[IL-Talk] at large minutes January 2024

Sat Feb 3 08:26:24 UTC 2024

Wonderful minutes Bill.

Debbie P

  Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 31, 2024, at 4:57 PM, David Meyer via IL-Talk <il-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> National Federation of the Blind of Illinois
> Minutes of meeting held Sunday, January 7th, 2024
> 
> Members present: President Dave Meyer, Vice President Linda Hendle, Secretary/Treasurer Bill Reif, Dustin Cather, Debbie Pittman, Josh Ninten, EileenTruschke, Ken Schad, State President Marilyn Green, Michael Babcock, Michelle Alt, Jemal Powell, Yvonne Agyarko and Leslie Hamric.
> 
> Debbie moved, and Bill seconded, approval of the minutes of the December 2023 meeting. Motion passed.
> 
> Program:
> 
> Debbie introduced Michael Babcock Manager of Customer Experience at A T Guys and the many accessible products it offers for sale. The Michigan Company web site is www.atguys.com and can be phoned at (269) 216-4798. All products are usable by those with no vision. Products he described include the Versa Paperless Slate, accessible portable power banks, the Slinger in which the phone can be carried on a lanyard, several head sets, keyboards including the Orbet Writer and the Hable, and the Blind Shell 2 phone. These products are more fully described on the web site.
> 
> Presidential Release:
> 
> Presidential Release 534 was played. January 4th is World Braille Day. Activities are described on the web site braille.day the NFB established last year and lists over 250 ways in which Braille can be used.
> 
> Blind Inc, our Minnesota training center, has suspended operations as of January 1 2024. The center does not have the resources to maintain the historic building in which it operates. The program will be re imagined. The Washington Seminar fact sheets have been distributed and are available at www.nfb.org/washington-seminar. The NFB sent a letter of opposition to the leaders in Congress outlining concerns about the Cogswell-Macy Act. You can find that letter on the policy pages of our web site. The act attempts to amend the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by adding new sections that we firmly believe negatively impact blind students.  In specific, our concerns include that the proposed bill will create new assessments that are not in concert with the current IDEA assessment standards. In addition, the current language does weaken the Braille provision, which this organization worked very hard to get into IDEA in the late 1990s. Also, the bill as proposed fails to leverage dear colleague letters and recent rulings by the Supreme Court that we would love to see codified in the law to the benefit of students with disabilities and certainly blind students.
> For more information about our opposition to this bill, you can contact Justin Young, our governmental affairs specialist.  You can reach him at jyoung at NFB.org or extension 2210 at the national office. He congratulated us on some fantastic movement on the Access Technology Affordability Act.  In the House, we have HR 3702.  And we gained 28 new cosponsors during the month of December.  That brings the total number of cosponsors in the House up to 72. In the Senate, Senator Booker, Ernst, and Tillis all added their names to the cosponsor list for S 1467.  This brings the total number of cosponsors on the Senate side up to 17.
> 
> Riccobono reminded membership coordinators from chapters and divisions to make sure that you go in during December and use our member management module to update the members for your chapters and divisions who have paid dues for 2024. If you don't update them in January, on January 31st the membership moves from the grace setting to expired. he encouraged all members to pay your dues for 2024. He encouraged all members to use the membership profile on the web site.  You can log in and you'll have access to your membership record and be able to make updates. If you haven't taken the time to check out your membership profile, your log in is simply the email address you have connected to your membership.  So you can use that address, and if you haven't been in yet, you haven't set it up, go to members on the web site and opt to reset your password even if you haven't set it up before, and it will prompt you to log into your program.  And you can do that by selecting the opt to change password option. If you have questions, you are encouraged to send an email to membership at NFB.org.
> 
> State Affiliate Report:
> 
> Marilyn reported on the upcoming Washington Seminar, which begins January 29th. Denise Avant, Dustin Cather, Michelle Alt, BilipShaw, Aboo Elfauki, Katelyn Ryan, and Kira O’Bradovich will be representing us in Washington. Our National Convention will be at the Rosen Center July 3rd through July 8th. Rooms are $129 per night. BELL program in Springfield the week of July 15th, and in Chicago the two weeks beginning July 22nd. Scholarship applications for National are due 3/31, with state applications due 4/30.
> 
> Dustin reported further on the upcoming seminar. the following 3 issues will be discussed:
> 
> The Web Site and Software Applications Act, hr5813 and s2984, have been recently introduced and only have a few cosponsors.
> 
> The Medical Device Non-visual Accessibility act, HR1328, has 49 cosponsors, 5 of whom are from Illinois and include Sponsor Jan Chacowski. There is not yet a Senate companion bill.
> 
> The Blind Americans Return to Work Act does not yet have sponsors or a bill number. This bill will phase out the sharp cut off that serves as a disincentive for SSDI recipients to accept full-time work.
> 
> Although not one of the main issues, we will be discussing the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act, S533 with 1 cosponsor and hr1263 with 26 cosponsors including Illinois representatives Robyn Kelly and Mike Quigley. Finally, we are still working on the Access Technology Affordability Act, S1467 and HR3702. There will be much more info at the upcoming Chicago Chapter meeting which will be virtual until the Chapter can locate a new meeting place. The Exchequer is no longer available to us. Dave noted that the fact sheets are also on NFB Newsline under each state's Information Channel.
> 
> The next meeting will take place Sunday February 4th via Zoom. Dave noted that our elections will take place at the April meeting and anyone interested in running should let him know. The meeting adjourned at 8:29 PM.
> 
> Respectfully Submitted,
> 
> Bill Reif, Secretary
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