[IL-Talk] chicago minutes november 2019

[David Meyer]

Below my signature, you will find the minutes for the November meeting. If
you have any additions or corrections, please reply to this message.

 

David Meyer, NFB of Illinois

Coordinator and Channel Administrator, NFB-NewsLine

Chicago Chapter President

 

 

NFBI CHICAGO CHAPTER MINUTES

 

MEETING OF NOVEMBER 9, 2019

 

The meeting was called to order at 1:00 pm.

In the absence of President David Meyer, First Vice President, Patti Chang,
ran the meeting.

Patti noted that many have not paid their dues for 2019. Whoever pays their
dues for 2019 either in November or December, dues will carry through for
2020 even if you had not paid for 2019. Also, if anyone owes for fifteen for
Funds money or charger money, Patti will collect money after the meeting.
Patti asked State President, Denise Avant, to run the microphone and State
First Vice President, Debbie Stein to do the collection. Patti asked why she
might have picked those 2 people. Second Vice President, Jemal Powell stated
that Patti picked those 2 was that she wanted to distribute the work to
those individuals who are totally blind. Patti states that sometimes it's an
impulse to pick someone who has some residual vision or someone who is
sighted and we need to demonstrate by example that that isn't something we
have to do. Patti reminded us that the December 8 meeting will start at noon
because we have the Christmas auction.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Patti reports that Julia has moved to South Bend, Indiana serving as a civil
engineer and project manager at the Four Winds Casino. Gina Falvo thanked
everyone for the condolences for the death of her mother in September. She
received phone calls and saw the posts on Ill-talk. Jemal Powell stated that
on November 9, 1991, he joined NFBI. Michal Nowicki reports that as of
October 1, he is now a full-time employee. Michal also mentioned that he
submitted comments individually talking about his experiences with video
description and how it has benefitted him and his comments are featured in a
report to Congress. Debbie reports that applications are going to be out
very shortly for the NFB of Illinois scholarships. She also wanted to invite
anyone who is interested that she will be doing a 15-minute solo show at
Chicago Dramatists Theatre on 11/23. Ken Borst announced that he interviewed
Debbie Pittman on a show with Adaptive Chicago Productions. The air dates
are 11/16, 11/23 and 12/7 at 11:30 am on Channel 19, a CAN TV channel. Patti
suggested that we view the program after the December meeting between or
after the auction. We had a total of 23 people attend the meeting.

PROGRAM:

Thought provoker called My Sister's Keeper, author David Lavette This story
was about a guy named JC defending his sister, Rhonda, who is blind, who
tripped on a string that a fellow student, Brian, left out as a prank. JC
wanted to take Brian downtown to press assault charges on Brian, however,
Rhonda's friend, Mandy, wanted Rhonda to press charges herself. We had
opinions about this story. Denise said that it should be the blind person,
once it is apparent who actually done this, that needs to be the one to
actually say "this is a bunch of nonsense and I want to press charges." It
should not be just left up to another party who happens to be a witness to
what's going on. Chapter treasurer, Steve Hastalis thinks that if a blind
person wants to press charges or, otherwise, make the complaint about
bullying or bad behavior, we ought to think about it in terms in the context
of this is bad behavior that requires some kind of reinstruction or
reprimand or if it's just a blindness thing. Jemal had 2 schools of thought
on this. On the one hand, he agrees with Denise that it should be the blind
individual who seeks the action of punishment because the blind individual
was the victim. On the other hand, Jemal agrees with what Steve said about
the totality of the situation. Certainly what the guy did was not right and
there was no excuse for that. But one could ask could it be proven that it
was based on blindness. Debbi wanted to get back to the title of this piece
which is "My Sister's Keeper" because the first thing that struck her about
is the brother who says that he had to miss the game because he had to stay
and make sure that his sister is safe. So it sets up a premise that his
sister cannot fully take care of herself because she is blind. He says these
guys might be hitting on her and she would not know what's going on, so he
has to monitor the situation, which it turns out he wasn't very good at
doing because the trip that happened regardless of the fact that he was
watching to protect her. But Debbie thinks it highlights what happens in a
lot of families and even friendship situations where the sighted person
feels like they're being held responsible for what happens to the blind
person rather than the blind person being given the confidence to believe
that they can be responsible for themselves. Per Patti: Dr. Jernigan wrote
an article The Hierarchy of Sight He talks about a lot of the agencies that
will put people who have a residual or partial vision in charge of people
with no vision. So Patti suggested that in light of the thought provoker,
people would go back and look for that speech. We should think about the
hierarchy of sight and how we sometimes reinforce that when we do things
like pick people who have residual vision and pick a sighted person to do
things like run the collection or microphone. If we do that all the time,
what message are you sending? Laura Cordingly stated that she did not want
people speaking for her as a blind person. What was done to Rhonda is bad to
do to anyone regardless of whether the person is disabled or not. Patti
pointed out that Mrs. Jernigan (wife of Dr. Jernigan) wrote about what was
most painful (she is sighted, he is blind) was the fact that people assumed
that she was his caregiver instead of someone who made her feel safe, care
for and loved. Marylou Grunwald talked about how she was picked on in school
in the 50s. She said her grandfather got more than anybody else in her
family that she needed tools to be free. But he would come around the school
and try to protect her. Finally, Marylou got to a point where she thought
this has got to stop because she has to stop it. Somebody was picking on her
and she turned around and slapped this person and knocked him on the ground.
Her grandfather saw her do that and said "all right. You take care of
yourself." 

