[NFB-Utah] Weber/Davis November chapter meeting

[nfbutah at gmail.com]

Greetings Weber/Davis Friends and affiliate members 

 

the northern most NFB chapter in the Utah Affiliate is holding a November
game night.

When: Friday November 15, 2024 at 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Where: Brinnli Cherry's home 4544 West 2550 south,  Ogden, utah  

Bring what: anything you'd like to snack on, Games you want to play.

 

the Weber/Davis chapter is growing come and meet new people and learn what
it means to be a Federationist 

We are changing what it means to be blind. 

 

There is a special birthday this month in the Federation 

 

Happy eighty-fourth Federation anniversary. 

The National Federation of the Blind was founded November 16, 1940, in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Blind people from seven states-California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin-attended that first meeting, which was
held at the Redington Hotel in Wilkes-Barre, and successfully drafted a
constitution for what would become the first national organization of the
blind. 

 

The NFB was founded on the guiding principles that blind people have an
inalienable right to independence, that blind people have equal capacity,
and that only blind people themselves can legitimately speak for the blind
community. These principles have continually permeated the membership and
structure of our ever-growing organization.

www.nfb.org <http://www.nfb.org>  

 

If there are questions about this upcoming activity please email
weberdavisnfb at gmail.com <mailto:weberdavisnfb at gmail.com> 

 

For those who would like the Transcript of the presidential release it is
below with the Kernal book mentioned as well. 

 

 

Presidential Release #543 October 2024 Chapter Version

 

MUSIC:

Live the life you want, nobody can stop you.

Shoot for the sun, and break on through.

So you're blind, you'll be fine, we got good news.

Mark Riccobono: Greetings, fellow Federationists. Today is Tuesday, October
29th, 2024, and this is Presidential Release 543. And we are celebrating the
84th anniversary of the National Federation of the Blind here in November
2024.

 

And as we go into our 85th year, I want to encourage chapter members to
discuss what events in the history of our movement have been most important
to you. I think it's an interesting question that we could explore in our
chapters, and most importantly, I think it leads into the more important
question, which is, what are we most excited about for the movement in the
future? The reason to understand the past and what we've done, where we've
been, is to have inspiration for where we still need to go and what we still
need to do.

 

So I'd be really interested in hearing from our chapters, what are you most
passionate about the future of the organized blind movement. And I would
encourage you to go even a step farther, make that an opportunity for the
chapter to post something in social media and send it to our communications
group here at the national office, communications at nfb.org
<mailto:communications at nfb.org> . Post an audio, a video, talking about what
we're excited about for the future of the Federation.

 

And when I think about this, you might consider a short video that says
something like, "Happy Anniversary, National Federation of the Blind from
the," well, in my case, "the recording studio chapter of the Maryland
affiliate." And then go on to say, "We have made great progress, but there
is much more to do. We here are really looking forward to," and then
whatever it is that the chapter is excited, passionate about. I think that
would be a great anniversary, social media and video generation activity for
our chapters here in the month of November.

 

The biggest and most persistent problem that we have been facing since 1940,
and will continue to face into the future, is correcting the public
understanding about blindness and breaking down those misconceptions, and
helping the average person in society know the stories of blind people in an
authentic way, from the everyday to the extraordinary. And there is a real
need to continue to gather more of our stories, and we should do that in
writing, in audio form, in video, so that we can continue to move the needle
on the public understanding of blindness. Our stories are one of the most
powerful tools we have to talk about the work of the National Federation of
the Blind, our philosophy, and the difference it makes in our lives.

 

One source for getting inspiration for stories that I wanted to remind our
chapters about is our Kernel Books. