BA/1/07
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 29th November 2006 at RNIB, 105 Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE.
1. Rollcall: Peter Osborne, Lisa Jones, Maggy Grubb, Richard West, Iain Millard, Stephen Phippen, Jim McCafferty, Bill Poole, Michael Townsend, Alison Roberts, Hans Cohn, Marion Ripley.
Apologies: David McKerral, Barbara Leighton, Ann Marsh, Steve McCall, David Boden, Fred Jakeman, Janet Bartholomew.
2. Minutes of the last meeting (4 July 2006). Hans Cohn asked for clarification on whether a vote on the UEB (Unified English Braille) consultation would be decisive: if there is an overwhelming rejection of UEB from the consultation process, who will decide what will be done? Bill Poole replied that there are nuances to this issue which BAUK needs to consider; but BAUK would make a decision on the best action to take, on the basis of the results.
Marion Ripley wanted to clarify that RNIB's proposal for grade 1 to be the default for younger readers is not the current position; the position now is rather that grade 1 braille should be an alternative to grade 2. However Bill Poole replied that having grade 1 as the default was a definite proposal at one stage. Peter Osborne added that the proposal was originally put forward by Eamonn Fetton, and was discussed at committee level; but there was controversy, and clarification to its wording has since been put forward within RNIB. Bill Poole said that the situation is that not enough grade 1 is produced to make it a viable option for readers, and moves are being made to address this problem. Peter Osborne added that RNIB is making efforts to enable either grade 1 or grade 2 braille to be available by choice. This is part of RNIB's braille on demand policy, though it is quite difficult to achieve practically. Peter also added that he is now the Chief Braille Officer at RNIB, so such questions would go through him.
3. Matters arising. Bill Poole reminded the meeting that we will need to decide about the BAUK membership allocation for RNIB and NLB, following their merger. However, this can wait till after the merger takes place.
Bill Poole also reported that the group considering celebration arrangements for the Louis Braille Bicentennial had met. One possible event would be a braille reading competition; he thought that blind people doing public reading alongside sighted readers should be encouraged, and a number of suggestions were made along these lines; but the group finally went for something wider than a reading competition. However, the final decision will rest with WBU (World Blind Union). Hans Cohn commented that he did not see why one type of event should exclude the other.
4. Officers' Reports.
(a) Chair.
Bill Poole reported on the industry launch of the project for producing accessible pharmaceutical labels, which took place two weeks ago. There are two aspects to this project - the actual label on the packaging, and the patient information leaflet. The current focus is on braille, but at a later stage there could be other media produced. Peter Osborne added that there is a lot of sign-up to this project within the pharmaceutical industry, but Hans Cohn commented that the industry should be aware that we are at the beginning of the project, not at the end. Richard West reported that discussions within BCAB suggested that the labels currently being produced were unreadable; Mike Townsend said that producers seemed to think that the braille font used could be rescaled just like a print font. There is also a problem with some chemist shops covering up the braille label with a print label.
(b) Secretary. Stephen Phippen said that he had nothing to report. The date booked for the 2007 AGM was raised (3 July), but there was no move to change it.
(c) Treasurer. Iain Millard reported that the BAUK balance currently stood at £10,142. All membership fees had been paid.
(d) Public Relations Officer. Mike Townsend said he had no news to report, but asked members to let him know of any stories etc. they may know about braille, which might be useful to him for braille promotion.
5. Changes to BAUK Constitution.
Bill Poole said that two amendments to the BAUK constitution had been drafted by himself and Stephen Phippen, relating to the number and status of coopted members. These amendments had been circulated to BAUK members prior to the meeting. However, it was pointed out that the constitution stated that such amendments could only be decided upon at an AGM or special general meeting. Mike Townsend suggested that we designate a part of the next scheduled meeting as a special general meeting, and decide on these amendments then. This was agreed.
Mike Townsend then said he would also like discussion on an issue raised at the UKABP (United Kingdom Association of Braille Producers) AGM, at which COTIS (Confederation of Transcribed Information Services) was also present. There are moves for UKABP and COTIS to merge, and braille would be strongly represented in that merger process. It has been suggested that BAUK could also join in in this merger. Bill Poole said that this sort of idea had been put to him privately in the past (in that case with reference to UKABP and BAUK). His reaction had been that the resulting organisation would be producer dominated. When he became Chair of BAUK he had made efforts for BAUK to move away from that situation, and brought more users and teachers into BAUK. In comparison to BAUK, BANA (Braille Authority of North America) is more producer dominated, which he does not think is desirable.
