[IABS-Talk] at large minutes January 2024

[David Meyer]

National Federation of the Blind of Illinois
Minutes of meeting held Sunday, January 7th, 2024

Members present: President Dave Meyer, Vice President Linda Hendle, 
Secretary/Treasurer Bill Reif, Dustin Cather, Debbie Pittman, Josh 
Ninten, EileenTruschke, Ken Schad, State President Marilyn Green, 
Michael Babcock, Michelle Alt, Jemal Powell, Yvonne Agyarko and Leslie Hamric.

Debbie moved, and Bill seconded, approval of the minutes of the 
December 2023 meeting. Motion passed.

Program:

Debbie introduced Michael Babcock Manager of Customer Experience at A T 
Guys and the many accessible products it offers for sale. The Michigan 
Company web site is www.atguys.com and can be phoned at (269) 216-4798. 
All products are usable by those with no vision. Products he described 
include the Versa Paperless Slate, accessible portable power banks, the 
Slinger in which the phone can be carried on a lanyard, several head 
sets, keyboards including the Orbet Writer and the Hable, and the Blind 
Shell 2 phone. These products are more fully described on the web site.

Presidential Release:

Presidential Release 534 was played. January 4th is World Braille Day. 
Activities are described on the web site braille.day the NFB 
established last year and lists over 250 ways in which Braille can be used.

Blind Inc, our Minnesota training center, has suspended operations as 
of January 1 2024. The center does not have the resources to maintain 
the historic building in which it operates. The program will be re 
imagined. The Washington Seminar fact sheets have been distributed and 
are available at www.nfb.org/washington-seminar. The NFB sent a letter 
of opposition to the leaders in Congress outlining concerns about the 
Cogswell-Macy Act. You can find that letter on the policy pages of our 
web site. The act attempts to amend the Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act by adding new sections that we firmly believe negatively 
impact blind students.  In specific, our concerns include that the 
proposed bill will create new assessments that are not in concert with 
the current IDEA assessment standards. In addition, the current 
language does weaken the Braille provision, which this organization 
worked very hard to get into IDEA in the late 1990s. Also, the bill as 
proposed fails to leverage dear colleague letters and recent rulings by 
the Supreme Court that we would love to see codified in the law to the 
benefit of students with disabilities and certainly blind students.
For more information about our opposition to this bill, you can contact 
Justin Young, our governmental affairs specialist.  You can reach him 
at jyoung at NFB.org or extension 2210 at the national office. He 
congratulated us on some fantastic movement on the Access Technology 
Affordability Act.  In the House, we have HR 3702.  And we gained 28 
new cosponsors during the month of December.  That brings the total 
number of cosponsors in the House up to 72. In the Senate, Senator 
Booker, Ernst, and Tillis all added their names to the cosponsor list 
for S 1467.  This brings the total number of cosponsors on the Senate 
side up to 17.

Riccobono reminded membership coordinators from chapters and divisions 
to make sure that you go in during December and use our member 
management module to update the members for your chapters and divisions 
who have paid dues for 2024. If you don't update them in January, on 
January 31st the membership moves from the grace setting to expired. he 
encouraged all members to pay your dues for 2024. He encouraged all 
members to use the membership profile on the web site.  You can log in 
and you'll have access to your membership record and be able to make 
updates. If you haven't taken the time to check out your membership 
profile, your log in is simply the email address you have connected to 
your membership.  So you can use that address, and if you haven't been 
in yet, you haven't set it up, go to members on the web site and opt to 
reset your password even if you haven't set it up before, and it will 
prompt you to log into your program.  And you can do that by selecting 
the opt to change password option. If you have questions, you are 
encouraged to send an email to membership at NFB.org.

State Affiliate Report:

Marilyn reported on the upcoming Washington Seminar, which begins 
January 29th. Denise Avant, Dustin Cather, Michelle Alt, BilipShaw, 
Aboo Elfauki, Katelyn Ryan, and Kira O’Bradovich will be representing 
us in Washington. Our National Convention will be at the Rosen Center 
July 3rd through July 8th. Rooms are $129 per night. BELL program in 
Springfield the week of July 15th, and in Chicago the two weeks 
beginning July 22nd. Scholarship applications for National are due 
3/31, with state applications due 4/30.

Dustin reported further on the upcoming seminar. the following 3 issues 
will be discussed:

The Web Site and Software Applications Act, hr5813 and s2984, have been 
recently introduced and only have a few cosponsors.

The Medical Device Non-visual Accessibility act, HR1328, has 49 
cosponsors, 5 of whom are from Illinois and include Sponsor Jan 
Chacowski. There is not yet a Senate companion bill.

The Blind Americans Return to Work Act does not yet have sponsors or a 
bill number. This bill will phase out the sharp cut off that serves as 
a disincentive for SSDI recipients to accept full-time work.

Although not one of the main issues, we will be discussing the 
Transformation to Competitive Employment Act, S533 with 1 cosponsor and 
hr1263 with 26 cosponsors including Illinois representatives Robyn 
Kelly and Mike Quigley. Finally, we are still working on the Access 
Technology Affordability Act, S1467 and HR3702. There will be much more 
info at the upcoming Chicago Chapter meeting which will be virtual 
until the Chapter can locate a new meeting place. The Exchequer is no 
longer available to us. Dave noted that the fact sheets are also on NFB 
Newsline under each state's Information Channel.

The next meeting will take place Sunday February 4th via Zoom. Dave 
noted that our elections will take place at the April meeting and 
anyone interested in running should let him know. The meeting adjourned 
at 8:29 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,

Bill Reif, Secretary