[IL-Talk] chicago minutes january 2020 draft three

[David Meyer]

NFBI CHICAGO CHAPTER MEETING

 

JANUARY 11, 2020

 

President David Meyer called the meeting to order at 1:01 pm.

Postponement of Games Night: Dave announced that he made an executive
decision to reschedule Games Night. Games Night will be rescheduled
following the March meeting due to the weather. Dave also stated that with
some luck, we might have actually had a little more participation in March
than we would have in January. 

 

Upcoming Meeting Dates: Dave says we will be meeting on February 8 (the 2nd
Saturday of the month). In March, there will be the St. Patrick's Day Parade
on March 14th. So we have rescheduled the March meeting for Saturday, March
7th, starting at 1:00 pm. There will not be an April meeting in observance
of the Easter weekend and Passover week, which would be April 11th. The May
meeting will be on Saturday, May 9th. Dave said he would post these dates to
Ill Talk and IABS Talk. 

 

WHAT'S HAPPENING:

Dave announced that Ken Staley has had some significant health problems over
the past several months. He is in a position where he had to give up his
apartment because of recurrent problems with diabetes and other health
problems. His new phone number is 773-435-5686. That is his direct line at
the Warren Barr Nursing Home, which is very close to where he used to live.
He will be there for the foreseeable future. Dave asked us all to give him a
call. State President, Denise Avant, said she visited Ken Staley about a
week ago and gave him his membership coin. When she went to see Ken, he was
in good spirits and she encouraged us all to either give Ken a call or go by
and see him. Ken Borst stated that he did an interview with Amira
Watkins-Brown, who is elderly and disabled. She was discriminated against
when she applied for a job in customer service at MB North Cook Paratransit
Services. He interviewed her about that experience on Adaptive Chicago
Productions with CAN TV. Airdates for the show are January 25rh, February
1st and February 15th, Channel 19 at 11:30 am on all dates. Contact CAN TV
at 312-738-1400. The show is also on YouTube. There were 25 people present
at the meeting. 

The December 14, 2019 minutes were approved.

 

PROGRAM:

Today's program is on program ideas. Second Vice President, Jemal Powell,
asked if anybody had some ideas, please bring them f
forward. Bruce Paul had 3 ideas. 1. Interpersonal relationships. 2. Family
members who have had little experience with people with disabilities. 3.
Traveling to places with little or no public transportation. State
President, Denise Avant, suggested that we invite people from other
blindness agencies to come to us and talk about what they do here in our
city. We have the Blind Service Association. We have Second Sense. We have
Chicago Lighthouse. Some of us have been involved with these agencies over
the years, but then there are other members who may not even know that they
exist and the depth of everything that they do Theresa Patterson Jones
suggested a program on proper ways to educate individuals on how to guide
the blind and use proper terminology. Dave thought of an item on one-touch
self-defense. Mary Grunwald talked about having a program dedicated to being
visible and all the different things that we can do to get ourselves in our
communities and things that we maybe haven't thought of that make a
difference when we do that. Jemal said that that would also be combined with
Bruce's idea about traveling places with different types of public
transportation. Theresa suggested a program to advocate more places to add
Braille to their signage. Secretary Eileen Truschke recommended a program on
health-related issues regarding blindness. Robert Hansen suggested a program
on the ABLE account, give detailed information about it, and explain what an
ABLE account is, who might benefit from it the most. Ken Borst stated that
we needed to do a program on the White Cane Law, what it is and how it came
about. 

 

STATE PRESIDENTIAL REPORT:

