poole agreed, although he said that there was a creative aspect to the Rule Writing Committee's work as well as one of pure documentation.
Allan Young said he would be interested in joining the Contractions Committee, but no others put themselves forward.
(2) RNIB Braille Policy. RNIB has a Braille Strategy Group, composed of RNIB officers and trustees. This group has written a braille policy document and has asked for feedback from BAUK. The document will therefore be circulated for the next BAUK meeting for consideration. David McKerral asked what the timescale for our response was; Bill Poole replied that a response from our March meeting would be fine.
Lisa Bhogal expressed concern that the next assembly would be held before the BAUK meeting, and decisions might be made without our input. Bill Poole replied that he would ask that this does not happen. He went on to explain that there was a desire from the officers and trustees to consider how resources should be spent on braille, e.g. the balance between learning materials and grade 2, as well as braille teaching and promoting. He had tried to summarize by saying that both auditory and tactile media should be developed to the utmost, e.g. both Daisy and braille. Some people had spoken strongly that elderly people do not want to learn braille; however, he had replied that there was no desire to force braille on people who did not want it, but it was important that people whose lives are transformed by braille should not be hindered by support for other areas. There should not be a cut-off age for people learning braille, and money should be available to promote adult literacy for blind people, i.e. for braille. Braille teaching is a skill that deserves payment, and the checking process for braille teachers should be speeded up. Mike Townsend had made the point that there is a danger that RNIB would lose its valuable knowledge base as a result of cuts, and more resources should be put in to save this. He had also expressed the view that translation software should be widely available for schools and businesses, etc., and that "braille on demand" via the internet was a useful development. The Braille Strategy Group will next meet on 15 December, where these points can be discussed.
Allan Young said that he had not been aware that this debate was taking place. He has been concerned about adult literacy for many years. About 8 years ago, NLB, at his behest, set up a unit for braille learners which travelled to different places encouraging people to use braille. A learners' library was set up producing adult literature in short books, typically of one or two volumes of 30-40 pages. There were four to five hundred titles in grades 1 and 2, plus some intermediate forms. After he moved from that responsibility the service fell away, though it is now being more recognized as worthwhile. Currently NLB are producing extracts from suitable books which are reasonably self-contained.
Lisa Bhogal asked whether NLB will be updating their codebooks to follow the new British Braille, as she personally finds them very useful. Allan Young replied that they would be.
(b) Secretary.
(1) Stephen Phippen reported that the new edition of British Braille had now been published, and was in stock in braille and print at RNIB. Unfortunately, an embossing fault had meant that the braille originally produced needed to be re-embossed; however, the faulty copies had been disposed of, and good copies were now in stock. People with faulty copies had been contacted and offered a good version.
Allan Young said that RNIB Customer Services were still saying that British Braille was not available, and David McKerral also reported that the Resource Centre seemed to think that good copies were not in stock. Stephen Phippen said that he was confident that this was wrong, and would contact the people concerned to ensure that they had up-to-date information.
(2) RNIB have now agreed to BAUK making British Braille available on BAUK's web site, from April 2005.
(3) There is an issue regarding BAUK's web address (bauk.org.uk). The use of such addresses needs to be paid for (in our case every two years), and our address is due for renewal in December 2004. However, we are having difficulty in transferring the ownership of this address from the original owner to ourselves, so there is a danger of our site disappearing. Stephen Phippen said that he had looked for alternative addresses which we could use, but none of those available seemed to be very suitable. However, this may be our only option. Lisa Bhogal said she knew the original owner of the site name personally, and would contact him to see what could be done to resolve the problem.
(4) There is a possible problem with the BAUK meeting set for 14 July 2005, as it may coincide with Sight Village. Stephen Phippen said that as soon as the dates for Sight Village are known, if there is a clash he will try to move the date of our meeting towards the end of July.
As regards the minutes, David McKerral asked if in future any acronyms used could be explained when first used, and also suggested that the BAUK web address could be included as a reminder. Stephen Phippen said he would do this.
(c) Treasurer. Iain Millard reported that all the BAUK fees due were now in, apart from VIEW; in this case he had not been able to make contact as their Treasurer's address seems to have changed. Maggy Grubb (a VIEW representative) said she will try to obtain up-to-date contact details.
The account balance is currently £8220.
(d) Public Relations Officer. Lisa Bhogal briefly reported that she had attended the last Moon Forum meeting, but would be unable to attend the next one.
5. Setting up a BAUK Conference on UEB.
Allan Young asked what the purpose of such a conference would be. Bill Poole replied that it would be part of a consultation process, where a public debate could take place. However, we currently did not have enough easily accessible materials; it might be best to try to assemble such materials first, then decide on a conference at a later stage.
Sheila Armstrong said that Mike Townsend's idea (it was Mike who originally suggested holding a conference), was that this would be a way of moving forward - he felt that consultations usually come to nothing. However, Allan Young replied that it would be necessary first to do the basic groundwork, e.g. producing, circulating and publicizing enough suitable UEB material, especially with regard to braille literature. Such material would need to be circulated prior to a conference.
Stephen Phippen said that some sample material (including maths and science) had been on offer at the ICEB Assembly in Toronto: we may wish to use that. Also, it is fairly easy to create UEB via the Duxbury Braille Translator, so we could create our own materials too. Gail Chester added that Pia would like to help in producing materials.
Bill Poole said that it might be useful to have a list of material which was available on request. However, the meeting was unsure about whether a charge should be made.
6. UKABP Conference.
A conference was held by the United Kingdom Association of Braille Producers in Shrewsbury on 4th-5th October. Bill Poole said that he had been invited to speak at the debate on the future of braille, but had been unable to attend.
Marion Ripley said that, as one of the organizers, she was pleased people had thought it was useful and went well. In the debate, Peter Wilkins spoke for the case for leaving braille alone; Claire Wilson for the case for producing more braille for learners, such as jumbo braille and grade 1; Mike Townsend spoke for the case for moving to UEB. The vote taken at the end of the debate went in favour of UEB, although it was recognized that the conference was not representative of braille users, but of braille producers.
The Moon workshop at the conference was more lively than expected, allowing issues to be usefully aired. One such was that although "dotty Moon" is widely used, there is not a uniform standard.
A main theme in the maths workshop concerned the quality of transcription, and the degree of modification required in order to make tasks equal for VI and sighted readers.
A session was held on accreditation, where the plan is to draw up standards for braille producers. It was noted that this did not refer to braille standards as such (as handled by BAUK), but standards relating to the quality of production and service provided by transcription agencies generally.
Other sessions held were on diagrams, Daisy, changes to British Braille, and a braille question and answer session.
Lisa Bhogal said she would like to have attended, but was unable to. Marion Ripley replied that all the sessions were recorded, though these recordings were of varying quality. These will be made available in audio, and there should be a report in the UKABP magazine.
Bill Poole said that all reports seem to agree that it was a good conference.
7. Any other business.
Maggy Grubb asked whether the Braille Primer was being updated. Stephen Phippen replied that it was, and it is hoped it will be ready in March 2005. Rules on capitals will be covered in a separate section near the end. Lisa Bhogal pointed out that other teaching materials need to be updated, e.g. Finger Print.
As regards updating braille translation software, Stephen Phippen reported that MegaDots is expected to be substantially updated, although there are likely to be some areas which will be impractical to change because of the way the program is coded, and the fact that MegaDots is not expected to have a very long lifetime. The Duxbury Braille Translator is expected to be fully updated: some work has already been done and been tested.
8. Date of next meeting: 22nd March 2005.
The meeting closed.
[BAUK web site: www.bauk.org.uk.]