APPROVAL OF SECRETARY'S MINUTES:

The September 14, 2019 minutes were approved. 

Ed Birmingham joined the meeting.

TREASURER'S REPORT THIRD QUARTER 2019 (JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER):

Beginning balance Monday, July 1, 2019: $3,837.41. Income White Sox tickets
$30 each: Funds Transfers, $60, $60; checks, $120, $240, $300; Cash, $60,
$30; Subtotal, $870. Monthly collections: Saturday, August 10, 2019 meeting,
$79; Saturday, September 14, 2019 meeting $94; Subtotal, $173. Dues, 3 new
members paid $5 apiece, $15, Saturday, July 27th, Chicago Chapter Picnic at
St. Andrews Church. One new member paid $5 on Saturday, September 14, 2019,
Chicago Chapter meeting. Subtotal $20. Cane tips, $2 apiece, $10, $6,
Subtotal, $16. Donations $50. Read-a-thon, $100. Total
($870+$150+$173+$20+$16+$100=$1229). Therefore the total income was $1229.
Expenses: Electronic withdrawals, NFB PAC, Preauthorized contributions to
National Federation of the Blind, $50 monthly, July, August,
September-Subtotal $150, Total $150. That was our only expense. Ending
balance Monday, September 30, 2019; ($3837.41+$41+1229-$150). Therefore, the
ending balance is $4,916.41. Patti stressed that keep in mind the treasury
is still lower than it needs to be to do the things that we want to do. We
just did a budget in September. That budget among other minor changes
reduced our planned expenditures for Washington Seminar from $2000 to $1000.
That means we will be sending fewer people from the chapter or people will
have to cover more of their own expense. Either one is not a good solution.
So that's a way of urging us all to please get auction items. Let's make the
December auction well enough to change that number back. Debbie asked how
much we made on the Read-a-thon. Nick Robertson, fundraising chair, stated
that the committee did have a meeting last Tuesday night, 11/5 and
tentatively Dave Meyer said that we are counting on around $1200 for this
year's Read-a-thon. The treasure's report was approved. 

PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE #488, October 30, 2019:

President Mark Riccobono said that we are in the final stretch of the fall
convention season. There is so much great stuff happening around the
country. We're getting ready for the fall meeting of the board of directors,
that will happen in early December. Mr. Riccobono thanked every one of us
for the tremendous NFB Meet the Blind month around the country. You may have
seen that there is a federal regulation that is receiving comments right now
the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act. The regulation that is being
clarified is the one that allows car companies to have multiple sounds for
cars. This means that cars can have 1, 22 or 3 different sounds that a
customer could choose that their car would make. There is some
misinformation going on out there about this and would like to help clarify
it. First of all, the NFB helped to pass the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement
Act in early 2011. It was signed by President Obama and we were the lead
organization in regulating that law. We also followed through with the
regulations. Early in the process, we agreed that car companies could have
multiple sounds as long as they met all of the qualifications that are
required in the federal regulations. Now we agree with the qualifications.
We helped to set the standards. And so, from our perspective as long as the
sounds meet the federal standards for what they want them to be, we weren't
too worried and still are not worried about there being multiple sounds.
Every car company is permitted to come up with its own sound and some of
them want to come up with more than one sound to help with consumer
adoption. They're unlikely to come up with too many sounds because they have
to get each of them certified as meeting the federal standards and that
costs them a lot of money, so it's not likely to cause a problem. What has
always been important for us is that we have a soundscape that is hearable
and recognizable as a moving vehicle. We have done extensive testing of our
own, we've been very influential with the car companies and they have come
to our point of view. There are some things circulating that suggest that
this is rolling back what we got implemented with the Pedestrian Safety
Enhancement Act and that's simply not true. 

