[IABS-Talk] [IL-Talk] at large minutes for march

Sat Apr 4 18:35:51 UTC 2026

Wonderful minutes Michelle, as usual.

Debbie P

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Subject: [IL-Talk] at large minutes for march

NFBI At Large Chapter March Minutes

March 1, 2026

ZOOM Meeting

CALL TO ORDER

At Large Chapter President David Meyer called the meeting to order at 7:01 PM. Persons in attendance were:

David Meyer, Leslie Hamric, Michelle Ault, Linda Hendle, Bill Reif, Debbie Pittman, Marilyn Green, Michal Nowicki, Yvonne Agyarko. Jean Johnson, Jemal Powell, Dennis Devitt, Eileen Truschke, Ken Schadd, Dan Gistenson, and Ember Thompson.

PROGRAM ITEM

Debbie Pittman brought to our attention the Double Good Popcorn Fundraiser.
We decided to try our Double Good Fundraiser again. It was suggested that having more than one store would provide a better turnout. Debbie Pittman and Marilyn Green will have a store so far. David Meyer made a motion for us to start it on March 29th going into April 2. Marilyn Green moved and Debbie Pittman seconded. All those in favor said "Aye" and we will have the fundraiser on those dates.

PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE

This is Presidential Release 558. for the month of March and is the Chapter version.

The first thing President Mark Riccobono discussed was our National Convention, which is July 3rd to July 8th, in Austin,Texas. 

Why is the national convention important? President Mark Riccobono thinks this could be a good topic for the chapters to discuss. Every chapter should have at least one member attending the  National Convention. The convention is the supreme authority of the organization and is where the decisions get made and things get debated. Direction is set for the next year and the years to come, and the Board of Directors are elected to carry out that direction.  Our convention is also the largest platform for networking, training, making connections, and finding resources in our community. Blind people come from all parts of the world to be at our convention because there is no other meeting like ours that's blind centered, blind directed, and at the same time driven by members from local communities all across this country.

We recognize that one of the reasons to come together at convention is that we get the benefit of all of us, of our expertise coming together. There's no way that any one of us could know all of the things or have all of the connections that are meaningful in the blind community. When we come together at the convention, it really brings the power and scale of our membership to the front. We can make those connections so that when we get a question as a leader in the local community that we're not sure of, we have more people to call on across the country. This is also an important platform for us to move our advocacy agenda and show important public officials and companies that we have power and influence when they have to stand in front of our convention and answer real questions and give presentations.

They know that we are a constituency that they should be concerned about.
This definitely helps us in all of the other things that we do throughout the year. President Mark Riccobono  thinks one of the key things is the fact that we gain so much from being together at convention. We get our perspectives reset. It's really helpful to be able to talk to blind people from all parts of the country and realize they are having the same struggles that they might be having in Baltimore.

We might talk to someone who is on the leading edge of their community and is just now introducing something that hasn't come to our community yet.
What are they doing about it? How are they doing it?

You can find the convention information at:

 nfb.org/convention

 That's always going to be your go-to for the latest information about the upcoming convention. This year, we will be meeting at the JW Marriott in Austin, Texas,  You can make your room reservations by calling 1-800-627-7468. That number again, 800-627-7468. You can book your room.
Please be sure to give them the Federation's convention booking code, which is B as in boy, L as in Llama, and the number one. BL1 for booking a room for the convention. The convention hotel rate is $139.00 for singles and doubles and $155 for triples and quads. That does not include the sales tax and local tourism fee that comes out to about a combined 19%. Our convention has been in Texas a number of times, but never in Austin. It's a really cool city, really great food, really great music, really great people. President Mark Riccobono wants to remind us that the hotel does have the right to charge you a different rate if you do not register for the convention and show up on our registration rules. By the time this release hits the chapter meetings on March 1st, registration will be open and available for online registration, which goes through the end of May. After May, you will have to register onsite at the convention, probably wait in line and things like that. The early registration fee this year is $25.00 and the banquet is $85.00. Those prices will go up at the convention. 

Our theme for this year's convention is a play on what the Austin Texas community has done for a number of decades now. It has marketed itself as wanting to be uniquely Austin, uniquely true to the culture, people, and environment in Austin, Texas.

