[IABS-Talk] chicago may minutes third draft

[Bill Reif]

Great work on the Chicago Chapter Minutes, Eileen! I read them and now I 
feel like I was there, without there being more detail than necessary.


Cordially,

Bill Reif


On 6/9/2020 3:32 PM, David Meyer via IABS-Talk wrote:
> NFBI CHICAGO CHAPTER MINUTES
>
>   
>
> MAY 9, 2020
>
>   
>
> This is our first virtual meeting on the Zoom format. We are all meeting
> either by phone, computer, or other devices. The meeting started at 1:00 pm.
> Patti Chang was the official host of the meeting and she went over some
> ground rules and commands that might be useful for the people on the phone
> or computer.
>
> Introductions: First-time attendees are Christopher Walker from Virginia,
> who is the president of the Winchester Chapter, Nadia Sherman. Longtime
> member, Ken Staley, who has not been able to attend chapter meetings, joined
> us. Ed Birmingham stated that Mary Lou Grunwald was elected to the Illinois
> Committee of Blind Vendors and Giovani Francese as chair with Marco
> Giannotti being reelected as well as Ed Birmingham. Sara Luna is a national
> scholarship winner. Mary Jo Seiler from Effingham joined us. Pam Gilmore
> said that she had been calling people the last couple of months. Robert
> Hansen says that he had purchased a home over a month ago and that he is
> trying to get into an academy of an urban school leadership program. Paul
> Shepherdson stated that Nick Robertson had a cataract operation. We had a
> total of 29 attendees. After introductions, we recited the NFB pledge.
>
>   
>
> Approval of Minutes: The March 7, 2020 chapter meeting secretary's minutes
> were approved.
>
> Treasurers Report First Quarter-January, February, March 2020: Beginning
> balance Wednesday, January 1, $6,047. Income: Sox tickets 3 at $30 each,
> subtotal $90; dues $5 apiece, subtotal $145; lifetime membership $100,
> additional donations $100; Games Night (24 reservations) , subtotal $600;
> monthly collections January 11, $103, February 8, $97, March 7, $63,
> subtotal $263; cane tips 4 at $2 each, subtotal $8; total $1,306. Expenses:
> Preauthorized contributions (PAC) $50; electronic withdrawal transaction NFB
> monthly contributions to National, January, February, March subtotal $150;
> monthly room rent Exchequer Restaurant and Pub $75 for the first 3 months of
> 2020 as follows: January 11, February 8, March 7, subtotal $225. Games
> Night: We paid Exchequer Restaurant and Pub 32 dinner reservations at $15
> each, subtotal $480; total $855. Ending balance Tuesday, March 31, 2020,
> $6,498. The treasurer's report was approved.
>
>   
>
> Elections: The following people were elected to the Chicago Chapter board:
> President David Meyer, First vice-president Patti Chang, second
> vice-president Jemal Powell, Secretary Eileen Truschke, treasurer Steve
> Hastalis. Board positions: Denise Avant, Kira O'bradovich, Marilyn Green,
> Ken Borst. Dave thanked the outgoing board members, Gina Falvo, Marco
> Giannotti, and Debbie Stein.
>
>   
>
> STATE PRESIDENTIAL REPORT:
>
> State president, Denise Avant, stated that we need to give hearty
> congratulations to our scholarship finalist, Sara Luna. Denise also says
> that our national convention will be held virtually. Denise urges everyone
> to go ahead and register for the national convention. The convention is free
> of charge. The dates are from July 14 to 18.
>
> BELL in Home Edition: Debbie Stein reports that we have reconstructed the
> BELL program and it's going to be called the BELL In-Home Edition. On the
> positive side, this is an opportunity for us to reach the families who might
> not have been able to get their kids into a real brick and mortar BELL
> program, but they are able to work from home. It also means that people all
> over the country maybe whose states that had not been set up to do a BELL
> program will be eligible to sign up. The way it's going to work is that
> there will be 3 two week sessions run by BELL teachers from the national
> office. The first one will be from June 1 to June 12, there will be one from
> June 22 to July 3 and the final one is from July 27th to August 7. So
> families can sign up for whichever one is going to fit their schedule. All
> of the materials necessary will be sent to the students who are registered
> and each day during the program there will be two hour-long sessions when
> the students, teachers, and volunteers will meet virtually. There will also
> be opportunities for volunteers from each state affiliate to contact the
> BELL students on a daily basis by telephone or online. To talk about what
> has been going on in the program and maybe help them with some of the
> lessons. Debbie will be recruiting some volunteers. Sara Luna had
> volunteered to help do that, we will be finding out how many Illinois
> students have applied. Debbie has been in contact with several parents who
> are interested. Some of them are kids who have been in the program year
> after year and want to continue to be involved.