Denise: The Braille Readers are Leaders contest is currently going on. So if
you have been reading pages starting on December 1, and you intend to keep
reading Braille until January 18th, you might want to consider entering the
Braille Readers are Leaders contest. It does not just include children the
way it had in the past. It now includes adults. If you want to find out more
information about it, you go to actionflund.org/bral. It's a good contest
for beginning Braille readers, just so that you get a sense of what a good
Braille reader you are, so you know how far you have to go. If you win the
contest, you get a chance to win a prize of $25. Your reading log has to be
in by February 1. We also have the NFB Scholarship program at the national
level as well as at the state level. The applications have been available
for both programs since November 1 and they will be available until March
31. For the national program, to get that application, you have to go to
nfb.org/scholarships and there you will find the application and you have to
submit the application by 11:59 pm eastern time. The one for Illinois,
you'll find it on our website at nfbofillinois.org/scholarships. That
application has to be into Debbie Stein by11:59 pm central daylight time.
You need the application. You need proof of blindness because you must be
legally blind in both eyes. You'll need a letter of reference and an essay.
You can use the same material for both programs. So if you know students or
if you are a student, do consider applying for the scholarship program. We
are getting ready to go to the Washington Seminar. It starts with the Great
Gathering in on Monday, February 10 and ends on February 13. We have several
people in this chapter who are going, Denise Avant, Steve Hastalis, Juliet
Walker, Mary Grunwald, and Marilyn Green. We have 2 parents who are going,
Nellie Gamino and Leza Jaeger and we have 2 of our students, Justin Cather
and Ellen Bartelt, so that will be our delegation from Illinois. We are
working on the Midwest Student Spring Seminar. The dates are March 20
through March 22 at the Holiday Inn O'Hare. if you want to participate and
get Freedom Link students involved or if you are a speaker, please remember
those dates. The national convention will be from July 14 to July 19. We
have 2 ways that we can help those of you needing financial assistance. We
have the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship Fund, which is primarily meant for
first-timers, but they occasionally awarded it to people who have been to
conventions before. There is an online application that you can go online
and apply. You still are going to need the help of your state president with
a reference letter. So you need to go to nfb.org and locate the online
application, apply for it and then try to do it by March 31, because Denise
needs to have her letter of reference by April 15 and you will need to have
your application in by April 15, but, hopefully, you will do it by March 31,
so you give Denise a chance to do whatever it is that she needs to do
because she does not want anybody who wants to go to convention not to be
able to go because the deadline has been missed. The other way is through
our Chappel-Dennis Assistance Fund and the application is on our Illinois
website on and that application is due by May 1. The face-to-face board
meeting is on Saturday, August 29th at the Sheraton-Lisle-Naperville Hotel
because that's where our state convention is going to be. The dates for the
state convention are October 30, October 31 and November 1. The
Chappel-Dennis form will be due by September 1. So those are many of the
items that are going to be happening in the next nine to ten months within
our affiliate. 

 

Washington Seminar: We will be on the Hill for Hill appointments starting on
February 11. We'll be on the Hill February 11, 12 and maybe the 13th. We
have 3 pieces of legislation that we are taking to the Hill. We have Access
Technology Affordability Act. This is to reduce the cost of our access
technology screen readers and application systems. It will give us a $2,000
tax credit. The House bill is HR 2086 and the Senate bill is S 815. We have
a brand new cosponsor on access technology. We have Mr. Brad Schneider and
this is so important because Mr. Schneider is on House Ways and Means. This
means that he is willing to help us to move the bill through the committee.
In Illinois, we have 3 cosponsors and one of the people on House Ways and
Means has agreed. We have Senator Tammy Duckworth who is co-sponsoring the
Senate bill, S 815. We also have HR 3929, Greater Access to Independence
through Nonvisual Access Technology (also called GAIN); this will require
manufacturers of home appliances, home medical equipment and home sports
equipment to make these appliances nonvisually accessible. Illinois own Jan
Schakowsky is one of the originating cosponsors. We have Accessible
Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM-HIGH) Act, HR 5312 and the
Senate bill is S 3095. This is to give guidelines to colleges and
universities to make curriculums nonvisually accessible for students with
disabilities, particularly students who are blind. 