Their marketing slogan for many decades now has been "Keep Austin weird".
Austin has used this as a way to really, truly lean into the local culture, building pride in the city of Austin, Texas, helping to grow local businesses and truly being proud of who they are. This is much like what the National Federation of the Blind has done since our founding in 1940. We've said that it's respectable to be blind. We're proud to be who we are and to tackle the world in the way that we do. And that is a very different than almost everybody else in the world looks at blindness.

 Our convention theme for 2026, "Keep NFB Weird". We are really trying to lean into being authentically blind centered, blind led and a grassroots blind organization. This means we're also a very diverse group and we have a lot of joy in being part of this community. "Keep NFB Weird" gives us some fun and joyful opportunities to really be proud of who we are as an organization. Each chapter is encouraged to bring its unique character to our national convention and to our "Keep NFB Weird" theme for the organized blind movement this summer.

Here are some other things that your chapter should do to prepare for our national convention. First, discuss who's planning to attend the convention?
Who would like to attend the convention, but is not sure what it means or how to do it. It's a great opportunity to talk about the Kenneth Jernigan First Timers Scholarship, Knowing who in the chapter is going to the convention will allow you to coordinate, share ideas, resources, and also talk about how you bring ideas back to the chapter. Discuss what some of the local concerns are in the chapter and areas where the chapter members feel information is needed from the nationwide network of expertise that we have in the National Federation of the Blind.

 If there are policy issues that local members feel the national organization should be addressing, it's a great opportunity to get together and write a resolution and resolutions can be submitted up until the very early part of June. Remember that in authoring a resolution, there has to be a proponent who's available to appear in person in front of the resolutions committee at the convention. It does not have to be the individual or individuals who authored the resolution, but it does have to be someone that's prepared to speak on behalf of and defend why the resolution is needed.

There will be many sessions at the convention, the meeting of our membership committee, other meetings where folks from your chapter can go and get answers to those questions that may be burning in the minds of the chapter members. President Riccobono also suggests the chapter should also discuss how members who aren't going to convention are going to participate virtually. The agenda will be out well in advance of the convention. Members who aren't coming to the convention in person can participate in our virtual experience. The national convention is the most important event of the year for the Organized Blind Movement.

A couple of other things to present to you on this release.  The first has to do with membership. We're continuing to examine the shared process that we have for on boarding new members to the Organized Blind Movement. We have now had a new member process in place for a number of years, and President Mark Riccobono wants to thank all of those chapters out there who are implementing our new member process, getting members signed up, getting them voted into the chapter, and then getting them put into our new member form at the national level so that we can send them information materials and their membership coin.

We're now evaluating this process and how we can further improve it. And so starting with the month of March, we will be planning a survey that targets individuals who are new to the Federation and new being in their first year of membership. The goal is for us to gather some information, check in with our new members, and to ensure that we are truly fulfilling on the promise that we've made to make our organization welcoming, to support new members on their journey, and to learn about how we collectively, both at the national level and local level, can do better in that regard. He is telling us this because this will now be built into our series of emails and on boarding materials that members get. So new members will be receiving an email with the link to the survey. We should  let new members know that during the year they will get some periodic outreach from our national organization, asking them to fill out a short survey about their experience and how we can continue to improve it. This data will help us continue to improve in being the organization that we seek to be, so please help to promote it amongst our new members. 

In regards to Washington Seminar Federation members showed up despite the challenging weather to really make an impression on the members of Congress in a way that he thinks we couldn't have even planned for. Our hard work, and our perseverance has definitely paid off as this Washington seminar did show real results. Since the end of this year's event, we have gained 12 new co-sponsors on the Access Technology Affordability Act in the House, five new co-sponsors on the Access Technology Affordability Act in the Senate, and four new co-sponsors on the Blind Americans Return to Work Act in the House.

We are still following up with a number of commitments that members of Congress made to co-sponsor our bills. If we haven't already submitted all of our Washington seminar reports on our meetings, President Mark Ricobono asks us to do so quickly. March is a critical month for increasing our co-sponsorship on our bills. We know being an election year, that the calendar will be limited for moving our bills forward.The more co-sponsors we get, the more possibility there is to advance our agenda in 2026. If we missed  the great Gathering In activity, we can revisit it and listen to the audio on our Washington seminar page at:

 nfb.org/washington-seminar.

President Mark Riccobono also let us know  that on that page is a special recording of the distinguished legislative award that we presented to Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland as part of that gathering, a really remarkable presentation. 

President Mark Riccobono does have some Federation family that he will share on the March 5th  Presidential Release live. I we do miss it, you can follow up by getting the recording a:

 nfb.org

on our publications page through NFBRN, our online constant radio stream, or through our You Tube channel. We are encouraged  to listen to our live events.  

Our customary endings end in a few jokes so here is one to share:

What falls during March, but never gets hurt?

Well, that would be the rain, of course.

After the Presidential Release David Meyer encourages us all to put aside some time to actively check out the Live Presidential Release which goes into a little more depth than the Chapter Version.  

STATE PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Our State President, Marilyn Green, gave us the State Presidential Report.
We were reminded that we have National Convention July 3rd thru the 9th in Austin, Texas. Our room block is filling up very quickly. If you are planning on reserving a single or double room which is 139.00 a night the charge will be around 166.00 per night. You can go to:

nfb.org/convention

to register for our National Convention. If you have never been to our National Convention you can apply for the Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship for first timers. You can go to our Braille Monitor and find the article there as well as the link to the form that you fill out. You will be asked different questions, it will ask you about a mentor, and it could be very worthwhile to fill our especially if you get a convention scholarship.
If you have been to a National Convention before or if you miss the April 15th deadline to fill it out you can apply for some modest financial assistance from the State Affiliate. That would be the Chappell Dennis.
There is a link through our web site if you go to: 

 nfbofillinois.org

you can do a search for Chappell Dennis. That application will be available after April 1st. The deadline for Chappell Dennis is May 1st. If you need any assistance with that Marilyn Green can assist you or she can designate someone to assist you or you can phone a friend. 

We do have our National and State Scholarship Programs. Our National Scholarship program we will award thirty $10,000.00 Scholarships to thirty blind or low vision students through out the country. You can go to:

nfb.org/scholarships

All of the information is there. You can upload your letter of recommendation, transcripts, essay, and contact information. You also schedule an interview with your state president or your state president designee. Our State President is Marilyn Green so you would contact Marilyn Green. She will let you know if she needs to assign someone else to do your interview. The deadline four National Scholarship program is March 31st at
11:59 PM Eastern Time.

We do have a State Scholarship program. You can go to: 

nfbofillinois,org/scholarships

You can fill out the form online. We will need your contact information, your essay, transcripts, letter of recommendation and things of that nature.
You can use the same information that you used to apply for our National Scholarships. Emailing is preferable.

A difference between the two is that you would interview with one of the members of the state's scholarship committee. Another difference is that the deadline for our state scholarship program is April 15th at 11:59 Central time. If you have any questions about the State Scholarship Program you can
email:

scholarships at nfbofillinois.org <mailto:scholarships at nfbofillinois.org> 

If you have any questions about the National Scholarships program you can
email:

scholarships at nfb.org <mailto:scholarships at nfb.org> 

The State Board did vote to award at least one $5000.00 state scholarship.
If you, or if you know of any Blind or low vision student who will be attending post secondary school in the fall please let them know. The person does have to live in Illinois or be going to school in Illinois.

We also have our NFB BELL programs coming up. NFB BELL stands for Braille Enrichment, Literacy and Learning. We will have a program in Springfield, Illinois, July 13th through the 17th and it is a one week residential program. The families are housed at a hotel at the expense of our Affiliate.
We will have our Chicago NFB BEll. This program is a two week weekday program and we partner with the Chicago Lighthouse July 20th through July 31st. These programs are great opportunities  for students between the ages of 4 to 12 to practice over the summer a lot of the skills that they don't get or don't want to lose over the summer. It will have Braille Skills, Independent Living Skills, travel and also meet a network of other blind students as well as adult blind mentors. If you know of anyone that you think may be interested . The student does not have to live in Illinois, we have taken students outside of Illinois.For any questions regarding our NFB BELL program you can reach out to Debbie Stein at:

dkent5817 at att.net <mailto:dkent5817 at att.net>  

or Tasabih, also know as Abbu at:

tasabih.elfaki at gmail.com <mailto:tasabih.elfaki at gmail.com> 

They are our coordinators for our BELL programs and they can answer any questions from you.

