[Nfb-or] Student Leadership Seminar Update

[Bill]

HI all,
I would like to get together this month(april) to further discuss the things
you learned at the seminar and look at the recruitment stuff you aquired and
get together some people to work on that project.  As joseph said in his
message we are small, but i think it is still important we keep up with
eachother and keep stuff moving.  I believe that a leaders meeting of some
sort after elections which this year will be in october, is a good idea.  I
don't think that it needs to be a big afair but it should be soon after
elections and used to devise the things mentioned by haben.
Bill
p.s.
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On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Haben Girma <habengirma at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
> I would love to hear back from you! Please select Reply All when responding
> to this message so everyone can join the discussion, unless you want to send
> a personal message to me.
>
> Best,
> Haben Girma
>
>