Sales and Fundraising Illinois: The Sales and Fundraising Committee have
decided to sell T-shirts. The affiliate has not sold T-shirts in about 10
years. We have a black T-shirt that we are ordering. We have some that are
long sleeves, most of them that are short sleeves. The shirt will be black
and on the front in lemon yellow letters, it will say # bold # confident /
it resembles who we are and what we are about. We are about being bold and
about being confident. The Hashtag sign is the pound sign or the tic tac toe
sign. It means that you are tagging yourself as a person who is bold and a
person who is confident. On the back of the shirt also in lemon yellow
letters will be the NFBI logo with our tagline live the life you want. On
the right sleeve, we will have in Braille in puff green print NFB on the
sleeve in Braille. For those of you who want the long sleeves, the lettering
will be vertical from the shoulder to approximately the elbow. For those of
you who get the short sleeves, the lettering will be from horizontal near
the cuff of the sleeve. Both will be on the right-hand side. We have a small
quantity that we have in a long sleeve. If you are interested, let Marilyn
know. If you want to purchase a T-shirt, Marilyn should have them at the
next chapter meeting on February 8. The short-sleeve T-shirts will be $15
and the long-sleeve T-shirts will be $20. We will have sizes from small to
4X. We are also working on an appeal letter to raise funds for the
affiliate. Since the Chicago Chapter is the largest chapter, we will be
asking each of you to come up with at least 3 people who you can give names
and addresses to that we can send an appeal letter to help raise funds for
the affiliate. Cathy Randall has asked us to please give your optometrist or
ophthalmologist as one of those people. 

BELL Program We is hard at work on our Braille Enrichment Literacy and
Learning program. It will be at the Lighthouse. We do not have the dates
yet. Be thinking about volunteering if you are interested in teaching young
children how to do things nonvisually, and you're interested in a program
that emphasizes Braille.

Bill Reif joined the meeting. 

Membership Coin Recipients: We have been giving out membership coins to our
existing members from 2016 to 2018 that paid their dues. The recipients who
received coins at the meeting are Ken Schad and Dustin Cather. 

 

PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE #490:

Today is Thursday, January 2, 2020, and this is Presidential Release #490.
President Riccobono wished a Happy New Year to all of the Federation family.
We have World Braille Day coming up in 2 days. Our Washington Seminar will
be here before we know it. We will have our Great Gathering In kickoff at 5
pm on Monday, February 10th. President Riccobono encourages you to come to
the congressional reception on Tuesday evening, February 11. We are offering
a bus that leaves from the Capital Holiday Inn at 8:00 am on Monday,
February 10. It will bring you to the National Federation of the Blind
Jernigan Institute for a tour. It's a great year to come with our new space
opening. It is first-come, first-serve. We have one bus. So if you want to
get on board, get there early. President Riccobono would like you to come to
visit our national office and check out some of the new stuff as well as
some of the stuff that we had had in place for a while. If you have
questions about the Washington Seminar, your affiliate needs a little
assistance in planning or would like to do a little additional extra
preparation for tackling the seminar issues, please call John Pare. He can
be reached at 410-659-9314, extension 2218 or you can send him an email at
jpare at nfb.org. If you need some support in planning for the Washington
Seminar, call John Pare. He'll help you out with another member of the team
who can get you what you need. 

On this release, we do have the issues for our 2020 Washington Seminar,
where we will be bringing the 2020 view on blindness to Congress. Our 3
issues for this year will be 1. The Access Technology Affordability Act. 2.
Our GAIN Act (Greater Access and Information through Nonvisual Access
Technology Act). 3. Access to Instructional Materials in Higher Education
Act; AIM-HIGH we like to call it. Our AIM-High legislation got a boost in
December. We had a bill already in the House of Representatives, but in the
United States Senate, Senator Warren, about the middle of the month
introduced S3095, so we now have a bill in each of the branches there. So we
have amongst these 3 issues 5 bill numbers to talk about and chase during
the Washington Seminar. Our fact sheets will be available the week of
January 6, so look for those, get up on the issues and, even if you're not
coming to the Washington Seminar, you can still reinforce the messaging by
calling about our issues and urging your representatives and senators to
support the priorities of the organized blind movement. 

