[IL-Talk] at large minutes november

[datemeyer at sbcglobal.net]

At Large Chapter Minutes

November 2nd, 2025

ZOOM Meeting

CALL TO ORDER

, 

Persons in Attendance: At Large Chapter President, David Meyer, Vice
President, Leslie Hamric,  Michelle Ault, Linda Hendle, Bill Reif, Ken
Schadd, Eileen Truschke, Marilyn Green, Jemal Powell,  Jean Johnson, Rachel
Ng, Greg Rosenberg, Debbie Pittman,Yvonne Agyarko, Dan Gistenson, Dennis
Devitt, and Mark Peters. The meeting was called to order at 7:01 PM

PROGRAM ITEM

Debbie Pittman introduced the Program Item presented by Jean Johnson. At our
National Convention  Jean had the opportunity to demo the AGIGA EchoVision
Smart Glasses made for blind people by blind  people. She sat in some group
forums and was able to talk to some of the developers. 

You can actually sit down and read a print book with these, They have GPS
,in them and it will tell  you the best transit routes, how to get there,
and where the stops are at. The camera has internal  storage. so she can
take a picture of her daughter, store the picture, and tag it with her
daughter's name. If she asks who is at the right to her instead of saying a
woman is, it will say  her daughter's name if it is her daughter. With these
glasses, she will actually be able to find  her grandchildren in a crowd of
children. She ordered a pair which will arrive in a couple of weeks  and
after David shows the video about the glasses she will answer any questions.
Her answers will  be based off of her experience when she did a 40 minute
demo and her knowledge of them.

David shared the Echo Vision Smart Glasses by AGIGA video which had four
people who are blind demo  the glasses. The video told us about their first
reactions. With the press of a button a blind  veteran was able to get the
first scene description. It described what was to the left of him. It  then
described what was in the center. The veteran thought the description was
good. The video also  had Kevin speak. Kevin worked for Apple and Google
before and has been blind since the age of 14.  He is now the Chief
Visionary and Evangelist at AGIGA. Other people that tried these for the
first  time in the video found they received a lot of details about a
person's face and one user even ran  out of questions to ask. A blind
student pressed a button for a transit route preview. She found  that it
gave her everything she needed to know to make a decision and that was what
she found  empowering. She felt with these glasses it gives you back the
power to make decisions for your  life. You can physically read a book and
it will tell you what the page says and when to turn the  page. There is a
live A! feature that will describe a wide span of the area that you are in,
it  describes landmarks, and the types of trees around you. You could
instantly get information about a  very wide area around you. 

These glasses look like everyday glasses with buttons on each temple. The
left for power, photos  and video. The right for Echo Vision AI. Echo Vision
can also be used hands free with voice  activation, even with services like
AIRA and Be My Eyes. The video can also be found on You Tube.

Jean was amazed at what she was able to see in Live mode with these glasses.
The glasses are  Bluetooth and have the capacity to connect to Bluetooth
hearing aids. In Live mode you can see a  much wider range and it will tell
you the people around you that you tagged. The glasses are  $599.00. These
glasses were designed with Blind people in mind, by Blind people, for Blind
people.  Jean pre-ordered her glasses. She was chosen to be one of 300
people when she pre-ordered to use  these glasses in the real world outside
of the Alpha and Beta test and to give her feedback to the  developers.

PRESIDENTIAL RELEASE

Wednesday, October 29, 2025, and this is Presidential Release Number 554. We
had a great Blind  Equality Achievement month in the National Federation of
the Blind. President Mark Riccobono wants  to thank all of our local
chapters for the tremendous work to get out in the community.

The National Federation of the Blind was founded first on November
16th,1940. November 16th is our  Anniversary date. Family gatherings and the
Federation Anniversary all come together during  November. Today, we have a
great foundation of collective action, experience, and wisdom to build
upon, and that is something that we did not have in 1940. And in 2003, we
were just a few months  before the opening of our new building in Baltimore,
the Jernigan Institute, There is a lot of talk  about where are we going,
what are we going to do, and what do we want to do.

