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<DIV>EBay and NFB joined together to provide this pilot program. EBay
provided $250,000 to get this program up and running. They announced
it thru NFB lists and places like that asking for people to send in applications
to NFB. We had to provide our back grounds, what and how we would put this
training to work, if we had any entrepreneurial experience, etc. Out
of the 150 applications they received they chose 16 people to go down to
Baltimore for this first Pilot training program. It was for one week the
end of February this year.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At this point we are the people that EBay is working with to see what they
need to do with accessibility to their website especially in the listing
of auctions and the areas for selling and reports. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>EBay will be present in Florida at Convention to talk with people on their
plans for this to go forward.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You can not get into the pilot program at this point and actually they have
pulled people off the pilot program who have not kept up with what they want us
to do. The minimum requirements are to complete 5 auction listings per
week, which is not that hard. There are things that are really easy to
list and so there is no excuse not to be able to do it.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>They have offered some prizes to motivate some, like if you had 10 listings
by the end of May you got $25 gift certificate from EBay. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My next goal is having listed 100 auctions by June 30th. It goes back
to February when we were at the class. I have 74 so far and I am working
on accomplishing my goal in time.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My biggest problem is getting someone to take the pictures of my
items. Books and CD, DVDs you don't need pictures. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>This is definitely a learning experience. We have a personal person
from EBay that once a week we have about an hour talk with to go over advise
about listings, help on problems, etc. Every other week we have a phone
conversation with the people in the pilot program to trade information back and
forth. I have set up a weekly phone conversation with one of the people in
the program that is a computer trainer from the state of Virginia to help people
find out key strokes and stuff like that to help us get around the website on
EBay better.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have not heard of when this will be available to more visually impaired
people, so stay tuned...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Joyce
Kane<BR><A href="http://www.krafterskorner.org/">www.KraftersKorner.org</A><BR>Blindhands@AOL.com
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