[IABS-Talk] chicago minutes september 2019

[David Meyer]

NFBI Chicago Chapter Minutes

 

September 14, 2019

 

The meeting started at 1:00 pm.

WHAT'S HAPPENING:

Chicago chapter president, David Meyer, reported that chapter board member,
Gina Falvo's mother died on September 13th. Ken Staley is home, but he is
not stable at this point. State President, Denise Avant, reported that
Natalie Shaheen has moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where Natalie is a
professor at Illinois State University. On September 13th, Natalie received
her doctorate. Denise also mentioned that on September 1, she was on ABC7
Morning News demonstrating using the AIRA AP at the Shedd Aquarium. AIRA
described to Denise the different animals that were in the water. On July
29th, Denise posed with Mayor Lori Lightfoot and made the WGN9 News. State
treasurer Patti Chang stated that she and her husband, Francisco, are going
to be grandparents in April. Saria is a new member of the NFBI Chicago
Chapter. Michal Nowicki reported that he is the new chair of the Illinois
Affiliate Advocacy Committee and the advocacy committee will have their
first meeting on Tuesday, 9/17, at 7:00 pm. He is also assisting Patti with
the treasury reports. Marilyn Green reports that she is teaching yoga at
Second Sense, Ken Borst asked tall in attendance to keep his brother, Randy
Borst in our thoughts and prayers. There were 38 people in attendance for
the meeting.

SECRETARY'S REPORT: Approved.

TREASURER'S REPORT:

Due to the absence of Steve Hastalis, there was no treasurer's report per
se. However, per Dave, there is approximately $4,701.41. Patti reports the
proposed budget from the budget committee. Expenses: Room rental per year
$825, PAC $600 per year, fifteen for funds 1,000, white cane fund $150,
Jernigan fund: $150, Sun fund $150, tenBroek fund $150, Washington seminar
$1,000, bowling $20, running games night fundraiser $450, White Sox tickets
$1,200. Total for expenses in this budget $5,695. Income: collections $550,
donations $400 per quarter, games night $745, Beggar's Pizza fundraiser
$215, bowling $630, White Sox tickets $1,440, read-a-thon $675,
holiday/Christmas auction $800, dues $150. The total for income $5,075. They
don't balance. We're still -$40 with this budget and that is even with
cutting the Washington Seminar plans in half. It is absolutely crucial that
either we cut expenses more than we have or we bring in more money. 

 PROGRAM:

Our speaker was Mr. James Williams, artist, basketball coach, personal
fitness trainer; youth outreach counselor, and motivational speaker. In
1970, he started to develop a growing fascination for art history and
expression. He uses various pellet knives with various brushstrokes in a
loose form on canvas with an exuberant body of colors and textures. He has a
portfolio of over 80 paintings. James brought 2 of his paintings for all to
see and feel. He feels that art should not only be seen, but it should also
be touched. Nick Robertson asked James what alternative techniques he
learned while he was seeking himself to paint or being taught to paint by
somebody else. James replied that he was able to create great works of art
with having no formal training. Theresa Jones mentioned that she does paint
and she enjoys it and she congratulated James on all that he has been doing.
Second vice president, Jemal Powell, asked James what was the most
well-received painting he ever created. James stated that he has a 60-inch x
60-inch painting of oils called Genesis. It depicts the colors of the ocean,
the color of rain and light and it has yellow which is the sun and the
nurture of all life. Debbie Stein asked James what he does to make the
paintings more meaningful for people who are interpreting them tactically
and not visually. James said that he uses pellet knives to build up the
paint and, from one painting to the next; he feels the textures and the
textures vary which is why it has such a profound tactile experience for the
individuals who are touching them. Chris Ruffin asked James if a painting
was relaxing and therapeutic for him. James answered that painting itself is
a form of meditation. He said that if you engage in painting or drawing, it
allows you to step outside of the world in a place in your mind and soul
where you relax more. Chris also asked what painting took the longest and
what was the most challenging painting James ever done and how did he get
through it. James said that none of his paintings have been a challenge and
that he can paint a 70-inch x 70 inch within an hour. 

Pam Provost and Marco Giannotti joined the meeting.

PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE #486, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019:

Per Mark Riccobono: 35 Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning
academies were held across the country. Now we're into the fall convention
season. This month is also National Guide Dog Month. Mr. Riccobono also
reminded each of the chapters that we do have an Uber and Lyft activity that
we're doing. If you are a guide dog user or travel with someone who is and
have an experience of Uber or Lyft good or bad, please fill out our
monitoring survey on our website, our rideshare survey, so that we can
continue to collect data and hold both Uber and Lyft accountable for their
equal treatment or lack thereof of guide dog users. The American Action Fund
for Blind Children and Adults is continuing the Braille Readers are Leaders
contest again coming up later this fall and the winter. The Braille Readers
are Leaders contest is for both blind children and adults. Participants may
register to begin Friday, 11/1/2019, and you can register all the way up to
the end of the contest period which is February 1, 2020. The Braille Readers
are Leaders contest is free nationwide, and so chapters and affiliates of
NFB are encouraged to promote this reading contest that encourages the
reading of Braille and collaboration around the sharing of the Braille Code
and opportunities to talk about Braille, to teach Braille and encourage both
children and adults to up their reading speed in Braille. The contest
reading period is from December 1, 2019, to February 1, 2020. Contest
categories include the K-Grade 1 category, Grades 2-3, Grades 4-5, Grades
6-8, Grades 9-12 and the adult category. More information will be available
in the next month at actionfund.org. We will distribute it on our NFB list
serves as well. Mr. Riccobono encourages all of our affiliates and chapters
to participate and encourage participation in the Braille Readers are
Leaders contest. There will be prizes and a great opportunity to promote
Braille and help with the teaching of Braille across the nation. If you have
questions right now, you can email Braille reading contest at actionfund.org to
get information before it's posted to the website. October is Meet the Blind
Month. Our chapters should be out and about in the community promoting the
message and the public education efforts of the NFB. We are also encouraging
events related to web accessibility and demystifying the way that blind
people use technology in our everyday lives. We encourage you to use Meet
the Blind Month as an opportunity to talk about web accessibility and real
barriers that blind people face from inaccessible websites. We want
information about Meet the Blind Month events, so please provide your
event's details, date, location and other information. You can send that via
email to web at nfb.org and we will be sure to put up your information on our
Meet the Blind Month page. We also encourage you to promote the work that
your chapter is doing for Meet the Blind Month in social media using the
hashtag meet the blind. We are doing a series of open house telephone calls
for prospective members of NFB. So these aren't new members, these aren't
long-time members, but people that are thinking about it or that you would
like to think about membership in the NFB. These national open house calls
are for those individuals. Our next one is 9/18/19 at 8:00 pm Eastern time.
We do ask people to RSVP for the calls. The October call will be Sunday
10/20 at 4:00 pm Eastern and we will have one in November and December as
well. If you have prospective members that you want to encourage to be part
of these calls, please ask them to or assist them in sending an email to
RSVP for a call to membership at nfb.org. We want prospective members to come
to learn about our organization and ask questions. We had a good first open
house in August. You can also help people RSVP or encourage them to by
calling the national office at 410-659-9314, asking them to dial Extension
2509. White Cane Awareness Day is coming up (also known as White Cane Safety
Day) on October 15th. A reminder to our chapters that we do have a free
white cane program in the NFB where we assist blind people in getting a long
white cane. You can access that on our website by helping people fill out
the form and get a long white cane. We are also encouraged to develop a
program in the chapters to teach people how to use a white cane. This is a
very good activity to incorporate into our chapter meetings. It's also worth
talking about the characteristics of the white cane and why we have
developed the NFB style white cane which is lightweight and has a metal tip.
There may be other improvements we can make to the white cane. We are always
seeking feedback on the canes that we provide and what would be useful to
blind people. The canes that we provide, especially in the free white cane
program, have been developed based on the feedback of blind people. The
canes way decades back used to be solid pieces of wood that did not have
much tactile feedback were very heavy. We tried various things throughout
the decades. We now offer kid-size canes up to very long canes for taller
people. Please offer your feedback about what you would like to have in a
white cane. We continue to talk to manufacturers about ways to improve the
white cane. October is a time that we reflect on the progress that we've
made in getting white cane laws established that protect our right to be out
in the world traveling independently with a white cane or a guide dog. Since
we're post-Labor Day, Congress is back in session. It's a great time to
promote our legislative priorities. We will need you to make calls to
Congress, send emails, urge your members of congress to promote our
legislative priorities in the NFB. There are a number of other items we're
tracking in Congress related to access to ride-sharing, access to autonomous
vehicles and future voting initiatives that, based on how the bills get
drafted, will help or hurt blind people. You may get some urgent calls to
action if some of those bills move forward. Please be in touch with your
members of congress about our legislative priorities. You can find these on
our website. The Dream Makers Circle is a group of individuals who have
committed to a gift upon their death to the NFB, an important way to help
build, continue to build our organization after we are not able to be active
members. Thank you, Alan and Joy Harris, of Alabama for becoming the newest
members of our Dream Makers Circle and thank you to all of those who have
already made that commitment. Our Missouri affiliate reports on the death of
Laverne Tobin on August 1. Denise Brown, president of our Greater
Philadelphia Chapter reports that Mr. Tyrone Small died after an accident
recently. Our Maryland affiliate reports on the death of Jasmine Williams
Young, a member of the NFB of Greater Carol County Chapter who died
unexpectedly at a young age on August 3rd. Our Illinois affiliate reports
the death of Mary Monte earlier this summer. Mary was an active member of
our Chicago Chapter. Active in fundraising and other aspects of the NFB of
Illinois. Keep Mary and all of our members who have left us during the past
few months in your thoughts and prayers. We're finishing up the construction
at our national headquarters. Hopefully, it should be done in the next month
or so. 

STATE PRESIDENT REPORT:

Pere Denise: President Riccobono did acknowledge the death of Joe Monte back
in June and during the National convention. The email regarding Mary Monte
of her death did not make it to him, but Denise followed up in August and
asked him to acknowledge Mrs. Monte's death and we will certainly
acknowledge that during our state convention. We have successfully completed
2 BELL programs. Our Springfield BELL program was June 10 to 14, and we had
8 or 9 students in that program (that's our residential program, so it's
only 1 week) and our Chicago BELL program was in late July (that is a 2-week
program that occurs at the Chicago Lighthouse) and they did a lot of fun
things over there. One of the things they did was that they got to go to
Guaranteed Rate Field and run bases. Denise also asked those of us that know
any Chicago Public School students who are legally blind to remember to sign
up for Freedom Link. Applications have been sent around to the Schools and,
if you know of someone, have them reach out to David Meyer or Debbie Stein
in order to sign up for Freedom Link. Last week, courtesy of Dave and Teresa
Meyer, both Marilyn Green and Denise participated in a fundraiser that the
Slovenian Catholic Mission put on for us. It as a dinner to raise money for
our affiliate. We expect that we will receive approximately $4,500. Thanks
to Dave and Teresa for their efforts in getting we on the mission's radar
and the money raised will go to any of our programs. 

Per Marilyn Green, the legislative queen: Congress is in session for the
next 3 weeks. So, we can send emails, we can make phone calls, we can do
both. You can also schedule to make an appointment in district with your
member of congress. We have three initiatives currently floating through the
house. One of them is the Access to Technology Affordability Act. We just
got our newest cosponsor. Our newest cosponsor is Rodney Davis. Mr. Davis is
on House Ways and Means. That's very important for us to be able to help to
get this bill across the finish line. We also have the Greater Access and
Independence through Nonvisual Access Technology (GAIN). Our Illinois' own
Jan Schakowsky is one of the originating cosponsors. She did a bill similar
to this several years ago. We also have the Transformation to Competitive
Employment Act (previously known as the TIME Act) over a 6 year time; this
bill is to phase out 14C provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act. We have
2 legislators on this bill, Jan Schakowsky and Jesus "Chuey" Garcia. So
we're moving along, but our numbers are not as good this year as they were
last year. So we have a lot more work to do and we are all up for the
challenge to get all these bills across the finish line. If you need house
numbers for these bills, Marilyn can give you phone numbers for your
representatives, give you the contact people for each one of those offices.
It is essential that we do the work that Marilyn cannot. As a voter, let
them know how you feel about these bills. Tell them your stories about how
these bills can change your life. We have to tell our story in order to get
these bills passed.

Per Denise: Related to that, at the face-to-face board meeting, which took
place at our national center from August 15 to 18. The board voted to send
people to Washington Seminar in February (the Great Gathering In is February
10th, so we will need to report that Sunday night, February 9)). The
applications for Washington Seminar are due to Denise by December 1.
However, the Chicago Chapter has $1,000 in the budget to send members to the
Washington Seminar. Probably what that's going to mean is that you'll only
have 2 people going, maybe 3 if you do $300 apiece instead of the 4 or 5
that you usually have had going. The Chicago Chapter has always picked up
the money for the affiliate to send members from the area. The state has
never had to do it. At the state level, we will not be able to pick up the
slack for the Chicago Chapter, because, at the state level, we don't have
much money coming in either. So we will fund folks from outside of the
Chicagoland area, but the Chicago Chapter is going to have to get about the
business of raising enough money to send people at the levels that you have
come to expect. When you are applying for the Washington Seminar, you will
not be able to receive any funding from the state affiliate. It's going to
come from your chapter and you're only going to be able to send as many
people as you're going to raise funds for. 

Our state convention is going to be from October 18 to October 20. It is in
Springfield, Illinois at the Wyndham Springfield City Center at 700 East
Adams. The hotel reservations are due by September 27. The hotel reservation
process payment is $99 per night plus taxes, so that's about $103 per night.
Please call 217-789-1530 and you dial extension 4111 and ask for Genevieve
or Haley McDonald and they will make sure that you get your room at the NFB
rate. As far as registration for the convention itself, you must preregister
for the convention by October 4. The registration form is on our website
nfbofillinois.org. If you preregister, it is $5 for your registration fee,
$10 each for the student and the parent breakfast, $15 for the
student/parent lunch and $30 for the banquet. However, if you don't
preregister and, if you don't select your meals, you will have to pay more
at the convention. If you want any special meals, our meal choices are
veggie and regular and we do ask the hotel to do gluten-free or
lactose-free, as needed. If you want special meal choices, get those to
Patti Chang by October 4. Patti's email address is pattischang at gmail.com or
call her at 773-307-6440. We do not want any paper registration forms. If
you need help with online registration, you can call Dave Meyer at
708-606-7091 or Patti Chang at 773-307-6440 and they will do the online
registration for you. Our national rep is going to be Dan S. Wenzel. We know
Dan from being the director at Blind Inc. He is now at the Wisconsin Center
for the Visually Impaired. The student national rep will be Elizabeth Rouse.
She serves on the National Association of Blind student's board and she goes
to school in Iowa. We will have an employment panel. We will have some
breakout sessions in the afternoon including one on state legislation and
Marilyn Green is going to teach some yoga. We'll do an overview of the
Microsoft Office suite of products. We are expected to have a guest from
Senator Duckworth's Office from the Springfield area. He will be with us
during the banquet because we are giving an award to Senator Duckworth. She
has really fought to protect the rights of people with disabilities and she
has cosponsored Transformation to Competitive Employment and also the Access
to Technology Bill. When Congress had tried to curtail the protections of
the Americans with Disabilities Act, she wrote an article and stood up in
Congress and said that it was not going to be a good bill for those with
disabilities. The convention will start off on Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock
with a sculpting activity. Ralph Cossantino, who is Debbie Stein's art
instructor, is going to be with us. We will end the convention at 12 noon on
Sunday. We'll have elections and we will have Braille is Beautiful on that
day as well. 

Ed Birmingham, our membership chair, reported that the national office is
making a big push on membership. They want everyone's names; their email
addresses all the information so that we can make them feel welcome. At the
chapter meetings, they want us to also make these individuals feel very
welcome. Ed gave George and Linda Villa, Todd Lively and Lanay Nesbit our
NFB commemorative coins.

Patti talked about fifteen for Funds, our state-level fundraiser which we do
during our convention at the banquet. We're going to take 15 minutes Dave
Meyer will do sort of a reverse auction and he will ask you what you are
going to contribute to our affiliate. If contributing by check, make checks
out to NFBI and you can mail checks to Patti Chang, treasurer, 6919 West
Berwyn, Chicago, Illinois 60656. We are about $15,000 lower in the treasury
this year than we were at this time last year. 

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Fundraising chair, Nick Robertson, reports that we are $90 in the hole. If
we want to get assistance to state and national convention or Washington
Seminar, we need to start giving. We need to start coming up with ideas for
fundraising. We need to start participating in fundraising also. We will be
having a read-a-thon on October 12, in lieu of our monthly meeting. It's a
$10 entry fee, but that is waived if you generate more than $10 outside the
organization. We will be having our holiday/Christmas auction, so be
gathering new and/or delicately/gently used items. Also, baked goods go over
very well. Our auctioneers will be Ed Birmingham and Giovanni Francese. We
will have our first fundraising meeting shortly after our state convention. 

Steve Hastalis, Chicago Chapter treasurer, joined the meeting. Also, James
Williams joined as a member of our chapter.

Juliet Walker was interested in seeing and feeling the membership coin
because she never got one. Denise pointed out that when a member is brand
new; your information is put into our database. Your coins will come in the
mail for people who have basically joined this year. The coins that we
distributed at the April, May and June meetings and even today were for our
existing members from 2016 to 2018. So most of you who have joined this year
went into our database and you should receive your coin in the mail. If you
have not received your coin, please contact Patti. 

Robert Hansen, membership chair, reports that we have an increase in
attendance in chapter meetings. This month we had 38 people. A lot of times
his texts people, either singly or group text. Just keep spreading the word.
If you meet someone, get their name and phone number. He and Patti collect
that information. Robert usually likes to text people 7 to 10 days prior to
the meeting and then 2 or 3 days, in addition, as a reminder. He gets the
program item from Jemal. Meetings are always held at 1:00 pm on the 2nd
Saturday of the month with the exceptions of July and October. The website
is nfbofillinois.org. There's contact information. We are also on social
media like Facebook and twitter. 

