BA/6/07
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 3 July 2007 at RNIB, 105 Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE.
1. Rollcall: Bill Poole, Richard West, David Boden, Stephen Phippen, Jim McCafferty, Rhoda Carratt, Michael Townsend, Hans Cohn, Peter Osborne, Maggie Grubb, Lisa Jones, Marion Ripley, Steve Thacker, Alison Roberts.
Apologies: Fred Jakeman, Iain Millard, Irene Grayson, Ann Marsh, David McKerral, Barbara Leighton, Janet Bartholomew.
2. Minutes of the last meeting (21 March 2007). Hans Cohn asked what was meant where it was said in relation to the issue of merger talks between BAUK, COTIS (Confederation of Transcribed Information Services) and UKABP (United Kingdom Association of Braille Producers) that there was a fear of conflict between producers and users. Bill Poole said he thought it referred to conflicts of interests.
In relation to item 8 discussing a case concerning the right to read braille in school, Marion Ripley asked for her reported statement to be deleted to avoid her opinion being misinterpreted.
3. Matters arising from the minutes.
Bill Poole thanked Hans Cohn for his paper on the physical aspects of reading braille. Mike Townsend asked if the paper would be published, to which Hans replied that it could go in the UKABP journal; in general he had no objection to anyone publishing it.
Bill Poole said he had spoken to David McCann about the BAUK Music Committee, but David did not want to join it at present because of family commitments. Peter Osborne said that he had written to all the members of the committee, listing items which he thought needed to be tackled; there has been limited response, but he will convene a meeting. Claire Gailans is willing to continue as Chair, and John Armstrong as Secretary. He has been pushing for renewed activity in the committee as there are some new issues deserving its attention. For example, there will perhaps be funding available for a project to scan RNIB's music archive to electronic format; there is interest in this from the Library of Congress in the US, as it would give them access to our scores. The committee could also feed into the new music group set up under ICEB.
Regarding the Louis Braille bicentenary project, Bill Poole said that money was needed for maintenance of the birthplace; RNIB is sympathetic and may make an investment bid. Mike Townsend asked the meeting if anyone was interested in visiting the birthplace site as he is thinking of organising a tour.
The RNIB International Forum met on June 26, and will have a plan by September.
Peter Osborne raised matters in item 8 (braille promotion). On (a), he said that it has been hard to get any response regarding literacy funding. Hans Cohn commented that it was necessary to make the point that blind learners are included in the general literacy policy - government should ring fence money for this purpose.
On item 8 (b), the draft bid for the investment fund for the Louis Braille bicentenary has been written and was being reviewed. The case for more core funding for braille is also being pushed for in the RNIB Senior Manager Team.
On item 8 (c), the RNIB draft development plan for promoting braille has not yet been done. Peter wants to get the funding sorted out first.
4. Officers' Reports.
(a) Chair.
Bill Poole reported two recent deaths.
Les Pye died about two months ago, aged 82. He devoted most of his working life to braille, first within Transcription at RNIB, then at the National Library. He wrote braille teaching courses, and spearheaded the move for NLB to provide resources for new learners. He had been a long serving member of BAUK, and at one time was its Treasurer. Hans Cohn also mentioned that Les had been a fine tenor voice member of Pro Cantor for many years.
Sarah Morgan also died recently, at a young age (of a brain tumour). She had been interested in the spread of braille, and founded the organisation "Campaign for Real Braille", and was in at the beginning of the "Books before we die" campaign. She worked at Blaize Engineering at the time of her death.
(b) Secretary. Stephen Phippen had nothing to report, but asked for any amendments to the BAUK membership list to be sent to him for inclusion in the updated version to be sent out.
(c) Treasurer. The Treasurer, Iain Millard, was not present at the meeting, but the financial report was pre-circulated for approval. He suggested that the status of the NLB (National Library for the Blind) members needed to be considered, i.e. as regards BAUK membership fees. The meeting agreed to make the joint RNIB and ex-NLB membership to be 5 members (from the previous 3 members each). Peter Osborne said he would take this forward at RNIB.