President Riccobono looks forward to being with us at the 2020 national
convention and it's not too early to start planning. In fact, many people
jumped on the telephone and started making their room reservations for our
headquarters hotel. We haven't been to Houston since 1971 and so a number of
people look forward to being in Houston for the convention. Our president in
Texas, Norma Crosby, is looking forward to it. You should think about making
your reservations soon for the Hilton Americas Houston Hotel, which is
located at 1600 Lamar Street in Houston, Texas. 77010 is the ZIP code, you
can make your room reservations now. The Hilton Americas is a great hotel.
It's smack dab in the middle of Downtown Houston across from the Convention
Center. A lot of people have asked whether we're using the Convention
Center. We do not have any meetings planned in the Convention Center; they
will all be at the Hilton, at least at the moment we don't, The Hilton
Americas is across the street from a beautiful 12-acre Discovery Green Park,
so nice open spaces there and you will find a lot of interest in Downtown
Houston and many of their surrounding neighborhoods. 

In contrast to our 2019 convention, which was great but quite spread out,
the 2020 convention hotel has ballrooms, breakout spaces, and sleeping rooms
all stacked neatly on one city square block. So you'll find it much more
streamlined in terms of where you need to go in terms of navigation. It's
probably the most streamlined setup we've had maybe in a decade because even
the Orlando hotels were very spread out compared to the Hilton Americas. In
addition to the dining available at the Hilton Americas, there's a ton of
awesome dining in Houston right outside the doors and you will eat well in
Houston.

The Hilton Americas' room rate includes in-room internet, which is
complimentary, as well as a fitness center and pool on the 23rd floor of the
hotel. There are many other amenities. You can read about the hotel and also
our overflow hotel, which is the Marriott, which, if you prefer, that is
just 3 blocks away or across the park, or you can actually walk through the
convention center indoors, so you can check out the Marriott. but, if you
want to be right in the center of the action as close as possible, be at the
Hilton and you should make your room reservations as soon as possible before
rooms run out in the Hilton. The convention room rate for 2020 at the Hilton
Americas is $105 per night for singles, doubles, triples and quads. In
addition, the sales tax rate is 8.25% and the hotel occupancy tax rate is
17%. You can book your room at the Hilton by calling 1-800-236-2905. You'll
find all this information in the Braille Monitor for December of last year.
When you call to book your room, the hotel will take a deposit of the first
night's room charge and taxes and will require a credit card or a personal
check. You can consult the Braille Monitor for the details on what happens
if you have to somehow withdraw your reservation and after which date the
money is not refundable and all that, so consult the Monitor.

A final note to chapters: We do want door prizes for our Houston convention.
The NFB of Texas would be pleased to receive them in advance if you want to
send them. President Riccobono would be interested to see maybe which
chapter can send the most interesting, innovative, coolest door prize for
our 2020 convention. We are seeking door prizes for the general session, so
please send them along to our NFB of Texas affiliate or bring them to the
convention. 

President Riccobono felt that our goals and priorities are very much in line
with our strategic plan that we published in the Monitor at the beginning of
last year, Those goals organize around some pillars, principally membership,
education, and employment, advocacy, and outreach. There are 2 important
things that speak to the work at all levels of our organization and why the
dynamic organization we have and the relationship between the levels is so
important. 

Threaded throughout each of these pillars and priorities is our work to
educate the public about blindness. It continues to be one of the most
important things that we do on a daily basis and we made some great laws.
We've created some great regulations. We've helped to change technology, but
public education and creating awareness about blind people, sharing our 2020
view on blindness, is really the most important and powerful thing we do on
a daily basis, helping people understand what we do about the capacity of
blind people. 

We need to start by making sure that we believe in our heads and our hearts
the understanding about blindness that's found in the Federation philosophy.
So as we start 2020, our chapters are encouraged to redouble our efforts in
talking about the philosophy of NFB, what it means, how we implement it, how
we continue to evolve it, and how we grow into it. As blind people, it's
hard for us to explain in a real way to the general public the capacity of
blind people if we don't believe in it ourselves if we haven't made the
effort to really explore it and make it actionable in our own lives. It
seems appropriate also to encourage our chapters to continue to find
innovative ways to engage the general public in having that understanding
about blindness and we need to find ways to share those innovative ideas
across chapters. So each of our chapters is encouraged to find something
we're doing and figure out a way to share it with our other chapters across
the country, whether it's on the chapter president's list serve or writing
an article for the Braille Monitor, or holding a conference call or all of
the above or something else. We need to continue to find ways to innovate
and share innovations across chapters and across affiliates so that we can
all be better from the work that we do together. 