We also have our STEM2U program coming up it will be on August 15th at the Hyatt near Lisle hotel which also is our State Convention hotel. Our NFB Stem2U is a day program this year. We offer this for students from 3rd thru 8th grade but that is also flexible. This is a great opportunity for blind and low vision students to learn that stem, science, technology, engineering and math is for everyone. Our Coordinators this year are Olivia Cichowlas and Alaula Sprecher If you have any questions you can reach out to Olivia or Alaula. Olivia;s email is:

cichowlas.olivia at gmail.com <mailto:cichowlas.olivia at gmail.com> 

You can also email Debbie Stein and Debbie can answer any questions.

Our face to face board meeting will be the following day on August 16th. The board meeting will begin at 9:00 AM and we will break for lunch around noon for about half an hour. We will come back in to session and we usually adjourn somewhere around 3:00 PM.

Our State Convention will be October 23rd to October 25th in Lisle, Illinois at the Hyatt. More information will be going out as we get closer to convention time. Our agenda will go as it went last year. Friday afternoon we will have some activities. W will start at 4:00 PM with resolutions. We hope to go right into general sessions at 5:00 PM. We will adjourn our general sessions around 6:30. Then we will have NFB got talent which is a fundraiser. for the Affiliate. After Breakfast, on Saturday, we will have programming all throughout the day. We do hope to keep the same format as last year with the exhibit hall. We will start our afternoon with general sessions, take a break around 2:30 and come back at 3:00 PM for our business meeting. Take a break at 5:00. Have some hospitality at 6:00 PM and our Banquet at 7:00. We will adjourn the banquet between 9:00 and 10:00 and have some hospitality after that. On Sunday we will have our philosophy discussion and we are usually out by noon on Sunday.

APPROVAL OF FEBRUARY MINUTES

Minutes were posted on Il Talk, Iabs talk and NFB NEWSLINE. If anybody who is new and would like to know more about those listserves please reach out to David Meyer or anybody who they are comfortable with.

David Meyer asked for a motion of approval for the February minutes and Linda Hendle moved and Bill Reif seconded. All in favor said "Aye" and the February minutes were approved.

OLD BUSINESS

We have a new member to be voted in and Ember Thompson was voted in. David Meyer entertained a motion to welcome Ember as a member of the National Federation of the Blind. Eileen Truschke moved and Linda Hendle seconded.
All in favor said "AYE" and Ember Thompson was voted in as a new member.

NEW BUSINESS

Since Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday in April, we will have our April meeting on Sunday, April 12th. If you wish to vote in the elections that will take place during that meeting, please make sure that your member dues are paid and the member dues are $2.00 a year per member. You can pay them online at:

treasurer at nfbofillinois.org <mailto:treasurer at nfbofillinois.org> . 

If you wish to pay another way you can pay by check. The check would be made payable to National Federation of the Blind of Illinois. They would send it to 5128 N. Oak Park Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60656. They would make sure to put in the memo line that it is for At Large Membership dues. If they are ZELLING it to the Affiliate they would want to put in the memo or the notes that it is for At Large Membership dues along with your name.  Otherwise without this information it would be received as a general donation to the Affiliate.

A question was asked that if somebody wanted to look up their status regarding their membership status can they tell by looking into their member profile? The answer to that is yes, you can find out this information by looking into your member profile. We were encouraged by David Meyer to take a look at our member profile to make sure the information is correct. We can go to:

nfb.org

and go to Member profile and look up how you are being listed as members.

A question was asked if someone paid their membership dues in November or December last year would they be good for the following year. David Meyer answered if that was the case you should be good until January of the next year. It was suggested that if we pay member dues at State convention or after you should be good for the following year.

It was suggested by our State President, Marilyn Green, to check your member profile. If you paid your dues in November or December of 2025 that would make you a member through the end of 2026. If you notice that you are not in the status that you believe you should be in, please email Marilyn at:

president at nfbofillinois.org <mailto:president at nfbofillinois.org> 

and she can look into it.

David Meyer reminded us if we intend to run for office or a board seat in April to please have someone nominate you. All seats are open. If you wish to run again or even if you don't it would be nice to let David know. If anybody is new and would like to run for something he would like to know as well. His email is:

datemeyer at sbcglobal.net <mailto:datemeyer at sbcglobal.net> 

His phone number is 708-606-7091

Meeting was moved to adjourn by Bill Reif and Marilyn Green seconded. All in favor said "AYE" and the meeting was adjourned at 8:15 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,

Michelle Ault

Secretary/Treasurer

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