[il-talk] chicago minutes december draft 2.

[David Meyer]

NFBI CHICAGO CHAPTER MEETING

DECEMBER 8, 2018

Chicago Chapter First Vice President, Patti Chang, called the meeting 
to order at 12:09 PM. Everyone in attendance recited the NFB pledge. 
The next order of business was introductions. At the beginning of the 
meeting, we had 25 in attendance. Of note was the following: Denise 
Avant, State President and national board meeting thanked everyone who 
attended the 50th annual convention of the NFBI. She stated we received 
an award from Horizons for the Blind and we had people with us that we 
had not had in a long time. Denise said that she had been appointed to 
a prestigious committee on the American Bar Association. Robert Hansen 
reported that he was in the process of filling out all kinds of forms 
in becoming a substitute teacher for Chicago Public Schools. Gina Falvo 
stated that she is a 7 year breast cancer survivor. Ken Borst mentioned 
that if you have cable TV and live within the city of Chicago, please 
tune in to Channel 19 on the Adaptive Chicago Productions Voices of the 
Disabled on Saturday, December 22, 2018 and Saturday January, 5, 2019, 
at 11:30 AM,
AUCTION LOGISTICS: Patti will keep track of overall auction tallies. 
Debbie Stein keep track of tabs-people who want to run a tab. Mary Lou 
Grunwald and Pam Provost will be running the auction table. People who 
will be running a tab at the auction: Patti, Giovanni, Jamal, Denise, 
Marilyn, Alisa, Eileen and Francisco will be runners. Ed Birmingham and 
Giovanni Francese were the auctioneers.
PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE #478: President of the NFB, Mark Riccobono started 
the released by talking about that on the weekend of November
30th to December 2, 2018, the board of directors of the NFB as well as 
the board of directors of the Jacobus TenBroek fund in the building of 
the Jernigan Institute for meetings and planning for the year ahead and 
many great things are in store for the NFB. Mr. Riccobono wanted to 
thank everyone who filled out the blind voters survey, but this year we 
have had a record number of blind voters complete our blind voters 
survey. the work on the issue of payment of subminimum wages to blind 
people continues, Mr. Riccobono had an op ed in The Hill last week 
about the 14C issue, It was entitled American Nightmare--how workers 
with disabilities are denied economic prosperity. We are encouraged to 
look it up online and share it around to help advance our efforts to 
eliminate 14C from the Fair Labor Standards Act. Our 2019 Washington 
Seminar, our Great Gathering In meeting will be happening on Monday, 
January 28. 2019 at 5:00 PM. The Deadline for reserving hotel space at 
the Holiday Innis December 28, 2018. You can visit 
NFB.org/Washington-Seminar to find all the information about Washington 
Seminar including the hotel information as a reminder. The group rate 
for the Holiday Inn is $196 per night. This rate does not include the 
DC sales tax which is currently 14.95% You can find the online booking 
information by visiting the page on our website or you can make 
reservations by calling 8 7 7-5 7 2-6 9 5 and be sure to refer to the 
booking code NB8. NFB-NewsLine Skill for the Amazon ECHO. To find the 
skill on your Amazon Echo, you just say Alexa open national federation. 
Mr. Riccobono gave a short demonstration on how it works. You can get 
to any of the publications on NewsLine. Were still working on some 
methods on enabling other features like television listings. You’ll be 
able to get to all of your favorite publications. You can use this to 
email articles to yourself just like you can through the other means 
just asking the device to send you the article via email. All you have 
to say is "Open National Federation ". You don’t have to go into your 
smartphone. You don’t have to enable anything. If you call it up for 
the first time, it is going to day that it does not recognize your 
device and you have to enable each device. It will ask you if you want 
to log on and, if you choose to log on, it will guide you through 
asking for your 6 digit identification number and your 4 digit pin. So 
make sure you have those handy before you set up the skilled iron ECHO. 
Once its set up, it’s there, it’s ready to go and you can get all of 
the features that you’re used to. Because of the voice interface, some 
of the commands are a little different. So you will want to refer to 
the documentation when it comes out. This release is the first time we 
are publicly stating that this skill is now available. So go join 
NFB-NewsLine, if you are not already participating in the program. It 
is free. You can join online by typing nfb.org/nfbnewsline or talk to 
one of the members of the local chapter or your state NewsLine 
coordinator, now available on the Amazon Echo. Mr. Riccobono wants to 
acknowledge our Federation chapters that are contributing to the 
Preauthorized Contribution Plan (PAC) of the National Federation of the 
Blind. Mark would like to apologize to the NFB of Idaho that he 
misidentified on the last release as the NFB of Ohio. This month Mr. 
Riccobono acknowledged from the NFB of Illinois Chicago Chapter, from 
Iowa the Des Moines Chapter, from the NFB of Kentucky our greater 
Louisville Chapter and from the NFB of Louisiana our Kato Vosher 
chapter , the Greater Baton Rouge chapter, the Greater New Orleans 
Chapter, the Greater Whoshita Chapter, the Greater St. Landry Chapter, 
Lake Area Chapter, the North Central Chapter and the North East 
Chapter. New members of our Dream Makers Circle include Avraham (Rami) 
Rabby from Tel Aviv, Israel, Marilyn Green of Chicago and Sheila Wright 
of Kansas City Missouri. Federation Family Notes: Raul Giagos of Texas 
married Stacy Hardy (now Giagos) on October 26th. The marriage proposal 
was made at the NFB of Texas the year before. Also on November 3, 
Michael Osben married Brie Brown, who is a staff member at the 
Louisiana Center for the Blind. Mr. Riccobono states that he is truly 
grateful for the small acts of kindness that each and every one of us 
put into fueling what we do for our organization. We’ve tackled some 
big things this year. We’ve got the Marrakesh Treaty through the 
congress and signed by the president. We finalized the Space Available 
Bill which we have been working on for a decade. At the end of the 