We are going to have a convention in 2020. We announced at the national
convention this year that our convention in 2020 would be in Houston, Texas
from June 30 to July 5. In fact, we were planning on that. The City of
Houston came to us a couple of weeks ago and said they had a need to talk to
us about potentially moving the dates of our convention. We initially told
them there's no way we can do that. We talked to them a little further. We
have a great reputation for working collaboratively and that is one of the
reasons we get the rates and benefits that we do to host a convention of our
size. The board of directors ultimately agreed to move the dates of the 2020
National Convention back 2 weeks to July 14-July 19, 2020. These dates are
now set in stone; you can bank on them unless something really traumatic
happens. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. When
we were in Orlando, we used to always tell people that the convention dates
were not set in stone until November 1 and that was a provision we had in
our contract to permit some flexibility, which helped with our negotiations.
We are going to have a great convention in Houston. We're looking forward to
it and hope that you can be with us in Houston, Texas July 14-19 (Tuesday to
Sunday). They'll be more information about the convention in the December
Braille Monitor.

Now that we're approaching November 1, our national scholarship program
applications are available on our website. Our scholarship program is for
blind students pursuing or planning to pursue a full-time post-secondary
program in 2020 in the fall of 2020. The eligibility requirements and
frequently asked questions, the application can all be found on our website
at http://www.nfb.org/scholarships (/programs-services/scholarships-and
awards/ scholarship-program. Help spread the word. Our scholarship program
is the most extensive program for blind students in the nation and it comes
with mentoring from some of the most dynamic leaders in the field of
blindness. It also creates personal relationships that are more valuable
than the dollars it provides to the students. We get great partners working
with us on our scholarship program that add value to it. Please spread the
word. We want to get as many blind students to apply as possible so that we
can also get connected with them. Visit our website, talk to your local
university, and Spread our scholarship information to all the places you can
think of.

Braille Readers are Leaders contest is coming up and you can now register
for the contest, which is both a reading contest for blind children and
blind adults. So it's a great opportunity to encourage Braille reading,
sharing of teaching techniques and reading techniques within your chapter.
The Braille Readers are Leaders contest is administered by the American
Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults, a strong partner of ours and we
continue to be a partner in this contest. Blind children and adults across
the country will compete in the contest to read the most pages and you'll
log those pages and submit them to the contest. There will be prizes for
participating and for the winners in each category. The contest officially
runs from December 1, 2019, to January 20, 2020. You can learn more about
the contest at actionfund.org/bral (https://actionfund.org/BRAL). Use this
as a way to promote Braille, Braille reading and sharing within your
chapters. 

Also, it's the time of year when we partner with Santa Claus. So we have an
announcement from Patricia Mauer, which says Santa Claus has made the staff
at the NFB Jernigan Institute honorary elves once again. He has asked us to
help him send letters in Braille to very young blind boys and girls, those
under the age of 10. The program is for blind children in the United States,
and the applications or the form to fill out to get a letter from Santa
Claus will be available starting November 11 and will continue to be
available through December 16. Parents can go online at
http://www.nfb.org/santa -letters (/programs-services/early-childhood
-initiatives/Santa-letters) and fill out a Santa Braille letter request
form. You can find the form there and if you need to you can print it and
fax it to 410-685-2340 or you can email the form to
communityrelations at nfb.org. The letters will start leaving our building on
Monday, December 2, so that they can be there on time. You'll want to get
your request in no later than December 16, so it's there just on time for
the end of December. If you have questions, you can go to our website and
read more information.

In the past month, we've experienced some delay with the Braille version of
our flagship publication, The Braille Monitor, We apologize for that. The
vendor that we used ran into some difficulties and that put the
August/September issue behind schedule in terms of getting out and into your
hands. We think that delay has now been rectified. It's possible it will
have an impact on the October and possibly the November issue as well. You
should be anticipating those Braille copies of the Braille Monitor coming to
you real soon, 

Please send articles or ideas for articles to Gary Wunder, our Braille
Monitor editor. He's eager to get content from Federationists about things
you'd like to see in the Monitor and especially if you write it, your
stories, your experiences, we'd like to consider them for the Monitor. You
can send them to gwunder at nfb.org.

Federation family news: This past weekend, October 26 or 27, Herbert Mangon
of Maryland died. From our Missouri affiliate, Ben and Theresa Versalone
report the birth of their daughter, Mi Kyong Versalone, who was born on
October 17, 2019, weighing 8 pounds 13 ounces and measuring 21.5 inches
long. Mi Kyong means beautiful and bright in Korean.

