September 2025

Braille Authority of North America Board Meeting 

Monday, September 22, 2025, 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time

1. Call to Order: Jen Goulden

Jen called the meeting to order at 1:01 P.M. Eastern time.

2. Roll Call: Amber Pearcy

The following board members were in attendance:

  • Jen Goulden, CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind), Chair
  • Wendy Buckley, Perkins School for the Blind, Vice Chair
  • Amber Pearcy, National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress (NLS), Secretary
  • Danette Johnson, Hadley, Treasurer
  • Marie Zaldivar, Alternate Text Production Center (ATPC)
  • Judy Dixon, American Council of the Blind (ACB)
  • Frances Mary (FM) D'Andrea, American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
  • Kyle DeJute, American Printing House for the Blind (APH)
  • Mary Nelle McLennan (MN), Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER)
  • Tracy Gaines, California Transcribers and Educators for the Blind and Visually Impaired (CTEBVI)
  • Hollie Knight, Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation (CIDI)
  • Tina Seger, Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired
  • Jennifer Dunnam, National Federation of the Blind (NFB)
  • Georgie Sydnor, National Braille Press (NBP)
  • Susan (Sue) Reilly, Administrative Assistant
  • Aquinas Pather, associate member Allyant

  • Emily Coleman, Associate Member Council of Schools and Services for the Blind (COSB)

  • Holly Bullock, associate member Crawford Technologies

Observer:

  • Callie Brusegaard, U.S. Representative to ICEB

Not attending:

  • Diane Spence, National Braille Association (NBA

3. Approval of Minutes from Last Meeting: Amber Pearcy

Amber reported that the minutes from the August 18, 2025 teleconference were sent to the board for initial feedback. Once edits were incorporated, she sent the minutes back to the board for a second time with no additional suggestions received. 

MSC: Amber moved to approve the minutes from the August 18, 2025 teleconference. Tracy seconded. Motion carried. 

GC: BANA will move forward with the project to upgrade our web site to Drupal 11. This discussion took place via email, and the GC was proposed on September 15th. The text of the email that initiated the discussion is below and was sent on September 8th.

As we’ve previously discussed, the BANA Web site is on an older version of Drupal, and it would be wise for us to upgrade for security reasons. We also need to make the interface easier to use for our volunteer web content folks so that keeping the web site up to date is not such a time-consuming process.

After some discussion and negotiations with Pumex, the company that did our original migration of our web site back in 2021, we have received an estimate from them about the cost for upgrading to the latest version of Drupal. First, a bit of background:

The cost of our original migration was in the neighborhood of $14,000. We currently need to move from Drupal 8 to Drupal 11, and the process of doing that doesn’t allow a skip directly to the new version but must be handled by stepping through the two prior versions.

 

The process of dealing with Drupal 9 and 10 will involve more complication than will the “hop” to Drupal 11 (and versions going forward), because of problems with those earlier versions. The cost estimate includes adding accessible captchas at key places to assist us with BANA-Announce. Drupal versions have a 2-year life cycle, so it will likely be wise to plan to do regular upgrades.

 

Pumex estimates the cost for everything will be $15,130. This may seem high, but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done. In addition, our web site is our primary means of communicating with our stakeholders, so it’s important that we keep it up to date for the reasons noted above.

 

4. Fall Meeting at NBP: Georgie Sydnor

Georgie reported that she has sent two documents to the board with details about accommodations, transportation, and way-finding in the conference space. The question was raised about a group dinner sponsored by NBP, and Georgie will get back to the board concerning this. There was also a question about whether a boxed lunch will be provided on the half day for board members who need to leave immediately for the airport. 

5. ICEB Update, Including CMC Vote: Frances Mary D’Andrea / Jennifer Dunnam

Jennifer reported on the Code Maintenance Committee’s vote under way regarding the inclusion of the visible space as part of the symbols in numeric mode. Jennifer would like to vote yes on the inclusion of this symbol with the board’s support. There was no disagreement with Jennifer’s position.

