[IABS-Talk] at large january minutes

[datemeyer at sbcglobal.net]

At Large Chapter Minutes

 

January 4th, 2026

ZOOM Meeting

 

CALL TO ORDER

Persons in Attendance: At Large Chapter President, David Meyer, Marilyn
Green, Dustin Cather, Bill  Reif, Michelle Ault, Linda Hendle, Yvonne
Agyarko, Dennis Devitt, Ken Schadd, Eileen Truschke,  Sidney Horn, Debbie
Pittman, Dan Gistenson, Jemal Powell, and Misty Hagan. The meeting was
called  to order at 7:01 PM.

 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR DECEMBER AT LARGE CHAPTER MEETING

Jemal Powell moved and Linda Hendle seconded. All in favor said Aye and
December minutes were  approved.

 

PROGRAM ITEM

Debbie Pittman introduced the program item which gives us another level of
independence. We learned  about a company called InnoSearch AI. They are a
company that is working with the National  Federation of the Blind on
accessible shopping. David Meyer will be playing a portion of the video
about the experience of accessible shopping with InnoSearch AI. The video
that we listened to is on  YouTube and it is called Tech Talk Tuesday, by
the Prevention of Blindness Society on Accessible  Shopping. The video has a
co-host and the co-host is Patrick Long. Patrick Long is the co-founder  and
CEO of InnoSearch AI. This company is building the AI usability layer of the
web to help people  who are blind, low-vision, seniors, and others who face
barriers navigating web sites. InnoSearch  AI will enable people to shop,
book travel, and navigate digital content independently thru voice,
keyboard, or phone. InnoSearch AI has a mission and it is to give blind and
low vision users real  independence online for everyday tasks like shopping,
booking travel,and ordering food without  needing sighted assistance. The
problem InnoSearch AI is trying to solve is that the internet was  built for
people with really great eyesight and motor skills. It is very challenging
to checkout,  forms are not properly labeled, and then we have to prove we
are human when solving puzzles for  captcha.

The solution to this problem is that InnoSearch AI has built a a fully
accessible shopping and  service platform that you can find at
InnoSearch.AI. This platform removes all the clutter, things  like popups,
advertisements, and other visual elements that we do not need. It will take
us  directly to the items or services that we are looking for. We can find
and shop at many different  retailers. Some of the retailers are Amazon,
Best Buy, Walmart, Wayfair and Home Depot. It also  supports flight booking.
Most recently they added food and grocery delivery in all 50 States. There
are many major retailers and over one billion products. InnoSearch AI is
built specifically for the  blind and low vision.

On the YouTube video Patrick Long shared a few demos on how this process
works. Innosearch AI has a  tool which is co browse AI and it is their tool
to enable voice activation. He also wanted to share  how we can use this
tool on the phone line as well to shop the entire catalog. They have a toll
free number available 24/7. We can shop the entire e-commerce catalog from
the phone line. The  number is 1-855-746-7478. This is free to use and has
no subscription fees or hidden fees.

We heard a demo for the flight feature with Innosearch AI. It was all voice
based and we did not  need to use the keyboard. It went thru each step and
filled in the information. When errors came up  AI caught it and debugged it
to fill in the right terminology. 

The next demo was on the AI phone line. InnoSearch AI was looking for an
electric toothbrush and  went thru the different options and also read the
reviews. It assisted in the check out process. It  did say seven items and
we ordered one. That is because the phone line has a memory to it and saved
the other items in the cart. Once you start chatting with it, it will save
things like your name  and items. The only thing it does not save is the
payment information.

All of these services can be found at innosearch.ai and the phone line is at
1-855-746-7478.

PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE

This is Presidential Release 556 released on Tuesday, December 30th, 2025.
It is the first release  of 2026 and is the Chapter version.

January 4th is World Braille Day. and President Mark Riccobono wished us a
Happy New Year and Happy  Braille Month.

President Mark Riccobono would like us to think about membership. Membership
is the foundation of  our organization and our work together. January is the
time when a lot of chapters begin collecting  their dues for the new
membership year.

The Baltimore Chapter began collecting 2026 dues a number of months ago to
get ahead of the curve.  President Mark Riccobono urged chapters that we
should update our membership rosters online as  quickly as possible so that
our central database is up to date. He also encouraged members to pay  dues
for 2026 so that we can continue to receive the latest information and
continue to have  access to member benefits.

This is also an opportunity to remind us to go in and check out our member
profile and check out  some of those exclusive member benefits that has been
worked out for Federation members. One  example is our relationship with
AIRA, where Federation members get the deepest discount available  on an
AIRA membership.

We can also get an additional discount on our Bookshare membership, an
exclusive for Federation  members. And recently we announced a relationship
with ElevenLabs and we can find that information  in our member profile. All
of these things are available to us, and we are encouraged to take
advantage of them.

Mark Riccobono also reminded us that we can write our stories for our
publications. One example  being the Braille Monitor.

He shares with us that our stories help to bring color and definition to the
things that we are  working on, to the problems that we face, and to give
hope and inspiration to other blind people,  newly blind or otherwise, where
we are pushing the edges of what we might have perceived was  possible.

