[NFB-Seniors] [Nebraska-Senior-Blind] Nebraska Senior Division May Meeting - Monday the 11th - NFB Krafters Division Presents

Tue May 12 02:04:45 UTC 2020

Hi everyone:

Brad and I are doing fine, except that we forgot about tonight’s meeting. We were in a conversation with our grandson Jameson until just before our zoom evening prayer time and didn’t think about the meeting until we heard from both Nancy Oltman and Chris Boone. Sorry we missed it and hope we will be there next month.

We didn’t get to brag about our new dining room table, chairs and bench that arrived today. Guess we will do that next month, too.

Hope everyone is well. sorry we missed Tammy‘s presentation.

Sincerely,

Barbara and Brad

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 8, 2020, at 8:57 PM, Robert Leslie Newman via Nebraska-Senior-Blind <nebraska-senior-blind at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Note: this is one of two messages that relate to this month’s meeting; this is our regular meeting notice. The second message that is being sent, immediately after this goes, is a copy of the directions to make yourself a face mask, to be worn when you need to be out in public. The directions are well laid out; it was presented in one of the many Zoom meetings that have recently been out there; if you missed that call, here is your chance to get the instructions. The time frame of our meeting would not be conducive to work through the lesson. Consider this a present from the Krafters division.
> 
>  
> 
> Hi You All
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> RE: Our May meeting is this coming Monday, the 11th! We do have a special guest
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> Non-members are welcome
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> 
> Topic: National Federation of the Blind
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> Krafters’ Division
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> This Division was established in 2008 by Joyce Kane and a group of blind/visually impaired crafters. Over the years the Division’s goal is to share the love of crafts with other blind/visually impaired people interested in learning anew craft or learning how to continue those crafts enjoyed before vision loss. The teachers are blind/visually impaired and have learned or developed techniques that allow us to continue enjoying crafts.
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> Here are a few of the classes that have been taught: crochet, knitting, loom knitting, origami, plastic canvas, macramé bracelets, cleaning with essential oils, etc.
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> Website: www.krafterskorner.org
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> You can check here to learn about classes, our listserv and becoming a member($20/year).
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>  
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> For more information you can contact
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> Tammy Freitag, President
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> H: 402-904-5105
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> Email: krafters.division.president at gmail.com
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>  
> 
> ***A bit about Tammy***
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> I have dealt with vision problems all of my life but was introduced to crochet as a teenager. I fell in love with all of the beautiful skenes of yarn that my neighbor had lovingly made into Granny Squares.
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> I remember sitting in her floor as she patiently spent time teaching me the basics. My Grandmother worked with me as well. Over the years I have made a few items but have really grown my skills now that I have retired and gotten involved in the NFB Krafters’ Division.
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>  
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> In that time between learning and growing my crochet skills, I have spent my life teaching at Church, in Schools, at Adult Training Centers and now with the NFB Krafters’ Division. With a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in hand, I spent 17 years teaching in Special Ed classrooms. I transitioned into the Rehabilitation System where I taught a variety of skills from how to cut up a whole chicken to crossing streets. Now in retirement because of health issues, I continue to love learning new craft skills and sharing the ones I know. I became Division President in 2018.
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>  
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> Outside of the Krafters’ Division, I spend much time working on committees at my church and with the 21st Century Lions Club here in Nebraska. I am also serving as a Board member of my local NFB chapter.
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> Keeping busy is a welcome thing.
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>  
> 
> Contents of this message:
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> *When and how to get on the call
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> *Agenda; Minutes and Treasurer’s reports; March and April
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> *The NFB Pledge
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>  
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> *#1 When and How to Get On the Call:
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> Date: May 11th
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> Time: 6:00 Mountain; 7:00 Central
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> Phone#: 1-712-451-0011
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> Access Code: 345154Pound
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>  
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> *#2 Agenda:
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> -First- Come to order, introductions, say our NFB pledge
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> -Second- Our special guest presents!
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> third- Secretary & Treasurers Reports
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> 