President Riccobono wants to congratulate all of our chapters on doing some
fantastic outreach to welcome people into the Federation. Help them know
about our organization. He hopes that you have a very happy Halloween and
that you'll have a great safe and joyous time with all the holidays coming
up. 

After the presidential release, Patti announced that our longest-standing
national board member, Donald Capps, died on 11/7. He was a previous
president of our South Carolina affiliate. 

Glen Moore joined the meeting at this point.

STATE REPORT:

Denise: On 10/30, 10/31 and 11/1/2020, the National Federation of the Blind
of Illinois will have our state convention at the Naperville-Lisle Sheraton
Hotel. So that's going to be in Lisle, Illinois. The room rates are $99 per
night. The face-to-face board meeting will be 8/29/20. So please mark your
calendars You might have heard Debbie mention earlier that the scholarship
application period is open. When the application for the state scholarship
program is ready, it will be placed on our website at nfbofillinois.org. As
with the national application period, it will go to March 31st. Applications
have to be into Debbie by 11:59 pm central standard time. The national
application is in the Eastern Time zone. If you know of someone, if you are
at Second Sense, if you are at Blind Services, if you go to the Lighthouse
or if you just happen to know a legally blind student in general who is in
college or is getting a post-secondary degree, please let them know about
the NFB state and the national scholarship programs. Also please urge them
to read the application carefully and follow the requirements of the
application. As state president, Denise does not like to see people
disqualified right off the bat because they left out a piece of paper.
Denise hopes that everyone in Chicago that wants to attend Washington
Seminar will fill out an application. The application to Washington Seminar
is due to Denise Avant by 11:59 pm on 12/1. Denise's email address is
davant1958 at gmail.com. Again please read carefully, don't change the
formatting, we don't want to receive an image file. Everybody on the
committee is blind and if we get something that we can't work with JAWS or
NVDA, then we can't consider you. Denise urges everyone that wants to attend
Washington Seminar to at least fill out the application because you don't
know what's going to happen. We may do a really great job with our
fundraiser and everyone that wants to go will be given an opportunity to do
so. 

Federal legislation: Marilyn Green, the legislative queen informs us that we
just got a new cosponsor for access technology, Darin LaHood. We need 2 more
people on House Ways and Means and, hopefully, they will renew their
cosponsor ship. They were cosponsors of the previous congress. If you live
in Darin LaHood's district (his district is downstate) or if you know anyone
who lives or works in the district, please let them know to send an email,
to post on Facebook or twitter. That announcement will go out on social
media shortly as well. Please let them know how thankful we are. If this is
passed, it can change the way we access information and be able to be more
independent in the workplace and in school. We have Washington Seminar
coming up. It is a great opportunity to learn about our organization, how we
advocate for ourselves, and a great opportunity to network with other
Federationists throughout the country. The Great Gathering In is on February
10. We will be on the "hill" on February 11 and 12, possibly on the 13th
depending on how appointments run. Marilyn hopes that many people in this
room will apply and, if you know others who might be interested, please let
them know. We're always looking for people outside of Chicago to apply. We
need to have representation from various communities. There were resolutions
that passed at our state convention commending Jesus "Chui" Garcia, who has
cosponsored Access Technology Affordability Act and the Transformation to
Competitive Employment Act.

Denise reports that we were able to give Senator Tammy Duckworth the Annette
R. Grove Legislative Award. She actually sent a representative from her
Downstate office. She couldn't be with us, but she thought enough of us to
send Randy Sakowski, her assistant, to come to our banquet, He stayed for
the whole banquet and mingled with our members. We're so appreciative of
Senator Duckworth's support on everything that we have done since she has
been a US senator. The next state board meeting is going to be Monday night,
December 9 at 7:00 pm. All are welcome to call in at 605-313-4819 and the
code is 6324 (NFBI). Denise added that for those of you who may have friends
who wonder about the NFB, what we do, what we believe in, what we are as
people, we have been having monthly call-ins. So for even-numbered months,
it's the 3rd Sunday of the month, and odd-numbered months, it's the 3rd
Wednesday. They are trying to keep the group small. So, if you know someone
who is interested in learning more about the NFB, they can call the national
office at 410-659-9314 and ask somebody in membership and ask to be added to
the list. If that person is selected, they will be given the call-in
information and they can call in and ask experienced Federationists about
the NFB. Steve wanted to know if the hotel will pick up folks at the train
Patti said that the hotel will. 