release, a choir from Guatemala sang Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Additional people who came to the meeting were Steve Hastalis, Glen 
Moore, Nikki Nicodema, so in toto, there were 28 people at the meeting.
STATE PRESIDENTIAL REPORT: 1. National Convention: Starting January 1, 
2019, you can start calling the Mandalay Bay Hotel for room 
reservations. The national convention is from July 7 to 12. Denise 
advised those going to convention that starting January 1 or 2, go to 
the NFB website, look for the hotel number, call and get in your 
reservation. For those who need convention assistance from the 
affiliate, apply to the Chappell-Dennis fund and that application is on 
the NFBI website at nfbofillinois.org. Applications will need to be in 
to Denise by May 1. Also, if you are a first time attendee although not 
necessarily, you can apply for a Jernigan convention scholarship, that 
application is due April 15. So get your letters to Denise telling her 
why you want to go to national convention, what you done in the 
affiliate, who is going to be your mentor when you get to the 
convention. Denise needs those by March 31. The actual registration for 
convention is from March 1 to May 31 and that will be online at our 
national website at nfb.org. 2. Washington Seminar: Marilyn Green 
reports that we have 10 people going this year from the NFBI. They are, 
Marilyn Green, Patti Chang, Steve Hastalis, Louis Wood from the Four 
Rivers Chapter, Libby Houston from the Ferris Wheel Chapter. We gave 4 
students going this year: Dustin Cather, Emma Meyer, Dex Leon who is 
one of our scholarship winners this year, Ellen Bartel and David Meyer. 
We dont know our legislative agenda yet, but, when it comes, it will go 
on ill-talk. The dates of the Washington Seminar are January 28 to 
January 31. Patti Chang already made the hotel room reservations for 
everyone going from Illinois. People from the Chicago chapter should 
see Steve or Marco to pick up your stipends that the Chicago Chapter 
has awarded to help you with your travel and any other expenses. 3. 
Braille Readers are Leaders: Debbie Stein reports that the nationwide 
Braille Readers are Leaders is underway. Registrations have been coming 
in from all over the country . We have 21 states registered including 
Illinois. States from all over the country are recruiting students. 
They’re visiting the schools for the blind and trying to get some 
enthusiasm generated there. We’ve got some students who took part 
previously and many many new students including one child now from 
Illinois who we did not know before. Registration is now open until the 
end of the contest which is January 19. Denise asked that if anyone 
knows of any young blind kids from K through 12th grade, please 
encouraged them to get involved. We might also want to reach some of 
our BELL students. if anybody has any connection with the Illinois 
School for the Visually Impaired,please reach out to them as well. 4. 
Scholarship Programs: The time period for applying for both the state 
and national programs from the NFB and the NFBI is now open, it has 
been since November 1. It ends on March 31 for the national program at 
11:59 PM eastern time. For the Illinois scholarship program, it ends at 
11:59 central time. If any student is going to apply, they should go to 
the Illinois website to download the application, read it very 
carefully, fill it out and send everything back to Debbie Stein. For 
the national program, it is nfb.org/scholarships. So if you know any 
college-age students, please encourage them to apply for the NFB and 
NFBI scholarship programs. 5. Blind Services Planning Council call: 
Denise was on call with the Blind Services planning council. John 
Gordon and Ingrid Halverson were also on the call. Denise mentions that 
back in the late spring, it was thought that it would be a good idea to 
merge the blindness and deaf services and now the Bureau of Field 
Services is involved. There are surveys that have been conducted thus 
far, but the survey regarding how well the pilot merger with the 4 
offices is lacking depth. There is not a lot of information there. They 
had 4 counselors from BBS and 4 counselors from the Bureau of Field 
Services filling out these surveys and only 4 of the 8 counselors 
actually filled out the surveys The timeline is going to run something 
like this: The pilot merger will be over on December 15th. Ingrid 
Halverson, who is the assistant bureau chief, will review the surveys, 
she will talk to the people involved in the surveys and then she will 
write a report. Someone asked a question during the meeting if BBS was 
going to survey the customers who had been served during the pilot 
merger project period. Ingrid responded that she had not really thought 
about it. John pointed out that if that was to happen, that would take 
a long time to gather up the information, There is a possibility that 
they will take a sample to see what the consumers thought about it. 
Ingrid will be writing her report and it is to be submitted to director 
Wade, Lou Hamer (director of Field Services) and John at the end of 
January. NFBI did pass a resolution opposing the merger. John announced 
that Derrick Philips wrote in his report that over at ICRE Wood, they 
are trying to switch from the medical model of delivering services to 
their customers to the rehabilitation model. They have a new leader of 
the industrial arts program which is basically the workshop, how to do 
things for yourself in the home, make repairs, etc. Denise asked John 
whether one of your members could come over and tour ICRE Wood and he 
thought it would be a great idea So someone from NFBI as well as from 
ICB, if they wish, can go and see what is going on over at ICRE Wood. 
Debbie Stein is going to be speaking to the classat ICRE Wood on 
December 12. So we have now become part of their speakers bureau again. 
Debbie will get a chance to tell them about our philosophy, who we are 
and what we do. 6. In addition, Denise wanted to thank everybody for 
everything that we do for our affiliate and our chapter. We have 
participated in some great things this year, our BELL programs, our 
scholarship program in addition to getting Marrakesh and space 
available passed. We celebrated our 50th anniversary. Denise wanted to 
wish everyone happy holidays and happy new year.