The second thing that comes to mind and it also is embedded in each of these
4 pillar areas is our effort is to gather enough resources together to build
our capacity and a big part of that is raising money. We simply could not do
the things that we do and have the effect that we have without raising
dollars and it starts with the dollars that we put in as individual members
to support the organization. Our Dream Maker Circle is a future commitment
to making a contribution to the national organization upon your death and
that can take many forms, but then there's the current way to contribute,
which is what we call our Preauthorized Contribution Program (PAC Plan).
That program allows you to make a monthly contribution. President Riccobono
has heard from many people over the past year who have been contributing to
the program since its very beginning and that means that their $5 or $10 a
month or whatever it has grown to be our monthly contribution has added up
over time to allow us to have the flexibility with those dollars to be in
all the places we need for blind people. When your chapter goes out and
raises money for NFB to support our mission and makes contributions to the
state affiliate supporting the state-level organization and the state-level
organization takes some of those dollars and contributes to the national
organization. Those dollars, when they reach the national level, are much
more effectively used to build the movement because every dollar that comes
to our national organization impacts so many more people than it does at the
local level. So when you're thinking about what you're going to do for
fundraising this year, remember that those dollars when they come to the
national organization have a huge impact probably larger than any of us
realize.

What are some of the things we do with those dollars at the national level?
The first thing is those dollars allow us to coordinate the work that we do
across the country, whether it's putting together the logistics for our
Washington Seminar, helping us to plan meetings on the Hill, being on the
Hill, not just during Washington Seminar, but every other week of the year
to make sure that when blindness comes up, the name of the National
Federation of the Blind is in front of the policy and decision-makers and
our priorities and perspective are on the table. 

We put together a lot of resources for advocacy that we used in our
affiliates and we provide a lot of technical assistance. All of that takes
the resources of staff, documents that we put together, research, and the
dollars that get put into the national treasury help make that happen. 

There's a lot of other information sharing that happens. Our website is
increasingly more complex and dynamic. We're coming up to 80 years' worth of
material on our website and keeping it fresh, organizing it in a way that it
can be found, integrating the latest web tools, supporting that with our
connections database, publishing the Braille Monitor, our podcast, the
toolkits that we put online and distribute in hard copy. All of these things
take dollars and the best dollars come from the local level when you go out
and raise them and acknowledge how important it is that we're part of this
movement together by making contributions through the affiliate to the
national organization.

At the national level, we put together a lot of capacity building tools that
we scale across the organization. So we make available in print and Braille
brochures that chapters can get to use in public outreach efforts. We're
putting together a project this year to support every affiliate website to
make sure that the local presence is fresh, up-to-date and on point with our
brand. Late last year we put some infrastructure together to allow every
affiliate that wants to stream its convention to do so on a common platform.
We support each of our affiliates in the financial management of the
affiliate, making sure that the right state filings get made and that the
financial records are in good order so that when the treasurer shows up to
the state convention to give a report, you can have the confidence that the
report also reflects the support of the national organization in terms of
making sure that the numbers are right and things are coded in a way that
they can be accurately reported. There are dozens of other things that
happen in the background. The recording for this release is made possible
from those dollars that have been set to this office. We have a lot of
expertise that we put together, and so, when you have a question about
blindness, we have a way of answering it or. At least, getting you to the
right resource. That's made possible from the dollars that you help to send
to our national organization. And then just the broad resource network we
have. You are all doing great work to assist blind people at the local
level, but you come across things that you're not familiar with or you have
questions about and you can call about our national office team. You can
also take advantage of free programs we offer, like the Free White Cane
Program, or Free Slate and Stylis Program, putting free tools in the hands
of blind people. They're free to blind people. We had to pay for them. We
had to ship them, to package them, to do the work on the technology side for
the database. All of that takes efforts and we make that happen through the
dollars that are contributed to our national organization. 