Hans Cohn said that the number of Federation representatives on BAUK may go down to one (from the current two), if no names are put forward. Lisa Jones said that she may transfer from being a UKABP representative to being a NFB (National Federation of the Blind) representative.
The BAUK statement of accounts was approved.
(d) The Public Relations Officer, Mike Townsend, had nothing to report.
5. Elections.
The following officers of BAUK were elected: Chair: Bill Poole, Vice Chair: Peter Osborne, Secretary: Stephen Phippen, Treasurer: Iain Millard, Public Relations Officer: Mike Townsend, Trustees: Richard West and David Boden. Marion Ripley was elected as a coopted member.
There was discussion about making further co-options in the interests of strengthening diversity and skills of the membership: three others would be possible according to the constitution. It was suggested that Allan Young be asked, and it was agreed that suggestions be brought to the next meeting for other co-options or affiliations of organisations.
The current membership of the Literary Code Committee was re-elected as follows: Sheila Armstrong, Hans Cohn, Barbara Leighton, Stephen Phippen, Bill Poole, Marion Ripley, Peter Wilkins, Allan Young.
6. ICEB Assembly.
Discussion took place on who BAUK should send as representatives to the forthcoming ICEB General Assembly, to be held in Melbourne, Australia, in April 2008. A maximum of four representatives is allowed. Marion Ripley asked what would be involved, to which Bill Poole replied that it was not clear at this stage - he would expect debate on tidying up UEB, reports from committees, and a resolution on copyright. Others mentioned the promotion of braille, tactile graphics, as well as UEB implementation reports, such as from Australia (where UEB has been adopted), as well as from the UK.
Bill Poole would go as an ICEB Executive member. Peter Osborne and Mike Townsend said they would also be interested in attending, and this was agreed. Stephen Phippen was asked, but said he would not want to go this time, though as chair of the UEB Format Committee he expected that he would need to send a report to the Assembly which would have to be presented by someone. Hans Cohn said he would like to go, and would be able to get funding if chosen. No others expressed an interest in attending and Hans Cohn's offer was accepted.
7. UEB Consultation.
Bill Poole reported that things had not gone well to move forward with the planned consultation process for UEB, and he suggested setting up an ad hoc committee charged with progressing this matter. Richard West said he was concerned about the timescale within which this work needed to be completed. Bill Poole said that any comments on the existing form of the questionnaire should be sent to Stephen Phippen as soon as possible.
Richard West reported that three seminars on UEB had been booked for Sight Village in July, each lasting 45 minutes. The speakers would be: Bill Poole on the 17th at 2.30 (with Marion Ripley assisting); Mike Townsend on the 18th at 1.30 (with Maggie Grubb assisting); and Richard West on the 19th at 11.30 (with Alison Roberts assisting). Richard West said he thought he might need some technical support on UEB; Stephen Phippen mentioned that he had written a support document for speakers to have, giving a scheme of what should be covered: this should probably be enough. There will also be samples available which people could take away with them, which would be a shortened version of the full set already prepared.
Marion Ripley asked whether the full questionnaire could be used at the seminars, but Bill Poole replied that he did not think that we would be ready for it. One of the problems is that we need to know how much money will be available to process the responses - he wanted to send out as many questionnaires as we could, but the estimate we received for processing the responses was too high. An alternative would be to just have a series of presentations around the country, and to base our decision on the result of those. Bruce Maguire and Josie Howse, who have run similar workshops on UEB in Australia, have said they would be willing to come over to assist us with this, as "ambassadors" for the code. Another option to reduce the cost would be to constrain the number of responses in some way, but Hans Cohn thought it would tarnish the reputation of BAUK if we couldn't send out the questionnaire to everyone. Alison Roberts thought that the questionnaire though very comprehensive, was too long. Mike Townsend said that focus groups were used in Australia, and that a questionnaire may not do much for us: we need to get a feel for people's views, and focus groups could deliver this. However, Lisa Jones said that people may be unable to attend focus groups, even if they were interested - people on low incomes should not be penalised. Mike Townsend responded by saying that telephone focus groups could be used; also, although focus groups would mainly be about UEB, other things could also be included, e.g. braille promotion, etc.
