Author: Bruce Sexton Jr.
Last saved by: Arielle Silverman
Company: CCBI

Getting your student Division Started

Whether you are starting a new, rebuilding or strengthening your state's student division, this guide will help you!  If you are reading this handbook you have already taken the first step to building a student division in your state.  

The first thing you will want to do is create a strong internal network.  This can be done in several ways.  The first way is to find out if there are others already interested in starting a division.  You can do this by contacting your state affiliate's president whose contact information can be found at
[http://www.nfb.org/nfb/State_and_Local_Organizations.asp?SnID=534250945]
You can also find interested students by attending state and national conventions or by going to your local chapter meetings.  Sometimes, conventions attract new students that your state president has not yet become familiar with.  Be sure to talk to new students about forming a new division and write their information down.  Then be sure to follow-up by contacting them after your convention.  

If a convention is too far in the future or you cannot seem to find others to form the division with you, do not fret.  You can begin by writing a letter that agencies that serve the blind can send on your behalf.  These agencies often cannot directly give us names of their blind clients, but they can send information about the NFB and your contact information to them.  Such a letter can look something like this:

Dear Blind and Visually Impaired Students:

I would like to get a group of blind students to work together on common issues.  Issues such as accessible textbooks, hiring and firing readers, taking standardized tests, applying to Graduate schools and all other matters concerning blind students.  This group of students will participate in legislative efforts on state-wide and nation wide scales.  We will raise funds, go to conventions, organize seminars and mentor others.  The conventions, of which I speak, contain presentations by blind people from all walks of life, legislatures, blind agencies and more.  If you are interested in starting a group such as this, please contact _____ at ______.  

Thank you for considering participating in organizing a State Student Division of blind and visually impaired individuals.  

Sincerely,
You’re Name

You will notice the use of the term “visually impaired” in this letter.  The NFB thinks it respectable to be blind.  That's why we often times avoid using "visually Impaired."  But we recognize that some of our new members use the term “visually impaired” and might not think the word “blind” applies to them.

Another method to find students is to obtain a list of state and national scholarship applicants from your state president.  These are great people to contact, since they already sought help from the national Federation of the Blind.  Or, send letters to your state library for the blind or the disability service offices at colleges across the state.  Remember that student divisions include both high school and college students, so work on building contacts with staff at schools for the blind and TVI teachers in your state who can pass your information on to high school students and give you contacts for interested students.

When you contact these students you will want a plan of action.  They will be looking to you for leadership and direction.  The first thing you might do is to have a phone meeting with all your contacts to brainstorm.  

Come with ideas of your own and an open mind for input of others.  Eventually you will want to meet up in person, either at an NFB convention or somewhere more informal.  Your goal will be to find a solid core of students to organize an official division at your state’s convention.

Once you have a solid group of students who want to organize a division, you will need to come up with a constitution for it.  A sample constitution is aincluded in this handbook that you can adapt by simply placing your state’s name in the appropriate places.

Find students to run for officer positions at your state convention organizing meeting.  Depending on your division’s size, you might just have a president, vice-president and secretary/treasurer, or you may decide to elect up to nine officers.

At your state convention meeting you will want to elect officers, approve your constitution and get the names and contacts for all your members.  Make sure to create an accessible, usable and functional database of names.  You are going to want to keep track of your members, contributors and your fundraising contacts.  In this handbook there is an example of an excel sheet and Word document formats of contact lists.  Choose whatever method works best for you.  

You will also need to keep electronic and hard copies of all important documents such as your constitution, meeting minutes, contact lists and other pertinent information.  This will allow easy referencing for you and can be passed on to your successors.  

The importance of passing your work to the next board can not be expressed enough.  Student divisions, by nature, have a high turnover rate and need that institutional memory to build upon the work you have done.   

Eventually as you grow you may find it handy to appoint some additional leadership positions. These  include:

•	Someone to be a membership chairperson
•	Someone who guides and directs fund-raising activities someone to call and or e-mail friendly reminders of upcoming meetings or events.
•	Someone to create and or maintain your website.
•	Someone to moderate   a list serve.
•	

Once you’ve created a strong internal system, you can begin reaching out.  You can have a goal to work on one student issue facing the blind in your state each year.  

If those whom you contact live far from each other, you can use a free phone conferencing service to hold phone meetings.  One such site can be found at:
www.freeconference.com
Social networking sites such as facebook and myspace can be places to advertise your new or existing division.