>
>   Legislative Issues: Congresswoman Lauren Underwood is our newest cosponsor
> for HR #2086, which is the Access Technology Affordability Act. With
> Congresswoman Underwood's support, Illinois now ties California with 10
> cosponsors. Illinois has 18 members of congress. We have a few other members
> of congress, who were cosponsors in the last congress, Mike Quigley, Mike
> Bost, Bobby Rush, Sherry Bustos, and Danny Davis. When Marilyn sends out the
> legislative updates, please act as quickly as possible. When you can get
> those emails out or make phone calls to your federal legislators, that helps
> support all of our initiatives throughout the country. We still have only 1
> cosponsor for S815, Tammy Duckworth. For our AIM High (Accessible
> Instructional Materials in Higher Education) bill which is HR #5312, S
> #3095, Illinois has 2 cosponsors who are Robin Kelly and Raja
> Krishnamoorthi. For HR #3929, which is GAIN (Greater Access and Independence
> through Nonvisual Access Technology), the originating cosponsor from
> Illinois, Jan Schakowsky, is our only cosponsor in the state of Illinois.
> Please email or call your member of congress and your senators asking them
> to support our proposal which would wave the waiting period for SSDI which
> is 5 months and for Medicare benefits which begins 24 months following
> approval of SSDI benefits. If you have not already emailed or called our
> senators or local legislators, please do that as soon as possible. The
> Senate is back in session and the House should be back in session shortly.
> You can reach out to Marilyn if you need any of the email addresses of any
> offices or if you need the phone numbers to contact those offices. Steve
> stated that Jan Schakowsky from the 9th district is the originating
> cosponsor on the GAIN Act. Also, she is a cosponsor on a bill called the
> Stop the Wait Act. Marilyn says the 10 cosponsors for the Access Technology
> Affordability Act are Rodney Davis, Bill Foster, Robin Kelly, Raja
> Krishnamoorthi, Darin LaHood, Dan Lipinski, Brad Schneider, Jan Schakowsky,
> Lauren Underwood, and Jesus Chui Garcia.
>
> State Convention: Denise mentioned that we plan to have a face-to-face board
> meeting, depending on Covid-19. We are planning our state convention from
> 10/30 through 11/1 at the Sheraton Lisle Naperville Hotel. If we need to
> come up with a different plan, we will. If anyone has any ideas for the
> state convention, please email them to Denise, so that she can begin
> contacting our speakers. Denise has names for requests for national
> representative. We are going to have a new head of the Talking Book Library.
> We had planned on having breakout sessions. We will be having a STEM EQ
> program in order to get more families to the state convention.
>
> Denise reached out to Sarah Feigenholtz to express our concerns that voting
> by mail may not be fully accessible to blind voters. She basically said that
> people with disabilities should receive a ballot by mail. The trouble is
> that there is a question of accessibility with regard to people who are
> blind. Denise sent her an email expressing our concerns, however, she did
> not hear back. Denise along with members of our state legislative committee
> will be following up on that to make sure that we have a voice in what is
> being said.
>
>   
>
> PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE #494:
>
> President Riccobono hopes everyone is doing well. The board of directors
> decided to take our convention online. If you made a room reservation either
> at the Hilton or the Marriott, you will get a full refund of your deposit.
> We have talked with the reservation staff at both hotels and they are
> working on canceling the reservations at the Hilton and the Marriott and
> issuing full refunds for the credit cards that were used. It might take up
> to 2 weeks for all reservations to be processed and refunded. If you
> registered for the convention and bought banquet tickets, you should have
> had one of our team reach out to you already about your registration and
> banquet fees. The dates for the convention are from July 14 through July 18,
> not July 19. We want our members to treat this convention like a
> face-to-face convention. We will have a rookie roundup. We are going to
> schedule it in advance of the convention, so people can use that as a way to
> prepare for what the convention will be.
