It is something of a conundrum to try to predict how topics will be regarded by our listeners and participants. Topics we at Tuesday Topics think will

be popular do not attract much attention. Topics we are not confident about attract lots of people. Efforts to encourage our participants to come up with topics have, for the most part, been unsuccessful. And then there are other factors that impact how successful Tuesday Topics is likely to be. People will persist in celebrating Christmas and other holidays! ACB Media, committees and other groups have suddenly discovered that Tuesday is a very cool day to hold programs. For all these reasons, it is hard to predict what will turn out to be effective programming. We are going to try two topics this Tuesday and we need to turn up so that the production team doesn't have to talk among ourselves only! The first topic we want to discuss has to do with Christmas. We are pretty open about where this topic goes! Is giving better than receiving? Is there a particular present you are excited about? Are there Christmas traditions that you would like to share with us? Is Christmas a waste of money, time and effort? Does what we celebrate get lost with all the socializing? Our second topic concerns Christmas as well but is especially aimed to explore the experience of yule tide by people who are blind! How did you shop? Do you need help with Christmas more now or less than you did a few years ago? Are there some new gadgets, games or devices that you have heard about this year you would like to tell us about? ACB Radio will be providing some holiday programming. We hope to be able to tell you some about what is coming up and how you can participate!

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

We typically, at the end of each year, look back at the last twelve months and explore what conclusions, if any, we can draw about the nature of 2022.

What kind of developments have there been in the field of blindness. Can we point to new elements of cooperation? Are there tangible things we can look at that have changed? What about technology? Should we care about Mastodon? We have seen a few new devices emerge. Braille keyboards, new Gps device, the promise of a new, old device and more! We don't only operate as people who are blind. We live in a world that has seen a huge, new war begin! Two hurricanes hit this country! What other trends can we point at? Has this been a good year, a bad year, a scary year? And then, of course, there is ACB. What has this year been like for our organization. Hybrid convention, voting for everyone possible, new resolutions, a changing Constitution. New staff arriving, old staff leaving! New initiatives and old issues! And, finally, our listeners, what has this year been like for you? Do you have celebrations you want to share? Are there issues that have gotten in your way this year? We need you to be there to provide the feedback we need to assess the world that soon will be over!

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

I hope that everyone was able to attend the Gala on Tuesday. Now Topics is back and we are once again seeking your help to explore how blind people and

folks with partial vision do with holidays. When you go home, how are you treated? How do siblings feel about having a blind relative? Is it easy to help when you go home? How are things when you host Thanksgiving or Christmas events? What can we do to make things better? What techniques have you used? Our second issue is related to the first. Giving is certainly better than receiving, right? How do people feel about blind people giving? How are we seen when we offer assistance when the consensus is that blind people don't give, they take! How can we change this notion or should we want to change it!

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

One of the most important issues facing members of the American Council of the Blind is employment. The ACB has an "Employment Committee" which is concerned with working to consider and develop policies and programs that will increase the likelihood of assuring that people who are blind or have low vision can finds jobs and careers.

We will have members of the Employment Committee as our guests on Tuesday Topics. They will tell us what they are doing and listen to what members of the American Council of the Blind suggest as other approaches that can encourage  job seekers.

Who are members of the Employment Committee? What have they been doing over the past year? What are their plans for this year?

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

Last year the American Council of the Blind with the leadership of its Audio Description Project (ADP) held the first annual Audio Description Gala. Now we are approaching the date of the second annual Gala. It's bigger and better this year! What is it? Who's involved? How can you participate? Join us on November 15 at 7 PM Eastern time on ACB Media One to find out the answers to all these questions and many more. What is the Audio Description Project? What else do they do? What are their priorities for this year? What are the "project's" recent accomplishments?

Both co-chairs of our Audio Description Project will join us. Kim Charlson is our immediate past President of ACB and will tell us about work that is being done to start the process of codifying standards for audio description. Carl Richardson knows more about old movies than I ever dreamed of knowing and can speak to issues that operate for folks with hearing loss as well as people who are blind. We will leave time for questions about the gala and the Project as well.