The National Federation of the Blind is something that we had to build. One
of the important things  that comes to mind for President Mark Riccobono
during this time of year is reflecting on the  progress that we have made
and a source of strength for how much further we need to go. It is
important to study where we've been in order to understand where we're
going.

This also comes to mind because of the Thanksgiving season, and it's an
important time to reflect  and give thanks on really how fortunate we are to
have the Federation family and the movement we  share together.

Combining these two things together: Where have we been and what does that
help us understand about  where we want to go? These are really important
conversations in bringing community together, which  is what we do in the
National Federation of the Blind. That is why, for this anniversary year, we
wanted to give that sense of celebrating and understanding where we've been,
and also sparking  conversations within our membership across our chapters
about the history of the organization.

In November, we're bringing to life in new ways, the 50th anniversary book
of the National  Federation of the Blind, which is "Walking Alone and
Marching Together". Starting with our  anniversary this month, we will be
releasing,on a weekly basis, a podcast that shares the content  of "Walking
Alone and Marching Together". President Mark Riccobono hopes our members
will use this  as a tool to have some deep discussions about the founding of
the Federation, where we've been, and  what that means for us today, and
where we would like to go. He wants to talk about it here on this  release
and introduce it to our chapters to make sure that our members are thinking
ahead about how  to use this new tool with some great historical content.

An example, in episode one, we willbe introduced to the publication and we
will be greeted with the  early segment of the book, which is called, "The
Dark Ages and the Dawn of Organization". The book  and that section of
"Walking Alone and Marching Together"opens with this little segment, which
he  thought he would give to us to set the stage for thinking about this
publication. It reads as  follows, "The year 1990 holds extraordinary
significance for Blind Americans.It marks the golden  anniversary of the
National Federation of the Blind, and so memorializes the first half century
of  collective self-organization by the blind people of the United States.
This book is the story of  those 50 years of the drama of an irresistible
force, some call it blind force, colliding again and  again with the
seemingly immovable objects of supervision and superstition and the
narrative of a  minority group once powerless, scattered and impoverished,
coming together as a people and forging  an independent movement, gaining
self expression and learning self-direction, proclaiming,  normality, and
demanding equality".

That is the first paragraph of one of the first sections you'll encounter
from the book in episode  one. President Mark Riccobono wants to call this
to our attention because this is an important tool  for us to build
discussions of philosophy within our organization to understand and build
the  understanding of the history of our movement so we can really have
powerful conversations about  where we want to go and how we want to get
there.

Recognizing that this is now the eighty-fifth anniversary of our
organization. We are now only  fifteen years away from our one hundredth
anniversary. That means we can't rest on where we've  been, but we really
have to understand our progress and how significant it has been to put in
perspective how important it is that we go the rest of the way in creating
equality for blind  people, and especially in a time and in a society that's
changing very quickly.

President Mark Riccobono let us know that we need to protect the ground
we've gained, but also push  even further. We know the power of collective
action and coordination because we've been doing it  for eighty-five years,
but we really need to dig into the history to help us understand how
valuable what we've built has become, how important it is to continue to
build and then to spark  our imagination about where we go in the next
fifteen years and beyond.

And by examining the history, talking about it, studying it, we can really
learn a lot about the  future we want for each other as blind people in the
National Federation of the Blind. Mark  Riccobono wants to encourage each of
our members to use this new tool to spark those conversations  in innovative
ways. He plans on having this podcast available every week, a new episode to
discuss,  to talk about. He hopes that there will be discussions outside of
our chapter meetings about this  content. If we haven't already found the
trailer for the "Walking Alone and Marching Together"  podcast on our
favorite podcast client, we are urged to search for that along with National
Federation of the Blind, find the trailer, and subscribe to the podcast so
that during the week  leading up to our eighty-five anniversary, when
episode one comes out, we will be notified and can  get that content on day
one. Mark Riccobono would like to say that during our anniversary
convention in 1990, Dr. Jernigan gave a banquet speech and he said this
about history.