> --OLD BUSINESS:
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> -Membership- do make calls to past members who have not joined us during recent meetings. And/or think of someone new to call and invite to join us for this or next month’s meeting.
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> - Update on video.
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> -Any other old business you may bring
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>  
> 
> --NEW BUSINESS:
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> –Affiliate, and National NFB news
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> -Anything you may bring
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>  
> 
> --Finally- Brags & Drags
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>  
> 
> *#3 Our NFB Pledge:
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> I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by its constitution.
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>  
> 
> **Secretary Reports:
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>  
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> #1 March, secretary’s report:
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> NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND OF NEBRASKA SENIOR DIVISION SECRETARY's REPORT
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> Monday, March 9, 2020
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> The NFBN Senior Division met by telephone conference Monday, March 9, 2020. In President Robert Newman's absence, Vice President Barbara Loos called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM CDT. Members present were: Vice President Barbara Loos, Secretary Linda Mentink, Treasurer Cheryl Livingston, Board Member Nancy Oltman, Christine Boone, Jo Boshart, Geralyn Konruff, Brad Loos, Steve Senteney, and Jerry Whitlow. Guests present were: Stacy Cervenka from New York and Karen Walsh from Nebraska.
>  
> Stacy Cervenka, Director of Public Policy for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), was our guest speaker. AFB was founded in 1921, and they did a large number of things, including providing materials to professionals in the blindness field, producing books on tape and offering aids and appliances to blind people themselves. In the past five years the organization has done some real strategic imagining, and now they're more of a think tank. They focus on research that organizations can use when they're doing advocacy. Their primary focus areas right now are education, employment, older adults with vision loss, transportation and technology. She talked about their aging initiatives. They did an environmental scan, and decided that they could make the most impact in transportation and employment. The first big thing that they're doing is Project Visitor, which is a grant that was given to them by the Volkswagen Foundation. They're trying to learn about what transportation options are available to older people with vision loss and if these transportation modes are adequate, how people feel about them, if people feel like they're useful and feasible, and if they support them in living independently in their homes and communities. Last year they conducted several hundred online surveys with professionals who provide services to blind seniors. This year they are conducting hundreds of phone interviews with blind seniors themselves in urban, suburban, ex-urban, rural, and remote areas to get a full picture of what services they are aware of and what services professionals who serve them are aware of. When this is all done, they will be publishing the presentation in JVIB, posting it on several websites, such as the Volkswagen Group of America, Mobility as a Service Team, Engineering and Innovation California, and delivering it at a number of aging conferences and blindness conferences. They have learned that 86% of older adults are more afraid of entering a nursing home than they are of death because they don't want to give up their independence or their autonomy. Vision loss is one of the main reasons they enter nursing homes. AFB is now doing some transportation advocacy, mainly to change the paratransit regulations to allow for people to be able to make one stop of up to 15 minutes in duration, rather than waiting for 90 minutes to be picked up for their return trip. This will be introduced in the Disability Access to Transportation Act. They were not able to get it as a regulations change at this point, but as a two-year pilot program for 15 cities, five cities with 200,000 people or more, five cities with 200,000 people or less and five cities that are in very remote areas. AFB has just founded a blindness transportation working group of the policy teams of the NFB, ACB and AFB with these goals: staying out of each other's lane and not counting on the same donors, support each other's work and identify some areas where we can all pull together in the same direction.
>  
> Regarding employment, they did a mapping of the disability employment space, all the employment programs that are geared to blind people or cross disabilities; they only focused on programs that people who are blind could apply for. They divided them into nine categories, looking for gaps, and noticed that there is no significant outreach to older adults who want to remain in the work force. They also talk a lot about the elimination of the homemaker goal in vocational rehabilitation, meaning that, unless a person has a vocational goal, they cannot get VR services. Stacy would like to start seeing that people over the age of 55 who don't have vocational goals can still receive VR services. She would like to see more funding for older individuals who are blind, but we need to think about alternative ways to fund training for older people who are blind.
>  
> They are also conducting focus groups in a hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, with staff and sixteen blind and low vision patients. They are coming up with a report about what the issues are that blind people face when in the hospital and how blind people's access to and quality of medical care can be improved. Materials will be disseminated to hospitals about best practices and how to work with blind and low vision people. They are embarking on designing a research study on transportation for older adults with vision loss, focusing on people age 65 and up. The first phase will focus on gathering information about communities and the second phase will gather information from older people with vision loss who do not drive, older people who do not have vision loss, but who do not drive for other reasons and older people who do drive.