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

What is the impact of advertising on people who are blind?

How has the inclusion of a few blind people in ads changed things? How do people with some vision fare in ads. During this hour we will explore just how much we are viewed as consumers or objects of political correctness. During the second hour we will consider mentoring. One of the more exciting new projects unveiled during our convention this summer in Omaha Nebraska was the Mentoring, Access and Peer Support Program (MAPSP). This program created partnerships between "guides" and "explorers". In more traditional programs these folks might have been known as mentors and mentees. Initially, the first iteration of this exciting program was to last a year. During that time, a support team would oversee how the program works and perhaps make decisions about how things should change during what it is hoped will be a second iteration next year. Full disclosure means I should tell all of you that two of us on Tuesday Topics are Guides. We will have some of the members of the team on Tuesday Topics and perhaps some guides and explorers as well. We will explore how the program is going and give you, our listeners, an opportunity to raise questions about how the program works. I am sure that Kenneth Semien Sr. will be there and suspect that Cheryl Cumings, Donna Brown and Donna Browning will also be there! So far the program is only a couple of months old. How was it set up? What are its goals? What do participants think? How does the leadership team feel? Explore with us a new and promising program while it is being implemented.

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

How do folks who are blind or have low vision remember Halloween? Did we trick or treat as kids? Did we

take our kids trick or treating? Do we decorate our house and give out candy? Do we prefer Halloween parties held at schools or clubs? In general, we would like a snapshot of how Halloween happens for our folks! Tell us about your memories of Halloweens past and what you like or do not like about this holiday. This version of Tuesday Topics ends rather abruptly due to some technical issues at about 62 minutes. The full version of Tuesday Topics will return with the next podcast.

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

We will discuss together where

we stand with regard to how we feel about how those who are blind or low vision are portrayed in the movies and on television. We will also consider who and how the media cover the activities that we take part in. What do you think of the "super blind"? Are they "inspiring" or do they mislead the public? What do such stories do to the expectations of parents with blind or low vision children? Time permitting, we will also dip our toe in the waters of audio description and museums. Co-host Paul Edwards will have visited a number of museums between now and then and will share those experiences with us, and we hope that you will do the same.

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

We will explore together where

we stand with regard to accessible voting as we approach the mid-term elections. Are there new things to celebrate? Are there basic issues that still need to be worked on? How valuable is accessible email voting without return? How can we work to make return happen and what advantages do the military offer us? Voting machines operate. How is early voting operating in various states? What issues surround voting machines and what should we do about them? How do we get information about candidates and what they represent? Are there states that are doing things to make this kind of information more easily obtainable? What other issues do we need to be concerned about as elections draw extra closer and how should we report issues? These are just some of the questions that we will explore on next week's Tuesday Topics!

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co

Sometimes it's fun to take risks! Tuesday Topics has quite a few regular participants. While we have asked people for suggestions, my email has been notably

devoid of messages about this! However, I think it might be fun to devote some of Tuesday Topics to an opportunity for folks to raise issues they think we should discuss! I am therefore urging folks to consider a topic they believe warrants some consideration and be prepared to take the lead with its discussion. I am not prepared to leave things entirely to chance, however. I have this vision of asking for topics and being greeted by silence as absolute as the number 0. So, here are a couple of issues I think may be relevant. If we don't use them this time, we might use them at another session. One of the emerging realities of the post-covid period is the community call. In some cases, local chapters of ACB have held meetings virtually. Meetings in person (, for a long time, not happening! In Florida and in other states a new phenomenon has emerged. Florida calls their version "calm" which, I think, stands for Chapter of At Large Members. It is a statewide organization aimed at recruiting members who are geographically not close to a local chapter or who, for some other reason, do not choose to join a local chapter. Should we encourage such chapters? What are the consequences of having them? What about at large members of ACB? We have recruited more during the pandemic! What impact has this development had? We have spent some time talking about the effect that hybrid conventions have had at the national level. How have hybrid conventions affected state affiliates! More and more special interest affiliates are holding business meetings away from the ACB convention! How does that affect the price of cheese?

Find out more at https://acb-tuesday-topics.pinecast.co