Patti Chang stated that the first president of the NFBI, Avraham (Rami) 
Rabby, found out a couple of weeks ago that he has stomach cancer. 
Patti urges people who know him to reach out with good wishes and 
prayers. Patti has ramis email. Rami thinks his cancer is treatable. He 
is in the beginning phase of figuring out what’s going on.

Our chapter president, Steve Hastalis, took over the meeting and he 
talked about upcoming fundraising items. The most notable item is on 
Saturday, January 12, our annual Games Night at Exchequer Restaurant. 
Cost is $25. For $25, you get salad, soft drinks and various kinds of 
pizza. We need to let Exchequer know the final count the week before 
the event. So we will have a closing date of Tuesday, January 8. We 
will not take reservations on the day of the event. Dave and Teresa 
Meyer are collecting reservations. Their phone number is 708-209-1767. 
Daves email address is datemeyer at mysero.net . Other fundraising 
projects we will do later on in the year include our annual Beggars 
Pizza, and our 2nd annual comedy club night at Zanies. Patti took names 
of people going to Games Night. The following signed up for Games 
Night: Steve Hastalis, Denise Avant, Pam Provost, Jamal Powell, Michal 
Nowicki, Eileen Truschke, Ken Schad, Alisa Gray, Valencia Howard, Kira 
Obranovich, Nick Robertson, Paul Shepherdson, Marilyn Green, Dave 
Meyer, Teresa Meyer, NikkiNishajima, Glen Moore, MarcoGiannotti, Mary 
Lou Grunwald, Robert Hansen, Debbie Stein. We will have a guest speaker 
at the January meeting, someone whom we have had before, We have 
invited Karen Tambley, commissioner of the Mayors Office for People 
with Disabilities to come and address this group. She will have some 
useful information and she welcomes comments from the public. CTAs ADA 
Advisory Committee will meet on Monday, January 14th.

OLD-NEW BUSINESS: Eileen Truschke enquired about what we made on the 
Readathon in November. Marco said that it will be in next months 
report. There was no other old or new business.
We did not take up a collection at the December meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:17 PM.

Respectfully Submitted: Eileen F. Truschke Acting Secretary