[Community-service] 2011, The birth of the Community Service Group

[Darian Smith]

 On behalf of the Community Service Group of the National Federation
of the Blind, I am pleased  and proud to present to you  a recap of
the work we've done over the past year of 2011.
 In typical team-work  form, I would like to thank our secretary
Chris  Parsons for   her assistance in putting together  this written
discription of  our first full year of work.  I wanted to be sure that
we covered all that there was to     mention, and I could not have
done it without her.

Thank you, and we hope you find this enjoyable an  informitave.

 The NFB Community Service  Group

At the beginning of January, we discussed what it would take for us to
become a division and the possibility of becoming a committee first as
a step toward
division status. We also decided that we wanted to have a meeting at
National Convention in July to promote the group.

In the meantime, we continued to invite guest speakers to come to our
monthly conference calls to talk about their community service
experiences and answer
some questions. On February 4, we launched our blog, and over the next
couple of months, we received articles from some of these guest
speakers. We envisioned
the blog as a place to post community service stories as well as
updates from the group.

At our February leadership meeting, we launched our first committees:
outreach and convention, and over the next six months, we worked out
the details
for the organizing meeting at National Convention. The date and time
for the meeting were announced at our March meeting, and we began to
plan the agenda.

At our May leadership meeting, we approved the group’s mission
statement. In late May, a small group got together to draft the
group’s constitution. As
National Convention neared, however, and with input from the National
department of Affiliate Action, we decided to become an interest group
instead of
a division at that point. This would enable us to build momentum for
organization and recruitment and ensure the groups sustainability. We
drafted an announcement
about the organizing meeting at National Convention and sent it to the
listservs. As June drew to a close, we finalized plans for the
organizing meeting
and continued to promote the group on the listservs.

On July 3, we held an organizing meeting at National Convention in
Orlando that was attended by 35 people. During this meeting, we
discussed the group’s
vision, past accomplishments, and current and future goals and
projects, as well as the importance of participating in community
service, motivations for
and barriers to participation, and possible future activities for the
group on both a national and local level. First Vice-President of the
National Federation
of the Blind Fred Schroeder was in attendance, and he shared some
words of encouragement with the group. We left this meeting as an
official interest group
with well-defined goals, including the coordination of a service
project in Dallas during next year’s National Convention and the
establishment of an affiliate
service corps (later renamed CORPS: Community Organizing, Recruitment,
and Participation Subcommittee) that would recruit people to give
presentations
about the group at their state conventions as a way to network to affiliates.

Reenergized and motivated, we rode into August on the momentum from
the organizing meeting. To this point, we had focused more on
structuring the group
and on the conference calls. After the organizing meeting, we began
looking outward to projects our group could engage in to impact the
organization and
beyond. On our August leadership call, we worked on establishing a
more structured group with defined committees and goals,. We
established four committees:
CORPS, convention service project, outreach, and content. We began
thinking about partnering with the training centers in the future to
do service projects.
To be able to do this, we decided that by January 2012 we needed to
begin thinking about fundraising efforts.

At the September meeting, we decided to write a Monitor Miniature
about the group to be featured in a future issue of the Braille
Monitor. We believed this
would help us gain exposure and recruit new members. Committee chairs
also began giving reports at the September meeting, and we developed a
fact sheet
as an outreach tool to discuss the group’s mission, accomplishments, and goals.

In October, the CORPS committee began contacting people to give
presentations about the group at their state conventions. We also
began holding membership
calls again starting in October featuring philosophy discussions
ranging from disclosure of blindness to Dr. Maurer’s speech “The Cost
of a Gift.” We plan
to continue these monthly membership calls through 2012 and to feature
both philosophy discussions and guest speakers. We also began
formulating ideas
for the convention service project. Finally, committees started
meeting between conference calls in October so that more would be
accomplished between
meetings.

In November, we did some committee restructuring and discussed the
formation of a fundraising committee. We also discussed a fundraising
idea for National
Convention. Finally, we focused on plans for an affiliate service
challenge to be held during April, which is National Community Service
month.

At the end of 2011, the group is strong. We have a more defined
committee structure and a strategic plan that will take us into 2013.
We have been in contact
with the National Center since the beginning of the year, and we have
full support from them. An article about the group is featured in the
January issue
of the Braille Monitor. We also now have a more active listserv and a
handful of exciting projects to look forward to in 2012. In the works
are an affiliate
challenge project, a fundraising effort, a revitalization of the blog,
and four events at National Convention in Dallas in July 2012—a
service project,
a seminar, an organizing meeting, and a social event. We look forward
to great things in 2012 and to being an even stronger presence by the
end of next
year. Thank you to all of you who have helped us along the way, both
since the group’s founding and over the past year, as without you, we
could not have
enjoyed the success we’ve seen to this point, nor would we have the
foundation on which to build our second full year of changing what it
means to serve
our community.



-- 
Darian Smith Coordinator- Community Service Group

"To dream what is possible and to put oneself in service of that dream is the
formula
for a life well lived."

- Dr. Peter Benson