FM reported that there is a discussion in the UEB Technical Committee about the addition of symbols to The Guidelines for Technical Material 2014 which exist in the Nemeth Code but not currently in UEB. 

Judy reported that work is ongoing on the new edition of the IPA code book. The new website is also still under development.

The board was reminded that the ICEB midterm meeting will be held at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA on June 22-26, 2026. 

6. Standardized Tests: Kyle DeJute / FM D’Andrea

FM reported that the committee would like to request a face-to-face meeting, possibly before or after the spring meeting. The committee continues to meet weekly and is making steady progress. 

7. GCUEB: Wendy Buckley 

Wendy reported that the committee continues their work on updating the provisional guidance for the transcription of mathematics. 

8. Chemistry Committee: FM D’Andrea 

FM reported that the braille and print versions of Chemical Notation Using the Nemeth Code 2023 are completed and available for purchase through APH. The errata to the code has also been sent to the board in anticipation of voting on it at the fall meeting. 

9. Braille Formats: Hollie Knight 

There is nothing to report at this time from the Formats committee.

10. Production updates from APH: Kyle DeJute

There were no updates on the production of the hard copies of the Nemeth Code or tactile graphics publications. There will be a meeting with the production team this week, and Kyle is hopeful that she will have more of a timeline for production after that meeting. She reported that the machines for producing the tiger graphics and the Swell Form graphics have been purchased and will hopefully be in place soon, which will facilitate the production of the Tactile graphics guidelines. 

11. Membership: Jen Goulden

Jen reported that a new chair is needed for the Membership Committee now that Tamara Rorie, the previous committee chair, is no longer on the board. 

Jen has received materials from an organization hoping to join BANA, but as there is currently no full committee, she is hesitant to consider this applicant by the fall meeting. However, the current members of the committee believe that there is time before the fall meeting to review the request.

Amber volunteered to join the Membership committee as the third member.

MSC: Judy moved to appoint Tracy Gaines as chair of the Membership committee. FM seconded. Motion carried.

MSC: Jennifer moved to appoint Amber Pearcy as a member of the Membership committee. Judy seconded. Motion carried.

Jen will send the application information for review to the committee.

A question was raised about the status of The Educational Center for the Blind and Disabled, Puerto Rico. Danette reported that they have paid their dues. Jen has reached out to the person appointed as the representative, but no one has attended any of the board meetings. Sue reported that their appointed representative has not responded to emails inviting them to join the BANA-L listserv. 

12. Bylaws: Jennifer Dunnam

Jennifer reported that there are two issues which will be discussed in detail at the upcoming fall meeting. The committee plans to request a new charge about specific ways to handle decisions that need to be made in task forces and committees other than technical committees. She also reported that there will be a more in-depth conversation about the term limits for BANA representatives. Many states have regulations about the length of the term that board members may serve in organizations. 

13. Board Orientation: Jen Goulden

Jen reported that she is reviewing a document from 2018 which discussed orientation, and there are items which are in need of updating. This will be a larger board discussion in the fall.

14. Spring 2026: FM D’Andrea

FM reported that AFB leadership has given her the go-ahead to host the spring meeting in Pittsburgh. Her university is also enthusiastic about hosting the meeting. Graduation occurs early in May; therefore, FM proposed the week of May 4-8 or the week of May 11-15 for the meeting. She believes that hotel rates will be better during the week of May 11.  

It was proposed that the meeting occur on May 11-13 with the half day on the 13th. 

15. Adjournment: Jen Goulden

Jen adjourned the meeting at 2:10 P.M. Eastern time.

Upcoming meetings

  • Spring 2026: AFB
  • Fall 2026: CIDI
  • Spring 2027: CTEBVI
  • Fall 2027: Hadley
  • Spring 2028: ATPC
  • Fall 2028: ACB
  • Spring 2029: CNIB
  • Fall 2029: Clovernook
  • Spring 2030: NFB
  • Fall 2030: NLS
  • Spring 2031: Perkins
  • Fall 2031: NBA
  • Spring 2032: APH

Respectfully submitted,

Amber Pearcy

September 22, 2025