>
> The structure of the convention will be a little different. Tuesday, July
> 14th is seminar day, like it always has been. On Wednesday, July 15th,
> normally registration day, will now be board meeting and resolution day. On
> Thursday, July 16th, that's still division day, however, that is going to
> feature our opening ceremonies in the evening. On Friday, July 17th, this is
> opening session day, including the presidential report. We will have a full
> day of general sessions. Also, each one of our affiliates will be holding an
> affiliate caucus on that day. On Saturday, July 18th, it is our business
> meeting, our resolutions, and the banquet.
>
> We will be using the Zoom platform, although we are not fully committed to
> the exact platform. Accessibility is a primary question for us. We want to
> make sure we can include everybody, not just the folks who have access to a
> computer, an internet connection. We want to connect with people via
> telephone. As an aside to affiliates on voting, this is where your
> membership lists being submitted is going to be critical.
>
> Registration for the convention is open and registration is free. Go to
> http://www.nfb.org.web/convention to register to be eligible to participate
> in certain things, including door prizes. Registration will close on June
> 15th.
>
> We are going to have door prizes at the convention, so please send door
> prizes. You can send them to the National Federation of the Blind and you
> should mark them Attention: Convention-FS for fiscal services. Our address
> is 200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21230. Get your door prizes
> to us as soon as possible.
>
> President Riccobono welcomes ideas about what the convention can/should look
> like. Please send ideas at officeofthepresident at nfb.org.
>
> We are asking everyone who is willing to participate to create a one-minute
> audio or video but not more than one minute. Talk about your first
> convention and what it meant to you. You can win some cash prizes.
>
> With respect to social security disability, we are continuing to request in
> the next stimulus bill that we are pursuing to get a waiver on the 5 month
> waiting period for SSDI benefits or the 24 month waiting period for
> Medicare. We are getting some interest on that in congress as well. Many of
> you should have received your economic impact payment from the government.
> If you are receiving SSI, you should be receiving your economic impact
> payment before the end of May. If you are an SSI recipient and you have
> dependents, you have until May 5 to add your dependent information to make
> sure you receive the additional funds for dependents under this program. If
> you have questions about the economic impact payments and the details around
> them, especially for getting SSI or SSDI, you can go to
> http://www.nfb.org/COVID. You can also email John Pare at Jpare at nfb.org. We
> are seeking individuals who are currently in the process of applying for
> SSDI benefits especially if you had to sign with a physical signature
> various Social Security Administration forms. We also wish to speak with
> blind persons who have recently filled out SSA 1696. This is the form that
> is used to appoint someone to represent you in front of the SSA. We are also
> requesting information about the inaccessibility of state unemployment
> websites. If you or someone you know fits that category, please contact
> Valerie Yingling in our office. Her email address is vyingling at nfb.org. Her
> phone number is 410-659-9314, extension 2440.
>
> The National Association of Blind Merchants were able to persuade the
> Secretary of Education recommending for a waiver that would allocate
> vocational rehabilitation funds to replace spoiled food and expired supplies
> for Randolph- Shepherd business owners Our merchants have been very active,
> making sure we protect small business through that.
>
> We are coming up on Global Accessibility Awareness Day. It's a good
> opportunity to talk about web accessibility. We will be hosting a Twitter
> chat on May 15 at 2:00 pm Eastern time. The hashtag we are using is
> #Accessibility Now.
>
> We are making sure that we are tracking and protecting the rights of blind
> voters. Weve had great victories in Maryland and a number of other states.
> If you are running into voting problems, please reach out to Lou Ann Blake
> in our office. She coordinates our Help America Vote activities. You can
> reach her at lblake at nfb.org or find her at Extension 2221 at our national
> office.
>
>   We have had a partnership with Lyft during the last 2 months to provide
> some support for transportation for those who might need emergency
> transportation or have trouble getting out to get medicine or supplies
> because of transportation issues. Our work in April, we got confirmation
> that we can continue issuing travel credits to folks very late in the month.
> So Lyft has extended our exclusive NFB Lyft credit program through the end
> of May. So additional coupons for Lyft riders are available in the amount of
> $25 that can be used for emergency purposes related to helping blind people
> in need during COVID-19. There is a limited quantity of these available, but
> if you know of a blind person who would benefit or you are a blind person
> who is in need, please reach out to your affiliate president. Affiliate
> presidents have more information. They can issue the code to you. We do need
> to collect some data to make sure we can report back to Lyft on the impact.
