[Nfb-kzoo] Minutes for March Meeting

Sat Apr 7 20:40:35 UTC 2012

Hi everyone,
I am now attaching and pasting below the minutes from our March meeting.  Please review both these and the minutes from February, as we will be voting to approve them at Monday’s meeting.

Thanks,
Leanne

Kalamazoo Chapter of the NFB of Michigan

Chapter Meeting Minutes

March 12, 2012

Location: Disability Network Community Building

Role call: Tyler Merren, Leanne Merren, Matt McCubbin, Rachel Bishop, Tim Paulding and Jacalyn Paulding

(Meeting was shortened due to a tornado warning at the beginning of the meeting.)

Minutes from February’s meeting were not sent out, therefore were not reviewed (sorry).

Agenda was not reviewed.

President’s Report: Tyler suggested that the chapter choose one or two projects to focus on for the year, and focus on only those for now.  Since everyone is busy, it is difficult to have too many things going at once.  Participation needs to improve, so agreeing on something to work for will help everyone to commit.  He also stressed again the need for communication if people will not make a meeting so that people aren’t spending money and time to attend meetings where quorum is not met.  He also said he would check with J.J. to see if he will be attending meetings, as he has missed the past few.  

Vice President was absent.

Treasurer’s report (total of available funds is in February’s minutes).  Matt says that fund-raising is definitely needed for the chapter.  Funds from raffles have not been deposited as of yet.

Secretary’s report: Leanne discussed the need for better communication within the chapter.  She said that there are still some people who need to join the list-serve for easier communication.  She assisted a couple of people with joining during the February meeting.  She asked that people try to do better about responding to messages.  She will pull up the facebook page and start posting reminders there as well.  Matt also stressed the need for a Dropbox folder for minutes and other chapter documents to be easily shared among members.  Tim suggested that someone call everyone to touch base each month and the chapter agreed that it would help.  Leanne will pull up the list of contacts and update it and send it out.

Michigan Commission for the Blind Executive Order: Nobody knows for sure what is going to happen regarding services for current Commission clients, but all are being reassured at this time that services will not change in the near future.  We might see a rise in meeting attendance as many are concerned about their future services.  It would be good at this time to get the word out about our meetings in case people would like to keep updated on this topic.  Matt shared that there would be representatives from the NFB of Michigan in Lansing speaking to senators in the coming week, and if anyone would like to get involved they should contact Larry or Fred.

Proposed projects to work on are Metro Transit inaccessibility, and MoPix.

Metro Transit: Matt shared that Metro Transit is not helpful over the phone.  Patrons are not supposed to call dispatch to ask about location of buses or stops.  Also their website is still inaccessible for the blind after many requests for changes.  Question was raised as to whether J.J. is still on the transit board.

MoPix (Motion Picture Access): Jackie shared that there is $3000 available for this project if we are willing to pick it up.  It would be a great way to work with other groups on blindness-related issues.  There is currently no location in Kalamazoo offering MoPix, and with a very high blindness population it would be a very good thing for the area.  We would need to raise the funds in order to continue with this project.

MoPix would get more attention, while the Metro Transit issue affects our every day lives.  The group had a hard time deciding which project to pursue first.  Tyler pointed out that the MoPix project would be a very positive thing for our chapter to pursue.  There are positives and negatives to the Metro Transit issue, and it definitely needs to be addressed.  Tim and Matt offered to check into the issues with Metro Transit and see what our next step in that issue would be.  In the meantime, the chapter has decided to move forward with the MoPix project.  Fund-raising ideas will be discussed at our next meeting.

Food for meetings: The group discussed either having members order their own food for meetings, or collecting money for a group meal.  No decision was made at this time.

Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted by Leanne Merren.
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