Lisa Jones said that COTIS and UKABP have been working on a transcriber accreditation scheme, and the proposal is to set up an umbrella organisation which BAUK could belong to. COTIS has set up an audio accreditation scheme, but UKABP has found difficulty with funding to do the same. It has become clear that time is wasted through people attending different meetings, but discussing the same things.
Mike Townsend said he was concerned that if we did let this go, UKABP/COTIS would remain producer based only, though it needed to be steered by users. He would like BAUK to be involved at the beginning.
Hans Cohn commented that in BANA there is such a union, but this has given rise to a complete split in opinion over UEB - the two groups in BANA don't have common interests.
Alison Roberts said that as a member of all three organisations, BAUK, UKABP and COTIS, she regards UKABP and COTIS as useful producer organisations, but thinks it is very necessary to have a user organisation like BAUK, and we should keep it separate. Lisa Jones said that there is user involvement in UKABP/COTIS; but Mike Townsend added that this involvement was not there by right.
Peter Osborne suggested that himself and Mike Townsend prepare a discussion paper on this matter, and this was agreed.
Richard West asked whether the idea was that BAUK should have a seat on UKABP/COTIS, or that there be a tripartite organisation? Alison Roberts replied that it is premature to say. Bill Poole said that it is up to BAUK to say what sort of structure we might be interested in getting involved with. Alison Roberts added that it has been proposed that a UKABP/COTIS working group be set up to forward this matter.
Bill Poole ended by saying that this matter should be taken forward to the next meeting.
6. Braille Promotion Committee.
Richard West said he agreed with comments that this committee is not achieving as much as we would have liked, and that more activity is needed. A big issue is the actual teaching of braille; there is a mechanism for this, but nobody on the ground to actually do it. He knows that in Norwich there are braille classes, but this is local to that area.
Mike Townsend made the point that there is a legitimate literacy issue - blind people have the same right to literacy as sighted people. £13m of the government literacy development fund was not used because no project had been proposed; we should have made a bid for this. Perhaps this could be tied in with the Louis Braille year activities. Richard West said that in his experience we needed to correctly identify the responsible government official, in order to effectively progress this; is there an appropriate person within RNIB who knows how to access such an official? Peter Osborne replied that there was, and Mike Townsend said that he would bring the matter to the RNIB board.
Peter Osborne also added that those funds have now been transferred to the Learn Direct project, and are earmarked for regional projects, i.e. European priority 1 areas. Bill Poole commented that this was not helpful to us, but Richard West thought that it might be possible to bring this back into the catagory of "excluded communities". Mike Townsend, Peter Osborne and Richard West will pursue this matter.
7. UEB Evaluation.
Bill Poole reported that he had had conversations with Peter Osborne about how to progress this matter. Peter Osborne said that it had proved very difficult to do anything with this before Christmas. He had persuaded someone at RNIB to look at the questionnaire, and their feedback was that it would be quite hard to evaluate in this form; Peter thought we needed to re-assess the questionnaire to make the processing of responses easier.
Hans Cohn reminded the meeting that this whole evaluation process needed to be completed within 18 months (for the next ICEB Assembly). Peter Osborne responded by saying that very early in the New Year, himself, Bill Poole and Cathy Rundle at RNIB could discuss the suggested amendments to the questionnaire.
Mike Townsend said that in addition to the evaluation, we want to get some more UEB material produced for people to read. Software is already available for producers to do this. Alison Roberts pointed out that we also needed some willing customers. Mike Townsend added that Bruce Maguire (in Australia) has said that he is prepared to give us UEB materials if we need some extra. Richard West reminded the meeting that at the last BAUK meeting we talked about producing some magazines in UEB - he would be interested in receiving these himself. Peter Osborne said that this would be feasible, but time would be needed to organise it. There is a question of who readers of such magazines should send their comments to. Mike Townsend suggested that comments could be sent to the magazine's editor, and added that he thought it would be a good idea if in addition other material was produced in UEB only, as this would be an incentive for people to read it. Bill Poole questioned whether magazine editors would be the best people to handle feedback comments; he thought that an alternative suggestion of Richard West that comments be sent to Stephen Phippen would probably be too much work to take on. Peter Osborne said that he would try to resolve this in some way, and Bill Poole added that he will make sure that something gets done, i.e. materials are produced and the questionnaire finalised.
