[BlindTlk] post-convention updates from the NAGDU board

Sat Jul 16 17:26:35 UTC 2022

Hello from the National Association of Guide Dog Users, I hope that 
everyone is having a great summer and staying safe. This email is to 
share a few updates concerning NAGDU at national convention. Instead of 
responding to individual messages that have been posted over the past 
week, I will summarize things as best as I can.

The NAGDU Board of Directors. I'd like to introduce the new board as it 
stands after elections at convention. To contact the board, you can 
email board at nagdu.org. To contact an individual member, use the first 
initial plus the last name @nagdu.org, as in rgallegos at nagdu.org or 
scook at nagdu.org.

President Raul Gallegos, Texas

Vice President Paul Sandoval, Colorado

Secretary Stacie Gallegos, Texas

Treasurer Jessica Snyder, Ohio

Board Member Al Elia, New York

Board Member Brianna Murray, New Jersey

Board Member Steve Cook, South Carolina

Dog Relief Area. This year at convention, NAGDU took a more proactive 
role concerning the dog relief area. Because we hired an outside company 
to maintain it, we also held a 50/50 raffle to help fund this expense. 
Furthermore, we accepted and are accepting donations to help pay for 
this cost. The outside pooper scooper company was in charge of cleaning 
the area located in the valet parking area of the Marriott. I had a 
chance to meet them, and was able to explain a few things concerning 
what to expect and a few other logistical things concerning how we have 
maintained the dog relief area in the past. Since this is the first time 
we have done this, we are looking for feedback from those who attended 
in person concerning their experiences.

Resolutions. This year, NAGDU submitted two resolutions, which passed. 
The resolutions were written by Vice President Paul Sandoval with Stacie 
and Raul Gallegos contributing. Both resolutions were concerned with the 
continued denials by Uber and Lyft drivers when a blind person with a 
guide dog wants to travel. NAGDU will be working with our national 
organization to move forward with this. One nice surprise, was that a 
Lyft representative was able to join us during the business meeting and 
was able to answer a lot of questions and take feedback to give back to 
Lyft.

Seminar and Business Meetings. Our seminar and business meetings were 
successful and were packed with a lot of information. The topic for the 
seminar was, awareness is everybody's business, and it focused on 
learning best methods of self-advocating and knowing what your rights 
and responsibilities are as a guide dog user. The business meeting was 
equally packed with information. As already mentioned, we heard from a 
Lyft representative, and we also heard the latest in legal updates from 
Tim Elder and Al Elia. In addition to the NAGDU yearly report, we also 
heard from various state guide dog user divisions and committees.

The Zoom Broadcast. There has been a lot of chatter on the main NAGDU 
list about the quality of the Zoom broadcast during the seminar and 
business meetings. I realize and acknowledge that there were issues with 
people not being able to hear and a few technical issues concerning the 
screen reader voice which made things even more difficult to hear. This 
year, as in past years, we used a laptop computer to broadcast. As what 
tends to happen, things beyond our control changed at the last minute. 
To my knowledge, only NAGDU, and maybe one or two other divisions of the 
NFB offered a virtual meeting experience. This is something that we are 
not obligated to do, but are very much interested in doing while we have 
the resources. With this in mind, we will take better steps with the 
technical issues. One solution is to hire the hotel to do the technical 
setup, so all we need to do is show up, plug in our equipment, and start 
broadcasting. As you can imagine, this option is not our first choice 
since it is quite expensive. Another option is to have a dedicated 
person handle the technical aspect of broadcasting the meeting. 
Preferably someone who is already at convention and doesn't mind 
volunteering their expertise to make it a better experience. This is 
what we tried this year, and while the fine folks who assisted with this 
are truly technical and know what they are doing, things happened which 
were out of their control. My thanks go out to Paul Sandoval and Steve 
Cook for everything they did on the technical side considering the 
challenges. If you are going to come to convention in the future and 
would like to volunteer your technical and audio expertise to make 
things even better, we will be open to considering your assistance.

In closing, we would like to hear from you concerning your experience 
with the NAGDU meetings and with the dog relief area. If you visit 
https://nagdu.org/national-convention you will find two survey links. 
One survey is for the NAGDU meetings, and one is for the dog relief 
area. This survey will be open until Friday, July 22. We welcome all 
constructive feedback and we will use this feedback to improve things 
wherever appropriate. If you need assistance with filling out the 
survey, please email board at nagdu.org and we will be happy to help.

-- 

Respectfully,
*Raul A. Gallegos* / President
National Association of Guide Dog Users, /NAGDU/
346.439.7444 | RGallegos at nagdu.org <mailto:rgallegos at nagdu.org>
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"Blindness is a characteristic, not a handicap." -- Dr. Kenneth Jernigan