So when we think about our goals for 2020, we need to remember that it's
these two underlying elements that help us to those goals and achieve those
goals along with the individual effort that each and every one of you makes
at the local level, at the affiliate level, and at the national level to
fuel our organization. We are volunteer-driven. The majority of our work is
done by volunteers. Our best work is done by volunteers because even our
paid staff spends considerable time volunteering as members of our
organization. 

The dollars that are contributed to the national level especially by members
are critical as well for another reason. When we go out and we talk to
people who are not in the center of the organization they're not members,
they're not supporting our work, they look at two factors. One, how are you
spending your money? We do spend our money and we write about it all the
time. We save money when we can and our investments like many others last
year, had a great year, so we do save money, but we spend a lot of money on
programs and our financial reports if you look at them. We don't spend money
on high-paid fundraising groups to go out and raise money for us. We spend
our money on programs that change the landscape in America for blind people
to create opportunities. 

The second thing people look at is how many of your own members, your own
board members, your own staff, are contributing to our organization. And
hands down we have great news to report there all of the time, not just the
PAC Plan but many other avenues we have for contributing to the
organization. That's why a lot of folks who are not close to our
organization love to give to us because they recognize that our own members
feel so strongly about it and recognize that the work is so important that
they're contributing their dollars. Many of you who are contributing don't
have a lot of dollars to give and so we treat every dollar with respect and
that our donors recognize that those dollars come from members who have a
real commitment encourages them to make bigger contributions. All of that
allows us to pursue our public education efforts, not just talking to people
which we can do for free but the more dynamic things that allow us to expand
our reach so that when you come across somebody in the local community,
you're reinforcing a message that we delivered somewhere else. 

As far as our goals for 2020, President Riccobono hopes that your chapter is
developing goals that are consistent with supporting our national
organization, supporting the work in our state affiliate. We're successful
because we align at all levels of our priorities. You are encouraged to
consider what you are going to do in the chapter this year, how you're going
to share some of your innovative ideas and how we together are going to
achieve not just our legislative priorities but also our program and public
education priorities. 

Welcome to our Dream Maker Circle Diane McGeorge of Colorado. We just opened
the Diane and Ray McGeorge Living Room last month. So thanks to Diane for
continuing her commitment by being part of our Dream Maker Circle. In the
last month, we also added John and Heather Fritz from Wisconsin and Susie
Stanzel from Kansas. If you have any questions about the Dream Maker Circle,
please reach out to Patti Chang at the national office, extension 2422. In
June, we finished acknowledging all of the chapters and affiliates who are
contributing to the PAC Plan, but we had some new ones join. President
Riccobono acknowledges the chapters and affiliates that joined since the
June release was made. Thank you to each and every one of you and your local
chapters that are contributing to the PAC Plan. Again it gives us those
dollars. They're not tied to any particular restrictions and allow us to do
what we need to as an organization. Thank you to the NFB of Arkansas At
Large Chapter, NFB of California Central Valley Chapter, the Inland Empire
Chapter, the NFB of Connecticut Southwest Chapter, the NFB of Indiana
Indianapolis Chapter, the NFB of Kansas Johnson County Chapter, NFB of North
Carolina Coastal Carolina Chapter, the NFB of South Carolina to the
Spartanburg Chapter, the NFB of Tennessee Memphis Chapter, the NFB of Texas
Dallas Chapter and finally to the NFB of Wisconsin. Thank you for joining up
new on the PAC Program since June of last year.