Mike Townsend noted that the NFB (National Federation of the Blind) in the US is set against UEB, but the producers may go ahead with it anyway, though Bill Poole doubted this. Peter Osborne said that he was due to have a meeting at the Library of Congress in February, discussing the future of braille. Mike Townsend commented that there is a known problem in the US over teaching maths and science braille, and the introduction of UEB is seen as a way of resolving this. In contrast, the UK has perhaps the least to gain from UEB. Marian Ripley asked whether the increased availability of electronic files, and the availability of braille translation software, meant that there was now less of a need to have a single braille standard. Stephen Phippen replied that this was theoretically the case, but we would need to share structured untranslated files, such as XML, which could be easily converted to braille, rather than braille files themselves.
8. NLB Reader Survey.
Marion Ripley reported on the findings of the reader survey carried out by NLB (National Library for the Blind). She viewed the number of people that emerge as fluent readers as shockingly small. Another worry is that some of the books were worn, and written in inaccessible language. Maggy Grubb explained that there wasn't much up-to-date material available, and Marion Ripley added that much of the Moon material is several years old. Richard West said he thought that the motivation to read comes from the interest in reading material available. Maggy Grubb said that some people learn to read braille using the Braille Primer, which is not very motivating, but Marion Ripley pointed out that the Braille Primer is meant to be a course for training sighted transcribers, not a braille reading course for blind people.
Richard West noted that there was no indication in the survey that people who were taught braille were already active readers as sighted people; and Marion Ripley added that the figures could also include sighted people learning braille for reasons other than reading.
Hans Cohn said that his wife was one of the braille learners; her social worker has left their borough, and she now has to continue by herself. He also spoke about the condition of loss of sensitivity in the fingers due to a deterioration of the nervous system, and advised that sufferers should go to their general practitioner, and ask to see a specialist neurologist who would conduct an ENT test. It might be found that the cause of the problem is a chemical deficiency; this proved to be the case for himself - arising from too high a dosage of vitamins. Bill Poole noted that this underlined the fact that loss of sensitivity is not an inevitable process, and Lisa Jones added that there are exercises designed to gauge the sensitivity of fingers. However, Marion Ripley stressed that the lack of teachers remains the number 1 issue for learning braille.
Marion Ripley then said that the transition from grade 1 to grade 2 in both braille and Moon is a big stumbling block, and she wondered why it is seen as something that people have to move on to. Is the answer to legitimise grade 1? Richard West agreed; Bill Poole also agreed, but added that he is nevertheless concerned that people are led to believe that the target is unattainable, which he doesn't think is true.
Lisa Jones said she thought Fingerprint was a good course for learning braille, and Marion Ripley added that she would like to have seen evidence of the relative success of the Primer versus Fingerprint for learning braille in the survey. Richard West asked if we knew whether people who dropped out of grade 2 continued with grade 1, to which Bill Poole replied that he got the impression that they did not. He further commented that in general, we did not know how the results in the survey were arrived at, but that they could be used as evidence of the need for more teaching.
Marion Ripley concluded that the survey was useful, even if it leaves many questions open.
Hans Cohn said that he might write an article about the physical aspects of reading braille, and finger sensitivity, which could be circulated.
9. Any Other Business.
Lisa Jones asked if anyone had experience of producing braille from a PowerPoint presentation. Alison Roberts said that she had some experience, and aimed to get each whole slide on a braille page.
Peter Osborne asked what the status was of the Music Committee, as there are some important issues coming up. Stephen Phippen replied that the committee was still active, and John Armstrong is the Secretary. Any items can be passed to him.
Hans Cohn asked if there is a written record of grade 3 braille. Bill Poole replied that he had a personal copy, and it may be possible to borrow a copy from NLB.
The meeting closed.
Date of next meeting: 21 March 2007.
BAUK web address: www.bauk.org.uk.