Writing articles, sharing our stories in the Braille Monitor, in our
podcast, in other ways, is a  really important way for us to contribute to
the movement. President Mark Riccobono reminds us that  this is our
organization as much as its his. He needs our ideas about what we should be
doing,  what our priorities should be, what things should we be focusing on?

We are free to email President Mark Riccobono at any time and let him know.
His email address is:

officeofthepresident at nfb.org

The ideas of members, the thought patterns that members share with the
leadership, the engagement  and the back and forth is one of the important
elements to keeping our organization strong and  vibrant. It is the ideas of
the community of wisdom that we have that really fuels our ability to  make
a difference for blind people all over the country. We believe that working
together, we can  advance the cause of blind people in new ways.

President Mark Riccobono believes that 2026 will be one of our strongest
years. One of the ways  were going to start the year by doing that is by our
Washington Seminar. Many of us will be  traveling to the Washington Seminar
to be part of our work on the Hill, but he wants us to know  that we all
play an important role in helping to advance our legislative priorities.

President Riccobono does acknowledge that a lot of people might say, Oh,
Congress, they dont do  anything. Its really, we should just give up and
stop trying to get bills passed. We havent  gotten a bill passed in many
years.. It is a fact that if we stop bringing our voice, our  priorities to
Congress, nobody in Congress is going to be talking about blind people or
very few  people will. He reminds us that the fact that we continue to show
up helps keep our concerns, our  issues, and our organization front of mind
with the people in power. And that is an important and  critical factor in
our long-term success.

We do continue to make a significant impression on those in power, and that
has helped our cause in  many ways, especially for keeping bad bills from
coming before Congress. It is so very important  that we continue to show
up. Congress now expects us to show up.

STATE PRESIDENTIAL REPORT

Our State of Illinois President, Marilyn Green, gave us the State Report.
Washington Seminar and  the Great Gathering will be on January 26th. We will
have our appointments on January 27th and  January 28th. We may have one on
the 29th. Our Washington team this year is Denise Avant, Dustin  Cather,
Michelle Ault, Jean Johnson, Kaitlyn Ryan, and Olivia Cichowlas Our
Legislative priorities  are The Blind Americans Return to Work Act and The
Access Technology Affordability Act. We will  also be working on the laws
that the Blind depend on. If anyone has any interest in getting  involved
with Washington Seminar, even though they are not going to Washington DC,
they can reach  out to Denise Avant or Dustin Cather. They will assist us
more in learning about our legislative  priorities.

We have State and National Scholarship programs which opened on December
1st. The deadline for the  National Scholarship Program is March 31st and
the deadline for the State Scholarship program is  April 15th. If we know of
any blind or low vision students who are pursuing a post-secondary
education let them know about our Scholarship programs. For students that
are interested go to:

nfb.org/scholarships

The State of Illinois will be giving away at least one $5000.00 Scholarship.
For information we can  go to:

nfbofillinois/scholarships

We can submit the same information for both of these scholarships. A letter
of recommendation,  transcripts, and an essay. If the websites do not answer
all of our questions feel free to reach  out to Marilyn Green at:

president at nfbofillinois.org

Midwest Student Seminar is coming up on the weekend of March 13th. This is
for students in the  Midwest region, but we do have students from outside of
the Midwest Region attend. If we have a  rehab case open, rehab should cover
the attendance. If you would like more information on the  Midwest Student
Seminar please reach out to Marllyn Green or you can reach out to Nicky
Jackson who  is the employment programs coordinator at our National Office.
Nickys email address is is:

njackson at nfb.org . 

The agenda is currently being worked on by our National Association of Blind
Students Division  which we call NABS. It will be held at the Holiday Inn
Chicago OHare. This weekend of programming  is led by the students.

We have National Convention coming up on July 3rd thru July 8th in Austin
Texas. We can get more  information at:

nfb,org/convention.

We can also get more information on The Braille Monitor. The Braille Monitor
is our flagship  publication. There is a number of different ways we can
access it. It is online, through nfb.org,  there is also a podcast. It has
the hotel information on it, the number to call for reservations  and the
deadline. If this is your first time going to National Convention or if you
have never been  in person you can apply for the Kenneth Jernigan Convention
Scholarship. There is a link on:

nfb.org/convention

You would fill out the information on the application. It asks for
information about your mentors  that you will have, about the chapter you
are in as well as the activities within your chapter or  your Affiliate that
you participate in. The deadline to submit the application for the Kenneth
Jernigan Scholarship is April 15th.The Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship offers
some modest assistance  to attend the National Convention for first timers.

State Convention will be the weekend of October 22nd at the Hyatt, in Lisle,
Illinois,

We will also be having STEM2U with Alaula Sprecher and Olivia Cichowlas.

We will be having NFB BELL the week of July 20th thru August 1st and NFB
BELL will be in  Springfield July 13th through July 17th.

OLD BUSINESS

none

NEW BUSINESS

Our next meeting will be on February 1st at 7:00PM

ADJOURNMENT

Bill Reif moved to adjourn and Linda Hendle seconded. All in favor said AYE.
Meeting was  adjourned at 8:22PM

Respectfully Submitted,

Michelle Ault

Secretary/Treasurer

. 

Date:

Saturday, January 24 at 9:05 AM

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