[Nfb-greeley] meeting minutes for 111/23/13

[Marty Rahn]

 hi all,

please find the previous meeting minutes below. thanks.

11/23/13

The meeting was called to order at 12:20 PM. People preient were Marty, Melissa, Cody, Jessica, Bill, Nure and Rita. Joe, Jannis, Angel and Christi also joined us as guests. We next discussed the minutes as emailed to the Greeley list and a motion was made and seconded to pass the  minutes which were accepted by unanimous vote. According to the Treasurer's report, we currently have $421.72 in our account. This is counting the check that we wrote for $50 to NFBCO. This leaves us with a balance $371.72. Cody introduced Mike Hess from the Blind Institute of Technology and then conferenced him in via phone. He  discussed what he did through BIT. He stated that he helps people who are bl/VI to get into the work world more easily through training and work with companies. Mike Hess's contact information is as follows:

phone: 303-995-6453. email: mike%blindinstituteoftechnology_org.

After Mike's presentation, we turned to discussion of our holiday party. This meeting will be held at the Greeley Senior Center, locatow  at 1010 6th Street, on December 14,, 2013 from 12:00-2:00 PM. People are urged to contribute $5 toward the cost of the main dish. We will be collecting donations for North Range Behavioral Health and the families with which they work. We will be collecting children's books, movies and gift cards for these families. We will also be collecting nonperishable food items that will benefit the Weld County Food Bank. Linda will take the donations for North Range Behavioral Health families with her to be picked up by the woman with whzm Melissa is working. Chapter memberbbs will bring drinks and other things to the meeting on the 14th. Members are encouraged to send out messages to the list stating what they will bring and Cody will coordinate this effort. He will send out a reminder message in about a week's time. Fundraising was next on the agenda. We first  talked about the braille candybar  fundraiser. We made aproximately  $90 from the sale of these at our state convention. It was decided that we would give the money to the treasurer and then take the money out of the account when we needed to buy susplies to make more bars to sell. We discussed shipping them to people who wanted them. Jessica thinks that shisping them would be possible. We could have people pay shipping in addition to the price of the candybars. She also suggested finding out how many people wanted them and then transporting them down to Denver with someone which will be less expensive. The consensus of the chapter was that we should exercise this option. Melissa offered to contact the center to see who all might want candy. Cody suggested that we figure out one large scale fundraiser while continuing to do the smaller fundraisers in order to pad our bank account a little more. Some ideas of fundraisers we discussed were a bake sale and a silent auction with a dinner or some other event to draw people in. Nure brought up the idea of having a fundraiser on the UNC campus selling burritos or something like this to people on campus who have a difficult time getting away for lunch. Jessica suggested we take preoders for Valentine's Day and then make cupckes, cookies, chocolates, etc. as a fundraiser. Cody suggested approaching the Lions Club and asking them to help with a pancake breakfast and possibly combining the silent auction with this. It was felt that the regional president would be a bit more hepful than our local chapter and that we should communicate with him directly about this idea. We formed a fundraising committee consisting of Cody, Linda and Nure. We then discussed our priorities for next year. The first thing is to set our meetings on a uniform date every month. This will help attract members and grow the chapter. We discussed having meetings on the third Saturday of the month in order to avoid some of the major holidays and to help people know when our meetings will be. Jessica suggested that we find a place to meet that we can always have since there has been some issue with getting the room at the senior center. There was consensus about keeping the meeting here at the senior center if we can since we do not have to pay for the space we are using. We will set up a 2014 calendar and Linda will check with Sherry Lobemeyer to see if this is something that we can do. Jessica will work with Linda to determine meeting dates. Nure suggested doing another perspectives expo similar to what we did this past year, but having it at a time when we are more likely to get students from UNC  involved. Melissa said that Aims wants us to work with them sometime in March to put together something for their Disability Awareness Week and also in October for White Cane Safaty Day. Jessic suggested getting together a committee soon to set up dates and begin planning for these activities. We also talked about looking into working and communicating more closely with the area TVIS. We discussed having monthly or bimonthly sessions focusing on training for various tzpes of technology such as I-devices, JAWS and braille notetakers among others. We also thought about having 30-60 minute sessions at the end of monthly meetings to focus on a certain piece of technology. Kristi was then given some time to ask the chapter as a group some questions about common misccceptions and obstacles that we face as blind people as well as about key pieces of legislation that might help us as a group in the future. The meeting was adjourned at 2:20 PM.

respectfully submitted
marty rahn secretary
national federation of colorado greeley chapter

Warm Regards,
Marty Rahn, Ma
Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments
Weld Re-8, Weld Re-3J and Morgan Re-3
Home: (970) 353-5067
Cell: (719) 271-9496
Email: marty.rahn at juno.com
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