All in attendance recited the one-minute message and the NFB pledge.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Fundraising Committee: Fundraising Committee chair, Nick Robertson,
verbalized that we had a fundraising meeting last Tuesday, 11/5 on a
conference call. Present were Marco, Mary, Ed, Dave, Steve and Nick. We were
missing Giovanni Francese. Last year we brought in an estimated $2,400.
Read-a-thon brought in this year an estimated $1,200. We have chosen to get
rid of the White Sox fundraiser. It has become more labor-intensive to get
group tickets and it hasn't raised the money that we had hoped for in
regards to the amount of work it takes for that fundraiser. We have rolled
out the introduction of some new ideas. In lieu of the White Sox fundraiser,
we are thinking of having a second auction in the summertime. Also, we're
looking at the possibility of a Chicago Chapter-sponsored gala where we
would be able to dress up nice and have a semiformal or formal event. We're
still looking at the possibility of potential locations. We have had 2
already brought to us. If anybody has any idea of potential locations that
we can have a gala at, you can contact Nick at 641-660-2475 or email at
nicholas.s.robertson at outlook.com for potential places to have a Chicago
Chapter-sponsored gala. We're also looking at a game watch, either college
or professional-endeavors. We're also looking at bringing back the Zanies
comedy fundraiser. We're looking to be able to bring the Washington Seminar
budget back up to $2000. So that's our immediate goal. We're also bringing
back bowling. We're keeping everything from this year minus the White Sox
fundraiser. Patti asked Nick to talk to her about the gala at some point
because that is a fundraiser that will have to run through our state
affiliate because of the insurance requirements. Jemal asked if there was a
possibility of working the summer auction in with the gala. That is
something that we will look at. Nick verbalized that the fundraising
committee is going to have a face-to-face meeting in January before the
general meeting. Patti reminded us that all of our committee meetings with a
couple of very small exceptions are open meetings. So anytime we mention an
open meeting, you're welcome to join. Steve asked if we want to combine the
Christmas in July auction with our annual summer picnic. Patti suggested
that Jemal and Steve come to the next fundraising meeting. 

Membership Committee: Robert Hansen is working with getting an updated
database. He does get numbers from people. He sees new people come in. Every
time we go to BSA or all the usual places, try to encourage people to come
to our chapter meetings. Some people don't want to. We did have a good
turnout in September. He does his fan outs about a week ahead. He says to
try to encourage people to come here because we do speak for ourselves.
Let's try to get a whole bunch of new people down here for the Christmas
auction and, hopefully, we'll keep them coming back. Patti suggested that we
call a next membership meeting in the next couple of months as to how we are
going to handle next year as far as outreach. Gina Falvo asked about Ken
Staley. Pam Gilmore got a call from Ken this morning. He left a message for
Pam and said he is in St. Joseph Hospital. He is finding it difficult to
control his blood sugar right now. Once he is stabilized, he'll probably go
back to Warren Barr Pavilion for more nursing care. So we need to keep him
in our prayers. Give him a call. You can call the main number for St. Joseph
Hospital. We don't know how long he is going to be there, but he loves to
get calls. Denise gave the number for St. Joseph Hospital. The general
number is 773-665-3000.

OLD BUSINESS:

We actually took part in a Blind Service Association Vision Expo back on
October 17. Jemal Powell and Ken Borst went. Ken Borst states that he was
impressed as to how many people came over to the table and spoke with Jemal
and him. It was great. Denise had given him 2 stacks of business cards and
other literature. They gave out a lot of literature. They gave out almost 1
stack of business cards. When they got finished, Bill Green came up and gave
them both a firm handshake and said thanks for coming and please do this
next year. Ken said to Jim that the National Federation of the Blind had not
been invited before and that is why we hadn't participated before and we
would be very happy to do this should we be invited. Patti asked Ken to
reach out to Bill in February. So if we reach out nice and early and remind
him that we would like to participate and then keep contacting him every
month until we get an invite. We're going to have to be very proactive on
this and then they'll get used to us and we'll be there every year. Patti
thanked Ken and Jemal for taking the time to do that especially the day
before the state convention. 

Steve: The November collection brought in $165 today. A donor wrote a very
generous check. The fourth quarter treasurer's report went up. Our balance
right now is $4,686.41 including today's revenue. Patti pointed out that it
still is not enough for Washington Seminar yet, but we're working on it.
Steve looked through his notes from his previous time as treasurer. 

NEW BUSINESS:

Steve informed us that Leslie Hamric plays cello at the Elmhurst Symphony
orchestra. The Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra will have a concert on November
10, at 3 pm at 149 Rush Hill Road. One of the most noteworthy pieces of all
time is Schakowsky's 6th Symphony and Leslie will join her fellow musicians
from the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra and perform that piece. 

The meeting adjourned at 2:37 pm.

 

Respectfully submitted, Eileen F. Truschke, Secretary