Dr. Kenneth Jernigan:

"So far as I can tell, there are only three possible reasons for studying
history: to get  inspiration, to gain perspective, or to acquire a basis for
predicting the future."

Mark Riccobono:

As Dr. Jernigan often articulated after that, part of predicting the future
is being part of  directing what that future looks like, and that's what we
do in the National Federation of the  Blind. We don't just assume that the
future is predetermined. We have determined for ourselves that  we're going
to be part of it.

This is why President Mark Riccobono wants all of us to get involved with
the podcast, sharing the  podcast, talking about the podcast, because it
will spark those conversations about where we would  like to go next in the
National Federation of the Blind. That's why we bring our chapters together.
That is why we have organized, so that we as blind people, can determine
where we want to go and  can build the future for ourselves. .

Mark Riccobono also acknowledged that for many in our Federation family, it
is currently a very  hard time knowing that the government shutdown has had
a significant impact on many, many Blind  people, both federal employees and
non-federal employees.We are also encouraged to continue to  reach out to
those members who may be in need and to show our generosity for those of us
who may be  less impacted, to reach out to our members who are being
particularly hard hit at this time and do  what we can do to give back to
them. The work that we do on a daily basis in the community helps  all of
us. 

 It was mentioned by one of our members that the podcast sounded very
interesting and could be a  great way to learn about our history. David
Meyer did mention at the end of the Presidential  Release that the book
"Walking Alone and Marching Together" is a great read and the Federation has
the book in several formats. It does tell a lot about the history of the
National Federation of the  Blind.

STATE REPORT

State President, Marilyn Green thanked everyone for another great State
Convention and she is  looking for some feedback on it. The format was
changed a little bit this year and one of our break  out sessions, which was
"Structure of Discovery" was standing room only. Donald Porterfield gave us
a wonderful banquet speech on Saturday and Donald and Amy Porterfield led us
into Philosphery on  Sunday morning. For those not able to make it in person
we did have streaming and the link was  posted on IL-Talk and I-ABS talk. If
you have any feedback on the State Convention please email:
president at nfbofillinois.org . We were happy to have some new members there
this year and we also had more exhibitors than in  the past.

Our Washington Seminar applications are open. We can go online to www.nfbof
illinois.org to get the  application if you are interested in going to
Washington in the last week of January. We will have  the Great Gathering
and spend the next two days after that advocating for Blind people to live
the  lives we want. We do not know what our Legislative Priorities are right
now but we should have that  information by the end of December. After you
fill out the application please submit it to  president at nfbofillinois.org .
If you need any assistance with the application you can reach out to State
President Marilyn  Green at that same email address or you can call or test
her at: 312-343-8396. The deadline for the  application is December 1st at
11:59 Central TIme.

State President Marilyn Green thanked those who agreed to advocate in
regards to the Reduction In  Force and the Department of Education and we
are still working on this. We are scheduling  appointments and for those
interested in being in on one of those appointments please reach out to  our
Federal Legislation Co-Chairs Denise Avant or Dustin Cather.

APPROVAL OF OCTOBER MINUTES

Debbie Pittman moved, Linda Hendle seconded, All in favor said "Aye".
Minutes were approved.

NEW BUSINESS

We welcomed new member Mark Peters. A motion was made by Bill Reif and Linda
Hendle seconded. All  in favor said "Aye". Mark Peters was voted in.

Jean Johnson and Debbie Pittman were thanked for representing the At Large
Chapter for the Bay  Bridge Run or Walk. We have until the end of the year
to make contributions for this. We can do  that thru the NFB web site. We
can also call the National Center at: 410-659-9314 and use the  automated
directory to reach Rachel Held. 

The Podcast for Walking Alone, Marching Together can be typed in and we
should be able to find it.

The next At Large Chapter meeting will be on December 7th at 7:00 PM.

OLD BUSINESS

none

ADJOURNMENT

Bill Reif moved, Rachel Ng seconded, all in favor said "Aye" the meeting
adjourned at 8:33 PM

Respectfully submitted

Michelle Ault

At Large Secretary and Treasurer