Federation Family Notes: We lost a number of Federationists during the month
of December to keep in your thoughts and prayers as well as their families.
Ronza Othman from Maryland reports that Randy Green, a member of the NFB of
Maryland Sligo Creek and the National Harbor Chapters, died after a long
illness. Donna Sexton of California died in late December. Many of Donna's
children continue to be active members of the NFB. You may know Brooke,
B.J., Amber or David. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Kyle Kiper
from Arkansas reports the death of Joe Sexson, a law enforcement
professional and Emergency Medical Technician. Joe was somebody who
sacrificed through his work. He made the commitment to go to the salvage and
recovery efforts after the terrorist bombing on 9/11 at Ground Zero and it
was after that that he went blind, and ended up with many of the health
conditions and now dying that resulted from being exposed to being in the
Ground zero environment. Joe was just one of the many fallen heroes that
have had this experience, but he is a member of the Federation family and we
lost him last month, so keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers
Finally close to the end of the year Harry Gaywith of Idaho died. Harry has
been a long-time member of the Federation. For 40-some years he served as
the treasurer of the Idaho affiliate. He believed in the capacity of blind
people and took on many tasks around the Federation. If you won a door prize
at the national convention, Harry might have very well delivered it to you.
He was a door prize runner for many years as well. 

Pre3sident Riccobono says he is looking forward to a great 2020, and while
we're going to experience some new things this year, get into some new
adventures, be at a new convention spot with a new convention hotel, some
things stay the same and that's a good thing.

The January collection yielded $100. 

 

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Membership Committee: Robert Hansen reports it does look like we do have a
pretty good turnout, about 26 people. We're all doing the fan-out calls and
so it's good to keep going with that. Robert always likes to try to get the
program information and reaching out to Jemal and ask him every month what
the program is about and also we have Il-talk and IABS Talk. Also, always
keep telling people that you see about the organization and getting them to
come. It's nice to see new people coming all the time and people who haven't
been here in a while keep coming. It's always good to be here. Robert always
likes to try to get the fan outs about a week or so before the actual
meeting so people can plan for it. Maybe if someone doesn't live in Chicago,
but you're always welcome to come up here. It's always good to have a full
room. Keep spreading the word and have people come. Just tell them it's easy
to get here and all the trains come downtown and a number of bus routes.
It's very accessible to get down here. Anybody is welcome. 

Fundraising Committee: Nick Robertson, fundraising chair, reports that he
wants Denise and Marilyn to talk to Patti Chang to allow us to set up a
digital paying system for the chapter so that we can get chapter dues via
PayPal, whatever the case may be. We are looking at two kinds of sports
pools for the fundraisers. We're looking at a March Madness Squares pool,
There are 100 squares on a board and so we're trying to gauge interest in
that, so if you are interested, you can text Nick at 641-660-2475 or post
something on IL-talk. Also, we are looking at the possibility of doing a
Masters Golf pool; we're looking at a staggering payout. You would pay $10
to select your own golfer or $5 to have a golfer selected for you. All the
money would go to the Chicago Chapter and our payout would be in gift cards
which would entice our chapter members to get out in the city and educate
Chicago about blindness. 

 

TREASURER'S REPORT FOURTH QUARTER 2019 (OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER):

Beginning balance Tuesday, 10/1/19: $4916.41, Income: Chicago Chapter
Read-a-thon Meet the Blind Month Saturday 10/12/19 subtotal $1140. Games
Night 6 people paid $25 each, subtotal $150, Monthly collection November 9,
none in October, Read-a-thon and none in December, Christmas auction $70.59.
Donation checks $100. General business meeting and Christmas auction
Saturday 12/14 subtotal $2820 (that is a record of more than $1,000 than any
other Christmas auction). Total $4280.59. Expenses: Electronic withdrawal
NFB PAC $50 (preauthorized contribution to the national office) October,
November, December. Subtotal $150. NFB Fifteen For Funds contribution at
state convention $1000. Washington Seminar expenses 2020 assisted 5 members
at $400 each subtotal $2000. Total $3150. Ending balance Tuesday 12/31/19,
$6047. We've received a lot more since then. Denise asked the approximation.
Steve said approximately $300 or $400 at this point maybe more. Steve wrote
a note at the end. Note the check register ends 2019 with the same figure
$6047. The report was approved as read.

Denise reminded us, particularly Steve and Dave, when we get members paying
dues and when we get people updating their contact information, please pass
that information on to Patti so that we can update the database at the
national office and the membership list. Please do that with every new
member and with every existing member as you update, what they paid and what
their new contact information would be. Dave reminded us when you pay your
dues, please be sure that Steve gets your correct contact information
including address, phone number, and email. If you have more than one phone
number, we want both of them or all of them. Dave further stated that as a
chapter we have a lot to be proud of. We really turned things around in the
last year, If we wouldn't have done your contributions in whatever way we
have done them, that would not have been possible and he thanked us all. 

