Tuesday Topics

20261027 - Tuesday Topics on ACB Governance

Tuesday Topics takes a deliberately detailed approach to understanding where ACB governance is currently. ACB is half way through a process that will define our committees. We are building a new structure and a new hierarchy within which our committees will operate. We get a clear picture of how that will work and of the expectations that are at the heart of the changes. We ask the governance folks to help us understand their process, their philosophy and their expectations for a system that is certainly in need of change and is at the heart of how ACB does its work. …

20261006 Tuesday Topics - The Importance of Affiliates

Tuesday Topics continues its exploration of what makes ACB tick! We look at what may well be an endangered species! Some special-interest affiliates are growing but most state affiliates are not! They either remain where they are or get smaller! We explore why this happens! Obviously as with our discussion of conventions last week much of what we say is conjecture! There are probably as many reasons as there are grains of sand why affiliates are struggling. We explore some and hope others will give us other elements that contribute to their decline. Are affiliates important? …

20260629 Tuesday Topics: The Future of the ACB National Convention

This episode of Tuesday Topics explores what the ACB convention could be like in 5 years. Topics discussed includes: Will it be totally remote? Will it be shorter or longer? Will special interest affiliates operate differently? Will we hold elections in a different way? Will our business be done before or after the convention rather than during it? What about resolutions and amendments to the Constitution? Are tours important? Are there specific things that should be a part of our programs? Are there elements that should not be a part of our program? Should the convention be shorter or longer? Should we have a banquet? …

20260922 Remembering Terry Pacheco

Tuesday Topics focuses on remembering Theresa (Terry) Pacheco who has been active in ACB much longer than Paul Edwards, which is really saying something. Terry died in September, 2026 and in this episode of Tuesday Topics, people who knew and loved Terry share about her life! She was in at the beginning when the Bay State Council was started. Soon after Charlie Crawford was hired by ACB she and her husband Frank were persuaded to move from Boston to Maryland so she could become an employee of ACB. Once she left ACB Terry went to work for the Department of Education and, after retirement, she continued to remain active in…

20260915 Tuesday Topics on diabetes and ACB Diabetics in Action (ACBDA)

This episode of Tuesday Topics focuses on diabetes and the work of ACB Diabetics in Action (ACBDA), a Special Interest Affiliate of the American Council of the Blind.

Over the past three years, ACBDA has made significant progress on issues that many once considered extremely difficult to address. Insulin pumps, the cost of insulin, and accessible ways to monitor blood sugar are just some of the many areas in which ACBDA has worked to bring about greater access and change.

Larry Gassman, president of ACBDA and a member of the Tuesday Topics team, has assembled…

20260908 Tuesday Topics revisits Employment of people who are blind or have low vision

It was the day after Labor Day in the US and so it's appropriate to talk about the employment of people who are blind or folks with low vision. We explore some history, some recent information and some of our own notions of where things may be heading. Team members have had long careers, including teaching accessibility technology and operating a vending business. The team offers our perspectives on the state of the employment game. We hear from some of you who are seeking employment and what job-seekers are experiencing lately. Is it harder to get interviews? Is it harder to complete applications? …

Occasionally Topics likes to ask questions with no right answers and our first September show does that! All of us are story tellers whether we know it or not! Most, if not all of the folks who listen to this program have visual impairments! We ask the team and you to think back over your life and tell us two stories. We want to know about a particular event where being blind was just plain awful! We won't listen if you tell us you can't drive or can't see your mom's face! We want a story! We want you to tell us about a particular moment in your life that made blindness terrible!

Our show is not all gloom, though, because we also want you to think of a moment when…

20260825 - Tuesday Topics - All things Internet Radio

For the last two episodes of Tuesday Topics, we explored podcasts in great detail. Internet radio is sort of a companion to them. Everybody knows about the ten ACB Media stations but there is a huge number of stations folks can listen to if they choose. Virtually every hybrid device has internet radio access. Some are better than others and we will talk about the various options that are out there. There is a brand new app for internet radio that has been created by blind folks for blind folks and Jeff Bishop explores that program with us! …

20260818 - Tuesday topics, Podcasts Part 2

Topics once more considers podcasts. Last week we described what they are and how they work and explored many of the accessible devices where they can be retrieved. This week we spend some time talking about ACB podcasts: how many people have found them and how we can make them more widely known. Most of our show, however, is devoted to exploring a hit parade of podcasts provided by our team and our audience. What podcasts are we subscribed to and what makes them attractive? What are the characteristics of podcasts that makes us like them? I …

Within a day or two our podcast will be available which you can access on ACB Link or on any other podcast provider. Many devices make Tuesday Topics available including the Amazon Alexa devices. They take a while, I think, to put our podcasts up but you can say to your device "play Tuesday Topics" and it will. All the Braille Sense devices, the Orbit Speak and player, the Victor Reader Stream and a host of others can all play our podcast. I make this point because I am pretty certain that most folks do not know as much about podcasts as they should.

I thought this might be a good time to remedy that since ACB is working hard to make all…