[Massachusetts-NFB] At-Large Chapter November Meeting Minutes

[Liz Lesperance]

Good Afternoon,

Attached and pasted below please find the minutes from the at-large
chapter's most recent meeting held this past Tuesday.

Enjoy the beautiful weather!

Kind Regards,
Liz
**********

The at-large chapter met on Thursday, Nov. 14th. Those in attendance
included:

Debbie Malone

Justin Salisbury

Shara Winton

Sandra Burgess

Cullen Gallagher

Liz Lesperance

Elizabeth Ann Johnson

Brian Langlois

Mike Karsok

Allen Larkin

Sengil Inkiala

The meeting began at 7:05PM.

For an icebreaker, Debbie asked us to share the person we are most grateful
for. The person could not be blood related.

Shara recited the NFB pledge.

Cullen put forth a motion to accept the October minutes as written which
Allen seconded. The minutes were approved unanimously.

Sandy went over the treasurer’s report. Our balance is $1,658.13. Liz put
forth a motion to approve the treasurer’s report which Brian seconded. The
report was approved unanimously.

Shara went over the president’s report. Washington Seminar is approaching.
If you want to go, please go ahead and make your reservations. If you would
like to request funding from the affiliate please email Shara. The
affiliate will be able to fund 9 members in addition to Shara, Mika, and
Debbie. Shara also shared that an email will be sent out this week with the
tel# for the hotel in order to register for the state convention. The
agenda should be coming out soon as well. The convention will be March 15th
– March 17th. The hotel is accessible and conveniently located. We will
have 4 teams of people who will be leading groups to pre-selected nearby
restaurants. Elizabeth Ann asked if Shara would be sending out an email
with a list of the restaurants for the convention. The email will include
the team leader and their contact info.

Cullen went over the highlights of the November presidential release.
Netflix released “All the Light We Cannot See”. The lead actress is blind,
and the portrayal of blindness is quite accurate. There is a cost-of-living
increase of 3.2% for social security. Jessie Shirek of the national office
is handling the social security matters. He can be reached at
jshirek at nfb.org. Winter Letters/Letters from Santa can be requested through
December 15th. The “Braille Readers are Leaders” contest will be running
from Dec. 4th – Jan. 22nd. The number of minutes spent reading braille are
tracked. The next release is Nov. 30th.

Justin went over the legislative updates. There was a hearing today on the
parents’ rights bill. Justin testified via zoom and has submitted testimony
on behalf of the affiliate. This bill is not limited to blindness. It
protects the rights of disabled parents in general. It is a major step
forward that legislators have now scheduled a hearing for the bill. Justin
noted that we are requesting an amendment to the bill which raises the
evidentiary standard to “clear and convincing”. Justin urged more members
of the affiliate to submit testimony to the committee expressing support
for the bill. Justin will be sending out a template to the affiliate list
to assist in writing testimony. Justin recommended sending the email to the
committee clerk and cc’ing the local state senator and state representative.

Debbie asked if anyone had any fundraising ideas. Debbie has found a
company that operates similar to Double Good that would return 50% of all
sales. Shara suggested hosting a pampered chef party. We could host a party
virtually. A Facebook invite to the party can be shared with family and
friends. These products are affordable as there are 200 items under $20.
The way the fundraiser works is that a certain percentage of sales would go
directly towards the affiliate. The percentage varies depending on gross
sales. We unanimously voted in favor of having this fundraiser.  We will
start the fundraiser on Nov. 20th and run it through the 29th.

Shara will send out the Secret Santa email tomorrow.  We agreed to increase
the spending limit to $30. If you are going to send a gift please let Shara
know so she can give the recipient a heads up. We will open presents during
the next meeting. Debbie encouraged anyone who lives near each other to get
together for our next meeting. We will hold this meeting on Sunday Dec. 10th
at 1:00PM. We will defer business to the January meeting. Shara made a
motion to confirm this date and time which Cullen seconded. The motion was
passed unanimously. Allen put in a motion to skip the business portion of
the meeting in December which Brian seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Shara shared that Amalia has moved to Pennsylvania.

On Nov. 29th there will be another meeting with the group from Harvard
doing a project on navigation for the blind.

For January’s meeting, Allen will do the NFB pledge. Brian will summarize
the presidential release. Liz will do the icebreaker. Cullen will do a
demonstration on Be My AI.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:26PM.
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