[MD-Sligo] Updates and questions about ways to grow our young adult programs

[Deborah]

I think working with the library is a good idea.  I think they would be
happy to have them help you plan events.  Sharon and Melissa are on the
Friends committee, so they would be interested in what you are doing.  You
should use some care in how you publicize events, but you probably have
already been doing that.  The library would be able to help you with
publicity.  

 

Debbie

 

 

From: Jeff Baer [mailto:jabaer811 at outlook.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2025 6:54 PM
To: Maryland President via MD-Sligo <md-sligo at nfbnet.org>; Deborah (Debbie)
Brown <deborahb14 at verizon.net>
Cc: Juhi Narula <jnarula at bism.org>
Subject: Updates and questions about ways to grow our young adult programs

 

Dear Ronza and Debbie, with a cc: to Juhi (who knew to expect this e-mail),

 

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to give you a few quick updates and seek
your input and advice.

 

Coming out of our state convention, Morgan and Melika have successfully
launched their young women's discussion sessions. They have had 2 sessions
by Zoom so far. Both had small attendance (only a few people) from NFBMD
membership.  Discussion topics covered so far have been "overcoming
embarrassing situations" and "introductions / what people would like to get
out of the discussions going forward".

 

Upcoming topics they have planned are "Summer Safety" and "Having
Self-Confidence"

 

I do not attend their discussions, but check in with them after each session
to ensure things went well and that they are doing well hosting the Zoom
meetings, etc. They continue to be excited to lead the sessions and be
involved in NFB activities. They hope to grow the attendance to their
sessions now that they feel comfortable with how things work, and they have
a few loyal attendees to count one for reach session.  To grow their
attendance, they plan to advertise to others including non-Maryland
residents via their social networks and their memberships in various mailing
lists, some of which are NFB-related.

 

I realized that one group that might help them to find interested young
adults would be the Maryland Library of the Blind and Print-Disabled (LBPD).
I had separately contacted LBPD a few weeks ago, as I was seeking to make
progress on another idea that had surfaced before that state convention -
Aly's idea to start a young adult book club centered around fantasy genre
books. That idea had not found any other takers at state convention, much to
Aly's disappointment. 

 

I had recently inquired to LBPD to see if they were aware of any similar
book clubs that might exist that Aly could simply join. Instead, I received
an offer from LBPD to promote the book club idea to see if jointly we could
find others to be in a book club with Aly and others in NFBMD. They also
told me that they were considering the launching of library-sponsored
virtual social sessions, like Zoom trivia nights or audio-described movie
nights. They asked if there would be interest in working together to make
them of interest to our NFBMD young adults. I wanted to check with the two
of you first before responding, as I was not sure of any relationship or
complications that might already exist between NFBMD and LBPD and I did not
want to do anything without your input or permission.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions for me, and if it would be okay
with you for LBPD to cubiclize Morgan and Melika's discussion panels or the
opportunity to join a NFBMD YA virtual book club in the fantasy genre.

 

Thank you!

-Jeff

Cell: (410) 499-0143

 

P.S. Melika has recently expressed interest in attending LCB or another
training center, possibly next summer. I encouraged her today to reach out
to the two of you, Ronza and Debbie, as you're much better coaches for her
than I am on that topic. Melika just completed a successful semester at
Montgomery College towards getting her associate's degree. Her goal, which
is still a year off, if not more, is to complete that associate's degree and
then transfer to a four-year institution to pursue the remaining two years
of a bachelor's program in sociology or social work.

 

 

 

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