by David Kingsbury | From BayLines Express, December, 2025
This has been a year of notable accomplishments for BSCB. Our Board and committees have been hard at work addressing priority issues of benefit to our members and the Commonwealth’s blind and low vision community. Below are some of the highlights of our work over the past year.
At our Spring Convention in May at Perkins, ElizabethAnn Johnson and Nora Nagle were elected to the Board. Both have made invaluable contributions to the BSCB as Board members and through their committee work.
In June, we established a Fundraising Committee to manage our annual auction and initiate other fundraising activities. Ably chaired by Harry Duchesne, the committee is up and running and already accomplishing great things. Held in September, the auction was a great success, raising over $4,000. BSCB also received a $5,000 donation from Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Alphabet. The committee will start to solicit other corporate sponsorships soon.
On the advocacy front, in the Spring, BSCB successfully advocated for healthy Fiscal Year 2025 funding levels for MCB and library services. As in previous years, an earmark was also passed to increase funding for MCB technology training and equipment.
In the fall, several Advocacy committee members testified at Boston City Council hearings in favor of introducing autonomous vehicles to Boston against strong opposition. They were successful in getting the City Council to withdraw a resolution opposing autonomous vehicle introduction. Advocacy on this front remains an ongoing project and more advocacy will be required at municipal and state level.
With regard to accessible transportation, we continued our dialogue with the Massachusetts Association of Regional Transit Authorities (MARTA), and were successful in introducing an accessible PDF form for initial signup and renewal of ADA eligibility for paratransit services to all fifteen RTAs in the Commonwealth. We are now working with MARTA to further streamline the ADA eligibility renewal process for repeat clients.
The Membership Committee continued implementation of its Ambassador program this year to increase outreach and awareness of BSCB to community groups. In the fall, they held their first of what they hope will be many events.
The Communications Committee has made significant progress redesigning the website, making it more visually appealing, among other things. Committee members continue to regularly produce quality content via BayLines Express, Third Thursday Zoom calls, Council Connection, and social media posts. We will soon launch a web page where members can pay their annual BSCB and affiliate dues, making the process quicker and less confusing. Those who wish to continue renewing dues directly with their affiliates will still be able to do so.
Bay Lines Express will soon celebrate its tenth anniversary. The first edition came out on February 25, 2016. After serving as editor for a number of years, Dianna Leonard has done a fantastic job as editor. So too has Myra Ross as curator of the monthly articles.
This year, the Social Committee organized a jam-packed calendar of fun and entertaining activities, including an afternoon at the Scores Restaurant in Boston, a bowling event in Dorchester, and apple picking in Danvers. We are always looking for new ideas for social events, and if you have any, don’t hesitate to contact our Social Committee chair, ElizabethAnn Johnson.
On a personal note, this fall, I was appointed to the Microsoft Blindness Advisory Board to provide input on the accessibility of Microsoft products such as Office and Narrator. Another BSCB member, Kayla Bentas, is also a member.
Let me conclude by thanking all those who, through their efforts, contributed to make 2025 a very successful year for BSCB. Here’s hoping that we will do even better in 2026.