 

OLD BUSINESS:

No old business.

 

NEW BUSINESS:

Jemal announced that on Monday 1/27, the PACE City ADA Advisory Committee
will be meeting at Willis Tower in the Cook County Room in the CMACK
Offices. It will start at 12:30 pm and end at 3:00 pm and there will be time
for public comments for those individuals who have concerns or comments
about their ADA service, particularly those in the City of Chicago. It is an
open public meeting. On Tuesday 1/28, from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm at PACE
Headquarters in Arlington Heights, the PACE Suburban Budget Committee will
have its meeting. All are welcome and there will be public comments at the
end of the meeting. Dave mentioned that we do have a member of the CTA ADA
Advisory Committee and that's Nick Robertson. The next meeting of the
committee is on 1/13 from 1:30 to 4:30 pm. Nick will give a report in
February. If we have anything dealing with CTA, Nick will be willing to be
our focal point. Steve says that the CTA runs its ADA Advisory Committee
such that anybody who wishes to make a public comment must notify the CTA
the Thursday before and you have to do it either in writing or you have to
call the manager of ADA Compliance Programs. If you don't get the CTA's
attention that way, then you got to do it through Nick. Nick's cell phone
number is 6 4 1-6 6 0-2 4 7 5, 

Bill Reif reports that it turns out that the ICB Chicago Chapter had
initially filed suit against the City of Chicago involving its wish to have
accessible signals installed at every intersection. Bill is in communication
with people over there. Maureen Henneghan is actually one of the named
plaintiffs. So far the ICB Chicago Chapter and their attorneys have managed
to get part of that complaint dismissed, not that they did it intentionally.
Denise stated that we took up this issue in June, July, and August and we
met with the City of Chicago on this matter and we are working with the
city. We have also been in touch with our national office on this issue and
agreed that we would not be filing any lawsuits. So that we could speak with
one voice, our actions would come from the national office coming down to
the rest of us. In fact, we received notice of the ICB Chicago Chapter's
action and forwarded it to our national office and our position is the same.
We will continue to work with the City of Chicago to implement the audible
pedestrian signals. The only thing that we would want on these signals is
that they be uniform, that they do not disturb other people and they be
placed where they're needed. So you don't need an audible pedestrian signal
at a 4-way residential intersection where there's hardly any traffic. We are
not opposed to pedestrian signals, not to the extent that ICB wants to share
information with us, but we will not be taking any court action. The city
has 25 places where it knows that it's going to put audible pedestrian
signals and then there is 25 more that are probable and then, depending on
what kind of money the city has, going forward about 15 or 16 more signals
and then after that we'll see what happens because there are some high
traffic areas that maybe can use them. Steve pointed out that we passed a
fairly detailed resolution illustrating our concerns and our relationship
with the City of Chicago at our 2019 state convention. Denise stated that we
are in the process of getting our resolutions formatted so that they can be
put on the website. The 2018 and 2019 resolutions are done, so you will have
access to our 2018 and 2019 resolutions. 

Steve stated that the next Metra (which is the commuter rail agency) ADA
Advisory Committee takes place on Tuesday 2/4 at 2:00 pm at Metra's
corporate headquarters at 547 West Jackson. It's on the south side of
Jackson just west of Clinton. That's where also we have had our Beggars
Pizza fundraisers in that same building. If you want to hear the latest and
greatest about Metra's ongoing effort to make stations accessible and ADA
compliant and what Metra is doing to replace 60-year-old cars and
40-year-old locomotives, you are welcome to come to the meeting and give
your public comment toward the end of the meeting. 

 

The meeting adjourned at 3:02 pm.

Respectfully submitted, Eileen F. Truschke, Secretary, Chicago Chapter 

 

 

David Meyer, NFB of Illinois

Coordinator and Channel Administrator, NFB-NewsLine

Chicago Chapter President