The TAPING RECORDER August 15, 2002 No. 208-01
News from and about Taping For The Blind,
Inc. www.tapingfortheblind.org

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT UPGRADE--You are probably familiar with the old saw that
goes something like "You're doing a great job. It's just that you are
doing it all wrong." This probably crossed Radio Manager Jim Martinez'
mind when examining the shipment of equipment that arrived on July 31. We
had a shipment, but it was all wrong. They included full-sized monitors
instead of the flat screen monitors specified, and they had the wrong sound
cards as well, so that batch was shipped back, and the vendor was
encouraged to try harder to GET IT RIGHT! We are now looking at late
August for installation of the new equipment in several of our recording
booths.

NEW FALL LINEUP--Thanks to the input from Dr. Ed Bradley's Listeners
Committee, we have a revised lineup for our HTBR programming. The radio
staff has been working putting the pieces together, and the new lineup will
start on September 9, 2002. We are including three new programs including
"Men's Health," "Cosmopolitan," and the return of "Traveling Around". The
first two programs mentioned are readings from namesake magazines, and the
traveling show uses information from the Chronicle, as well as other
sources. Each of these new programs is 25 minutes, and if you are
interested in being considered as the host of one of these shows, please
contact any staff member.

There will be other changes as well. Some program times are
changing, and if this affects your show, you should have been notified by
now. Also, we are dropping underwriting acknowledgements unless a show has
been specifically underwritten by a sponsoring donation. This will allow
us to do this type of marketing for almost all of our programs. In the
past, underwriting was assigned arbitrarily for our programs, but now we
hope to be able to selectively market our programs to organizations that
want to promote our services and theirs as well.

Programs that we have not produced locally will not be aired on
the new schedule, and these will only be used to fill in for a show that is
not available. With the new schedule, we will be all local programming 24
hours a day, 7 days a week.

THANKS TO DESCRIBERS!--We are so fortunate to have so many wonderful
volunteers, and the efforts of this excellent help for the American Council
of the Blind National Convention certainly makes this crystal clear. We
cannot seem to say thank you often enough, but we will keep on
trying. Below we will recognize the outstanding efforts for the convention:

Taping volunteers described 4 different activities around Houston for ACB
convention attendees:

*Moody Gardens IMAX description on Friday, June 28 -- equipment borrowed
from Taping with sound setup by Cynthia Franzetti.

* Galveston Outdoor Musical play of "No, No, Nanette" on Friday, June 28,
was described by Bill Kreps, with volunteers Joe and Fanelle Laughlin, Lisa
and Joe Lamonte, Sandra Blair and her friend Jerry, and Cynthia Franzetti.

*Space Center IMAX on Monday, July 1, was described live by Ted Pfister,
with Justin Blount as sound setup, and volunteers Deborah Filip,
Christopher Hart, Nancy Newell Kline, Monica McHam, and Doris Wood.

*Space Center IMAX on Thursday, July 4, was described live by Mary
Pedersen, with Justin Blount as sound setup, and volunteers Holly Blount,
Robert Brockman, Mickey Fitzpatrick, Ginger Gish, Lili Gordon, Claudia
Hastur, Geneva Holland, Alan Kohlwes, Anna and Tom McLean, Tom and Michelle
Milburn, Art Pedersen, Andrew Stapleton, and Connie Wright.

Mary Pedersen also described the convention hotels --the Adam's Mark and
the Westchase Hilton.

In addition, Taping volunteers staffed the booth of the International
Association of Audio Information Services at the ACB convention. Volunteers
for this five-day period included: Otto Schlamme, Mathilda Cochran, Monica
McHam, Deborah Filip, Dee and Weave Weaver, Chris
Kiersted, Fred Dawson, Robert Weinberger, John Matlage, Lynn Gaines, Dave
Herfort, Lyn and Les Schmaltz, Donna Wilkins, Sue Odell, and Cullom and
Margaret Connely.

All Taping volunteers showed up on time on scheduled days, and we sincerely
appreciate the efforts of each and every one of you!

RUNNERS & WALKERS--Taping is an official charity of the Compaq Houston
Marathon this year. Early sign-up for the marathon is September 9th. We
are looking for runners and walkers who would like to register and perform
on behalf of Taping For The Blind, Inc. Please contact any staff member if
you are interested.

BROCHURE--The endowment Committee wants to thank Janet Parisi for her
excellent work in putting the text of a brochure describing possible gifts
for the Taping endowment together. The next step is to get it into a
brochure format and have it printed. Great work, Janet!

SYMPATHY--The sympathy of our entire Taping family is extended to volunteer
Margaret Carl who lost her husband, Emory, to cancer on June 28, 2002.

THANKS--Thanks for your patience as we are running behind on our production
of the RECORDER. One can blame it on the summer blahs or something like
that. Look for the next edition in late September, and hopefully we'll
have lots of good things to say about our new computerized booths and
wonderful volunteers that have taken to the new system like ducks to a pond.

RLB