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<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">All, </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">There has been some discussion regarding th</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">e Vision Walk, a fund raiser for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, and whether or not our chapter should participate in this event. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">I’m moving this discussion to our new list to be sure everyone is included, and hope I can clarify where I believe we should be on the business of participating in the walk. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">First, a little overview. FFB is a huge international organization that does a great job of fundrais</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ing. Their Vision Walks and Dining in the Dark events are held in many cities and raise a ton of money. They do so for the sole purpose of “curing’ blind people. Their philosophy is completely o</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">p</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">posite that of the National Federation of the Blind. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">T</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">hey want to fix b</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">lind people</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">They see blindness as a tragedy and are successful in raising money by appealing to that mind set. Our</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">motto</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">, on the other hand,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri"> is “Live the life you want.” </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">We know blindnes</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">s is not an obstacle to living a full and equal life. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">We do not, as a national organization, form any kind of partnership with the Foundation Fighting Blindness. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Yes, we</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">have participated in an information-sharing event with them at CABVI. That is an open forum, organized by them, for anyone with information of use to blind and visually impaired people to come and distribute literature. We have done that for a few years now and we will probably do it again. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Inf</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ormation sharing is quite different from participation in a fundraiser. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">If you want to raise money to find a cure for blindness, then go walk in the Vision Walk. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">We are not, as a chapter, going to vote on whether or</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">not we will do something which is in complete o</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">p</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">position to our national organization’s policies. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">More importantly, we have so much work of our own to do that we simply do not have time to divert attention away from the NFB to an outside organi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">zation. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">As we discussed at the July 28 chapter meeting, our state affiliate is planning one of the most impressive fundraising and public events we have ever attempted at this year’s state convention. </FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">If you missed the meeting and the discussion, that event is a presentation mae by Art Schreiber, a Federationist who, as a broadcast journal</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">i</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">st, toured with the Beatles in 1964 and who has written a book about his experiences. We plan to have a silent auction with big ticket items, possibly musical e</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ntertainment, and of course, Art Schreiber’s thrilling presentation. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">An event of this srt will take a huge amount of work and all of us need to participate. As I indicated at our meeting last week, we need to think about raising funds to get our own chapter members</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> to this convention and we need everyone to be thinking about attracting those large-ticket auction items for the event. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">We need to focus on our own chapter, building membership andraising funds, to do the work we know must be done. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Whi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">le I appreciate news of this other event being brought to all our attention, I think we need to get back to business and focus on our own work. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Deborah</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
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