[Mn-at-large] Fwd: NFB President’s Notebook - week of 06/ 19/2017

David Andrews dandrews at visi.com
Tue Jun 20 02:31:34 UTC 2017 

>
>
>President's Notebook
>
>
>
>
>
>National Federation of the Blind
>
>
>
>
>
>Mark A. Riccobono
>
>
>
>
>
><mailto:officeofthepresident at nfb.org>officeofthepresident at nfb.org
>
>
>
>
>
>(410) 659-9314
>
>
>
>
>
>Dear Fellow Federationists,
>
>In three weeks we will be together in Orlando. I 
>hope you are as energized as I am about our 
>upcoming family reunion. There are a few things 
>to get done before we get to our national convention.
>
>I am aware that many affiliates of the National 
>Federation of the Blind have received a message 
>from Sharla Glass 
>(<sglass at envisionamerica.htm>sglass at envisionamerica.com) 
>with a subject line of: Can we get your 
>endorsement for Medication Safety for the Blind Awareness Week?
>
>A number of you have thoughtfully written to me 
>asking if this is an effort the Federation 
>endorses. Our communications team is planning to 
>put together some suggested social media 
>engagement. We do not recommend that affiliates 
>sign on as a sponsor of this project. Please 
>allow us to coordinate at the national level. 
>Most importantly, we want to make sure we are 
>promoting the broad area of access to 
>prescription information that is consistent with 
>our messaging rather than promoting any particular product.
>
>I have written to first-time delegates to the 
>convention inviting them to a conference call 
>next week. If we missed you by mistake, please 
>drop me a note so we can send you the calendar invite.
>
>All convention delegates should be on the watch 
>for another message coming soon regarding business on the convention floor.
>
>
>
>Critical Actions This Week:
>
>
>
>Legislative Alert:
>H.R. 620, the ADA Education and Reform Act, will 
>be voted on in committee (referred to as markup) 
>over the next week or two. If passed, this 
>legislation will dramatically weaken the ADA, 
>hindering education, employment, and community 
>participation for all people with disabilities. 
>The bill prevents people with disabilities from 
>filing a lawsuit regarding an ADA violation 
>until the person first notifies the violator. 
>The violator then has 60 days to respond and 
>then has another 120 days to remedy the problem, for a total delay of 180 days.
>
>Does it make sense to wait 180 days for 
>accessible instructional material? By then, the 
>class will be over. How about waiting 180 days 
>for an accessible job application? By then the 
>job will be filled. How about waiting 180 days 
>at the doctor’s office for an accessible 
>check-in kiosk? Furthermore, this legislation 
>will do nothing to stop so-called frivolous 
>lawsuits, which will still be valid under state 
>law. Businesses do not need more time to comply 
>with the ADA—they have had twenty-seven years already.
>
>Please call your representative and urge them to 
>oppose H.R. 620, the ADA Education and Reform 
>Act. And if your representative has not 
>cosponsored one of our other three bills, also 
>urge them to do so. Congress will be back in 
>session for the next two weeks but please try to 
>make your calls and send your emails by Friday, 
>June 22. A short summary of each bill is 
>included below. I have also included a list of 
>all the current cosponsors. The best way to 
>contact your member of Congress is to call the 
>Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask 
>for the office in question. Emailing your member 
>of Congress is also a good idea. If you do so, 
>please copy <mailto:JPare at nfb.org>JPare at nfb.org.
>
>It is critical that we shut down H.R. 620. In 
>addition, we are hoping to significantly raise 
>the number of cosponsors on all of our bills 
>before convention but we cannot do it without 
>everyone working together. Your calls and emails make a big difference.
>
>
>
>
>News:
>
>
>
>Click-to-Give Campaign:
>Our Imagination Fund Committee is pleased to 
>announce a Click-to-Give campaign that we will 
>kick off at our national convention. 
>Click-to-Give allows anyone to make a donation 
>to the National Federation of the Blind. This is 
>an opportunity for us to identify those 
>individuals who are not members of the 
>organization but want to support the good work 
>that we do. We need your help identifying 
>individuals in your extended network of family, 