>  
> Stacy then told us about her website, blindtravelersnetwork.org. In 2018 she won a Holman prize from the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. she wanted to create a travel website specifically for blind people. There are three main areas: blogs, review forms and message boards. She encouraged us to use it and share it with our friends.
>  
> Linda recited the NFB Pledge. Robert will recite it next month.
>  
> Linda read the February, 2020, Secretary's Report. It will be made a part of the permanent record of the organization.
>  
> Steve shared that he got a new phone and earphones, and he is hearing the meeting much better.
>  
> Cheryl read the Treasurer's Report as follows:
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> Treasurer’s Report Senior Division
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> Monday, March 9, 2020
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> Beginning Balance $1164.83
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> Expenses
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> PAC for March $15.00
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> Deposits none
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> Ending Balance $1149.83
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> Respectfully submitted,
>  
> Cheryl Livingston, Treasurer
>  
> Note: Gina Finnell and Jolene Boshart paid dues which will be reported in the April report.
>  
> It will be made a part of the financial record of the organization.
>  
> OLD BUSINESS. Barbara reported that they are making progress on the coffee video. They've been having several meetings and writing revisions, and are getting closer to the place where they will contact the camera guy.
>  
> Linda mentioned that she's considering playing our February guest speaker's presentation for the Columbus Area Chapter, because five of the nine members are dealing with vision loss.
>  
> BRAGS AND DRAGS. Barbara mentioned that it's a drag that Gina is sick and a drag that Robert's friend died.
>  
> Jerry's drag is that her doctor said she couldn't put her second hearing aid back in yet. She goes back to see him in a month. Her brag is that she has learned to read Braille. She's been practicing with a deck of cards and hopes before too long to be able to sit down and play a game of cards with her family, which she hasn't been able to do since she lost her sight.
>  
> Cheryl has fourteen more days before retiring from the Commission.
>  
> Jo has not been able to play for her month at church since her brain bleed last August. She is playing in March, and it's going really well.
>  
> Nancy asked Barbara how she's doing with her new computer. She's doing OK. She finds some things confusing, and she's not always sure whether it's JAWS 2020, Google Chrome or Windows 10 that's the issue; but she's glad she made the switch. Things work more quickly and her email is synced to both her iPhone and her computer.
>  
> There was no further business, so the meeting adjourned at 8:41 PM.
>  
> Respectfully submitted,
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> Linda Mentink, Secretary
>  
> 
> #2-  April, secretary’s report:
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>  
> 
> NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND OF NEBRASKA SENIOR DIVISION SECRETARY'S REPORT
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> Monday, April 13, 2020
>  
> The NFBN Senior Division met by telephone conference Monday, April 13, 2020. President Robert Newman called the meeting to order at 7:02 PM CDT. Members present were: President Robert Newman, Vice President Barbara Loos, Secretary Linda Mentink, Treasurer Cheryl Livingston, Board Member Nancy Oltman, Christine Boone, Gina Finnell, Geralyn Konruff, Brad Loos, Steve Senteney, and Jerry Whitlow. The only guest present was Karen Walsh.
>  
> Robert recited the NFB Pledge, with participation from the members. He will recite it again next month.
>  
> Robert asked Karen Walsh to tell us a little about herself. Since Karen didn't know anyone except Robert, we each introduced ourselves and told how we are coping with sheltering in place.
>  
> Since our discussion was so long, we agreed that we would read and accept the Secretary's and Treasurer's Reports for March and April next month.
>  
> Barbara had a list of upcoming NFB virtual events. Because we had been talking about masks earlier, she mentioned that our Colorado affiliate will be doing one Thursday, April 16, at 5 PM Mountain Time on learning how to make a mask that requires no sewing. If you do not receive the lists of virtual events because you do not have internet, you can call Jessica Beecham at 615-497-0435. The Senior call is the 22nd.
>  
> BRAGS AND DRAGS. Brad said that their son Dan is a manager at Tyson Foods, and can't work from home. His wife made him a mask, and when he took it into work, his boss was so impressed that he said, "If your wife was willing to make a bunch of those masks for us, we'd not only buy the material, but we'd pay her to do it." She said to just buy the material.
>  
> Linda is grateful that UPS drivers are still working. She's getting both Apexes repaired, because HumanWare may stop repairing them by the end of the summer.
>  
> Chris' brag is that her sun-in-law just got a new job in Des Moines. Her daughter can work remotely for as long as she needs to. The drag is that they're no longer in Lincoln.
>  
> Barbara reported that plans for the coffee video were moving forward, but they had to stop because of COVID-19. Jo Boshart is supposed to call Eric Buckwalter. Robert added that he talked to Jo. He has tried a couple times to reach Eric, but Eric has not called him back.
>  
> There was no further business, so we adjourned at 8:49 PM.
>  
> Respectfully submitted,
>  
> Linda Mentink, Secretary
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