Peter Osborne said that he had recently visited the Australian Braille Authority. He thought that focus groups would have the advantage of giving us feedback directly rather than via an expensive external organisation. However, Bill Poole said that if we controlled the evaluation, people may not trust the results. It would also occupy a lot of time of the BAUK members who were involved. Peter Osborne agreed with the last remark: we would be substituting our time for money we did not have; but we must convince people that we are conducting this process transparently.
Richard West asked how many people could simultaneously take part in a telephone conference. Bill Poole said he thought the maximum was in the low double figures, and asked if RNIB would allow its talk and support facilities to be used for this; Peter Osborne replied that it would. Bill Poole went on to comment that one advantage of the focus group method was that we would get the results immediately.
Marion Ripley asked if we could take names at Sight Village of those wishing to receive samples or attend focus groups. Stephen Phippen said there could be an issue of assessing feedback if the questions asked at focus groups were not on a par with those in the sample pack: how could these be correlated? Mike Townsend suggested that UEB sessions could also be held at Federation local conferences. On the wider issues he suggested that we ask Australia how they ran their focus groups. Marion Ripley also raised the option of BAUK affiliated organisations being responsible for consulting their own constituencies, which could spread the cost.
Bill Poole said that if it were not for the cost, he would have no doubt that a questionnaire would be the best option, as this is what people would respect. Richard West asked how far we had got with finalising the questionnaire, to which Peter Osborne replied that RNIB had not been able to commit resources to this as the evaluation team had reduced in size. Stephen Phippen asked would not a limited questionnaire be viable, i.e. either limited in the number of questions or limited in the number of respondents? A reduction in either or both would reduce the costs.
Peter Osborne asked what are we trying to achieve by all this?, to which Bill Poole replied: to assess what the public view is of having UEB as the braille code in the UK, taking into account both one's own gain and others' gain. Peter Osborne asked is it not possible to reach a less ambitious resolution before the ICEB Assembly?, i.e. that we recognise UEB as a code (i.e. not "the" code), and agree that further recognition would not be possible until public consultation backs it. Bill Poole replied that he would not be willing to do that: it would seem that we were bringing UEB in surreptitiously. We have said that we wouldn't ratify UEB as an official code without public support.
In conclusion Richard West proposed a motion that we should both run a number of workshops as well as have a limited questionnaire (i.e. limited in the number of questions). This was agreed by 7 votes to 4. A working group was set up to progress this, consisting of Bill Poole, Richard West, Mike Townsend and Peter Osborne. Peter would convene a meeting before the end of July.
8. Talks between BAUK, UKABP and COTIS.
Bill Poole reported that talks have started between BAUK, UKABP and COTIS, to explore the idea of forming a merger or federation of the organisations. The structure could consist of a single board, with a number of working groups; e.g. BAUK could be a working group. From BAUK's point of view, we would want to maintain our international links, and not forfeit our international status (similar to the Australian Braille Authority, which comes under the Australian Round Table organisation). Membership still needs to be sorted out. The advantage is that there would then be a single organisation for accessible formats, and economies of scale would be possible. We would want to create a situation where alternative formats are viewed as complementary, not competitors to each other. A combined organisation would want to retain charitable status, and could run a magazine for members. A new name would also need to be chosen. On the other hand, there could be problems over finance, and finding officers willing to spend sufficient time on the board.
9. Any Other Business.
Refreshments did not arrive for the meeting. Hopefully this should not happen in future as we will be able to order refreshments directly in future.
Hans Cohn said he would prefer minutes of the meeting to be sent out earlier to help him report back to his organisation. This was noted, but Stephen Phippen said that administration resources and time for BAUK was very tight for him, and having to do more than one general send out was difficult.
10. The next meetings are: 12 December 2007, 26 March 2008, 2 July 2008.
The meeting closed.