>friends, colleagues, and service providers. 
>Their gift will assist a newly blinded person 
>with independent travel through our Free White 
>Cane Program, help a child to learn to read 
>through our Braille Reading Pals Club, assist 
>blind veterans to regain their independence, and 
>so much more. How you can help: please take the 
>time to share the names and email addresses of 
>potential supporters by visiting 
><https://nfb.org/give2017>https://nfb.org/give2017. 
>When the campaign starts, we will send an email 
>inviting all of these individuals to share in 
>the great things we do every day to help blind people live the lives we want.
>
>New Exhibit on tenBroek Now Available:
>The tenBroek Library is pleased to announce that 
>a new digital exhibit on the life and work of 
>our founder, Jacobus tenBroek, is now available 
>online through Digital Maryland, part of the 
>Digital Public Library of America. This exhibit 
>mainly focuses upon Dr. tenBroek's life outside 
>of his work with the NFB and the organized blind 
>movement, including his post-secondary 
>education, initial struggles to find work as a 
>blind man, teaching career, family life, and 
>research projects. These specially selected 
>records span the years 1938-1967 and provide a 
>unique glimpse at his personality, sense of 
>humor, and intelligence. Some materials also 
>touch on the events of the Free Speech Movement 
>at Berkeley in the mid-1960s. Each document has 
>been scanned, transcribed, and rendered as plain 
>text to ensure accessibility. The exhibit is 
>available online at 
><http://collections.digitalmaryland.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/nfjt>http://collections.digitalmaryland.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/nfjt. 
>If you have any questions or experience problems 
>trying to access the exhibit, please contact 
>Anna Kresmer at 
><mailto:akresmer at nfb.org>akresmer at nfb.org or (410) 659-9314, extension 2310.
>
>
>
>
>Dates to Keep in Mind:
>
>
>
>·        July 10-15, 2017: 
><https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm16/bm1611/bm161101.htm>National 
>Convention, Rosen Shingle Creek Resort, Orlando, Florida
>·        July 23-29, 2017: 
><http://www.blindscience.org/nfb-youth-slam>Youth Slam, Towson University
>·        September 12-17, 2017: 
><http://blindmerchants.org/blast-2017/>BLAST, Nashville, Tennessee
>
>The National Federation of the Blind knows that 
>blindness is not the characteristic that defines 
>you or your future. Every day we raise the 
>expectations of blind people, because low 
>expectations create obstacles between blind 
>people and our dreams. You can live the life you 
>want; blindness is not what holds you back.
>
>Mark A. Riccobono
>President
>200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
>(410) 659-9314 | 
><mailto:officeofthepresident at nfb.org>officeofthepresident at nfb.org
>
>
><https://nfb.org/>
>National Federation of the Blind
>
>
> 
><http://www.facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind>
>Facebook
>     <https://twitter.com/NFB_Voice>
>Twitter
>     <https://www.youtube.com/NationsBlind>
>Youtube
>
>
>The National Federation of the Blind is a 
>community of members and friends who believe in 
>the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. 
>Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they want.
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/mn-at-large_nfbnet.org/attachments/20170619/1c55f9f6/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1ed84b2c.png
Type: image/png
Size: 33789 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/mn-at-large_nfbnet.org/attachments/20170619/1c55f9f6/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1ed84b3b.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16173 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/mn-at-large_nfbnet.org/attachments/20170619/1c55f9f6/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1ed84b4b.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16307 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/mn-at-large_nfbnet.org/attachments/20170619/1c55f9f6/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1ed84b5a.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16510 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/mn-at-large_nfbnet.org/attachments/20170619/1c55f9f6/attachment-0003.png>

More information about the MN-At-Large mailing list