[Nfb-or] Blind Students Update

[Haben Girma]

Hello everyone, below is a message I sent out to members of the Oregon 
Association of Blind Students. In case there are other students out 
there who are interested in getting involved with the Oregon Association 
of Blind Students, or non-students interested in supporting and working 
with us, I'm sharing this message with the list:

Hello Everyone!

As some of you may know, last weekend I attended the National 
Association of Blind Students' first ever leadership seminar. It was 
held at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore, an enormous 
building that takes up the whole block. The architecture is beautiful, 
and it houses the world's biggest library on blindness related topics, 
the world's biggest collection of international adaptive technology for 
the blind--I saw giant braille embossers from Norway and an Apple 
Mac!--and lots of meeting rooms, dining rooms, and dormitories. About 
forty students and several NFB leaders spent the past weekend there 
sharing ideas and strategies for improving the National Association of 
Blind Students (NABS).

Until several weeks ago, Oregon did not have a state division of NABS. 
The current president of NABS, Terri Rupp, had met me in the summer of 
2006 when we were both attending the Louisiana Center for the Blind. 
Arielle Silverman is First Vice President of NABS as well as the 
regional representative to the Northwest. As Terri Rupp planned the NABS 
leadership seminar, she wanted to find representatives from every state 
to attend the seminar in hopes that those students would develop the 
leadership skills to start and improve the student divisions in their 
respective states. So, Arielle Silverman contacted me back in October to 
see if I would represent Oregon. So that's how I ended up representing 
Oregon at the seminar, and that's how I began looking for other blind 
students in Oregon.

On the first evening of the seminar, Dr. Maurer, President of the NFB, 
welcomed the students. He explained that the magnificent building, the 
National Center for the Blind, is ours. He said it was odd to welcome us 
to a place that belonged to us. Terri Rupp had approached him one day to 
ask if NABS could have a leadership seminar at NCB, and Dr. Maurer said 
yes. So there we were, students from all over the country sharing in the 
spirit of the NFB. Dr. Maurer acknowledged that it takes a lot of hard 
work to be a blind student, but most of all it takes an imagination. We 
are all imaginative to some extent, and that is absolutely important to 
succeed as a blind student, as a blind person.

We heard from several student leaders about various ways of improving 
NABS. Many students complained that their meetings were boring, which 
diminished the number of people who attended. Dominque Lawless of 
Tennessee shared that her division tried to keep a fun and social side 
to the meetings. Sometimes they would hold their meetings at a pizza 
parlor, and as soon as business was over, they would eat pizza and just 
hang out. Someone else said that her division was planning a seminar 
that would hold informative/business meetings in the morning, then go 
rock climbing afterwards. Still another person suggested that social 
dancing be incorporated into the NFB meetings. He suggested that sighted 
people be invited to the meetings, such as the state conventions or 
student seminars, and the evenings could be spent ballroom dancing, or 
rocking it to the preferred dance style of the group.

Fundraising
Jason Ewell, who I think is the Communications Director of the NFB, 
talked to us about fundraising and the March for Independence. During 
National Convention hundreds of blind people take to the streets of 
where the Convention is being held, and march for freedom, independence, 
and the NFB. (By the way, Bill Casson has participated before!) The 
March for Independence is also a huge fundraiser, for those who march 
ask family and friends to sponsor them and donate money to the NFB. At 
the seminar, Jason Ewell asked if any of us were planning to contact 
sponsors for the march. Darrell Kirby was one of those who said yes, he 
was planning to contact someone. Then, Jason Ewell asked Darrel to show 
the rest of us how it's done. With all of us silently listening, Darrel 
called up a friend on his cell phone, told the friend how the NFB has 
positively influenced his life, and then asked the friend if he would 
sponsor Darrell. With that simple and honest phone call, Darrell raised 
$100 for the NFB! Another source of funding is the Imagination Fund. The 
NFB has the Imagination Fund to support the activities of its various 
divisions across the country. The process of applying for an Imagination 
Grant is not complicated, so we might want to look into it if we do a 
regional event.

Regional Event
During the seminar we got in small groups comprised of representatives 
from our respective regions. Jedi Moerke is President of the Washington 
student division, and Lora Ireland is from the Idaho student division. 
The Washington and Idaho divisions are both small, each having less than 
six active members. Since all three of our student divisions are small 
and not that strong, we discussed the possibility of having a regional 
event. The event would have a combination of educational and 
recreational activities to build community, leadership, and spread the 
word about the NFB. Jedi suggested the Tri-Cities region of Southeast 
Washington as a good location for the event. Sadly, we only had fifteen 
minutes to talk about it. We talked about maybe doing a river rafting 
trip, or renting a meeting space in the Tri-Cities, but nothing definite 
was decided. How do you guys feel about doing a regional event?

Regional Representative
Members of the NABS Board represent different regions of the US so that 
the work of supporting the various state groups is more evenly divided 
among them. Our representative is Arielle Silverman and she asks that we 
update her every now and then to let her know how things are going in 
the Oregon Division. Arielle is from Arizona and attends college in 
Colorado, but she knows a few of us in the Northwest. Her email is below:

Arielle Silverman, First Vice-President; Northwest regional advisor, 
Arielle71 at gmail.com <mailto:Arielle71 at gmail.com>

Recruiting
Recruiting new members is something many of the other leaders were 
interested in hearing about, too. Advertising in local newspapers, over 
the radio, and on the website of National Public Radio were ideas 
suggested.

Leadership Retreat
An awesome idea I heard, though probably best for larger groups, is to 
hold an officers retreat just after elections. The division of labor, 
goals, and commitment of each officer can sometimes be vague. So, one 
idea is to have all the new officers get together to clearly spell out 
goals, expectations, and responsibilities.

Website
Joe Orozco is the webmaster of the NABS website and is making a list of 
the various websites all the student groups have. I mentioned to him 
that we have a Facebook Group page. He says he would be happy to create 
a website for us, which I think would be more accessible for 
non-Facebook users. I told him I would check in with the group to see 
what they thought of a website. So, what do you think of having a 
website for our group?

Important Notes
Centers for Independent Living often have vans that they are willing to 
provide for disability purposes. We do seem to already have a system of 
transportation in Oregon, though.

It was stressed at the seminar that students should not sign contracts 
unless they are absolutely sure that they will handle full legal and 
financial obligations. Students should have the state affiliate 
president, Art Stevenson in our case, sign the contracts. So if we were 
to rent a place in the Tri-Cities for a regional event, we would 
definitely want to have Art in the loop.

Treasury: Renee is our Treasurer and he has experience as Treasurer of 
his NFB chapter. You're probably already familiar with the following 
information, Renee, but some of the others may be interested in the 
following information. With the bank of choice, we should be listed as a 
501c organization. Whenever a new treasurer is elected, the change 
should also be legally acknowledged by the bank. Just a business detail 
I thought it would be good to share...

A CD with lots of information and advice was handed out at the seminar. 
Everything on the CD should be on the NABS website by the end of this 
weekend. However, I am attaching a document that is really ;helpful to 
where we are now, the developing/recruiting stage. In the document there 
are suggestions for finding blind students in Oregon, and a sample 
letter to send off to agencies that serve the blind and colleges/high 
schools in Oregon. There are a lot of such agencies and schools, so I 
suggest that we make a list of all of them, then divide up the task of 
contacting all these places. Who would like to work on making this list? 
I think two or three people should work on it. I'm up for it, too.

For some fun entertainment, check out these lyrics to NFB songs! 
http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm07/bm0708/bm070815.htm


Best,
Haben Girma
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