>
> The Braille Monitor is our flagship publication. There are a number of
> articles this month about issues related to COVID-19 that may be of
> interest. You can get it in almost any form imaginable. An apology to our
> Braille readers who get the hard copy Braille of the Monitor. Right now that
> is delayed because the producer that does the hard copy Braille for us is
> closed at the moment. But you will get your back issues in hard copy Braille
> very soon and we are making the brf files available.
>
> Tuesday, May 5 is giving Tuesday. This is a global giving campaign to
> support nonprofits in the work that they had been doing during COVID-19. We
> need your help to get critical dollars into this organization to support the
> programs that are innovating. All of our donations for giving Tuesday will
> be matched by the Gibney Family Foundation. You can give online. You can
> send us a check to our national headquarters. You can even call our office
> and our main number and hit 4. If you get a voicemail, we can call you back
> and we can take your donation via phone. If you donate online or send a
> check, please writ4 GT for Giving Tuesday, so we know we can designate it to
> the campaign and we can multiply your contribution through the generosity of
> the Gibney Family Foundation. Please write a thank you note to the Gibney
> Family Foundation.
>
> Federation Family Notes: A number of our members have been impacted by
> COVID-19, however, we have had a number of members who have had the virus
> and recovered. Dr. Brian Miller, Loretta Bun, and Johnny Wertz died from
> COVID-19. Amy Barnes died, Doug Wolff, Ron Atchison, Joe Ferry, Travis Cain,
> Barbara Briggs, John Bates, Richard Gaffney, and Susan Clark all died.
> Finally, Rami Rabby died on April 17 in Israel. Rami was one of our charter
> members of the NFB of Illinois and its first affiliate president. He was a
> pioneer in getting blind people into the Foreign Service. Keep all these
> individuals and their loved ones in your thoughts and prayers. Gloria Nathan
> and Larry Cherry got married on April 15. Emily and Richard Gibbs adopted 5
> kids on March 4. Sophia Regina Hernandez was born on April 8. Mateo
> Francisco Carranza was born on April 27th.
>
>   
>
> Dave stated that since our last meeting, Rami Rabby who was instrumental in
> starting the NFB of Illinois in 1968 and was its original president, has
> died. Since our previous meeting, a longtime president of the NFB of
> Illinois, former national board member, Stephen Benson, also passed away. We
> all observed a moment of silence for both Steve and Rami. Steve Hastalis
> said that Steve Benson also was a charter member of the Illinois affiliate.
> He was president of the Chicago Chapter from 1974 to 1978 and then served as
> the president of the state affiliate until 2002.
>
>   
>
> The next Chicago Local Legislation Committee meeting will be on Tuesday
> 5/26. The phone number is 605-313-4819 and the passcode is 6324. We will
> meet at 7:00 pm.
>
>   
>
> Old Business: Marilyn Green says that the Affiliate Sales Committee has been
> selling T-shirts. It's a black T-shirt. The front says #bold #confident. The
> back has the NFB logo and tagline and, on the left sleeve, it's Brailed NFB.
> All of this is in yellow print or yellow ink on a black T-shirt. Because of
> the COVID-19, the sales committee has decided to take them to our social
> media to sell the remainder because we have a small quantity left. Marilyn
> still has quite a few T-shirts. If anyone is interested in purchasing these
> shirts, please let Marilyn know and she can set them aside. Also, whenever
> we do meet again or, if you want them shipped, please let her know. You can
> text, call, or email Marilyn. Her number is 312-343-8396. Her email address
> is marilynvgreen at gmail.com. We are currently out of the long sleeve. We only
> have short sleeve shirts left. They are $15.
>
> Steve Hastalis states that Metra will run a Sunday schedule on Saturdays on
> all of its diesel routes and will continue running a Saturday schedule on
> Saturday on Saturday on the Metra Electric Service.
>
>   
>
> New Business: We will have our next virtual meeting on Saturday, June 13th
> at 1:00 pm with the virtual board meeting starting at 11:30 am via the Zoom
> format.
>
> Patti reports that her husband, Francisco, is seeing COVID patients, so he
> is on an active COVID floor with all COVID positive patients.
>
>   
>
> The meeting adjourned at 3:09 pm.
>
>   
>
> Respectfully submitted: Eileen F. Truschke, secretary.
>
>   
>
>   
>
> David Meyer, NFB of Illinois
>
> Coordinator and Channel Administrator, NFB-NewsLine
>
> Chicago Chapter President
>
>   
>
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