Local legislative committee chair, Kira O'bradovich, reports that the
committee met in August for their first meeting and they focused primarily
on transportation including both public transit and decreasing ridership and
increased traffic within the city of Chicago and beyond as well as within
the suburbs discussing public transit there. In relation to that, we also
talked about Uber, Lyft and other rideshare companies and full accessibility
as well as guide dogs, but not just being discriminated based upon that, but
being discriminated or having drivers cancel on you once they figure out
that you are either blind or visually impaired. We also talked about the
inadequacy of O & M training for those of us to learn how to get around
using canes. Quite a bit of O & M training that is offered is offered only
during work hours from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, so that limits people's
ability to receive instruction if they do have a job. They also talked about
the accessible pedestrian signals that they are putting in. There had been
mention of once they're up, having someone record the sounds that are made
so that we could share that here with everyone, so everyone's aware of what
that sounds like and it would be good for us to know where they are. Steve
mentioned that the city is in the midst of a 4-month trial of what is called
"dockless scooters." The name comes from the fact that you ride this little
lightweight scooter, and, once you are finished with it, you just stop and
get off it, and we hope you don't put it in the middle of a sidewalk or at a
bus stop or somebody's front door, which is the kind of thing we've heard
about in other cities. If you have any experiences good, bad or otherwise,
let us know and also let the city know. The problem with the current pilot
project is that the contact information is not accessible to a blind person.
It's not raised print and it's not Braille and you don't know what the
website is either. We are in the midst of working on that program also.
Contact either Kira or Steve. Kira's email is kobradov at gmail.com. 

Per Denise: Dense, Debbie and Dave met with Commissioner Tamley and city
officials of the Department of Transportation and a person representing the
Mayor's Office regarding "dockless scooters" and we had already been talking
about the rollout of the audible pedestrian signals. But during that
meeting, one of the things Denise asked Commissioner Tamley to remember to
do is that before the city rolls out these projects, that they, at least,
reach out to the community starting with us because we have monthly meetings
here, and, so, if they reach out to the community or Dave to say that they
would like to come and speak about a new venture, whether it's an audible
pedestrian signal or having AIRA be put in access at the L stations or bus
lines or the dockless scooters, that they should reach out to the blindness
community and, in particular, us. Commissioner Tamley said that she would
definitely do that. 

Theresa Jones sought the floor. She asked for the auction, are there going
to be prints of a painting, earrings, etc., and when she had to have items
in by. Dave instructed her to bring it to the December meeting. He also
mentioned that the start time was noon as opposed to 1:00 pm. James Williams
would like to donate one of his paintings to the Federation as a donation
for our auction. The value of the painting is $1,200. Its minimum value is
$500.

Dave mentioned that one way that we can help the community at large is
through blood donations. Some of us do give fairly regularly. He would like
to have people if they can remember to give blood or give platelets to those
who are in need. 3% of those who can donate actually do. Steve states that
the new name that used to be Life source is now Vitalent and our code is
281E. 

OLD BUSINESS:

Marilyn is the door prize chair for state convention. She stated that if
anyone has door prizes for the state convention, she will take them home and
make sure that she will have them next month. She also asked if we have a
song for The Battle of the Chapters for IABS Idol. The topic was movie
themes. We chose 9 to 5. 

NEW BUSINESS: 

Denise stated that the next state board meeting is on September 29th at 7:00
pm. The conference call number is 605-313-8419 and we will use our regular
code of 6324 (NFBI). All are welcome to call in. While it's the board that
makes motions and votes on things, we certainly do appreciate any
participation by all of our members. We try to have our board meetings last
no longer than 2 hours. We will probably not have a board meeting after this
one until December after our convention. She also mentioned that in the
absence of Cathy Randall, Dave Meyer will be doing fifteen for Funds. With
regards to the meetings of the various committees, please make sure that at
every meeting that you have someone taking notes so that you have them. They
help keep track of what you're doing and help the state affiliate know what
you're doing. The other thing is that if you don't get 100% attendance at
your meetings, as long as you can get most people to attend, then you should
go on and have your meetings. 

The meeting was adjourned at 3:08 pm 

Respectfully submitted: Eileen F. Truschke, Secretary, Chicago Chapter,
National Federation of the Blind of Illinois.

Date:

Sunday, November 3 at 4:41 PM

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David Meyer, NFB of Illinois

Coordinator and Channel Administrator, NFB-NewsLine

Chicago Chapter President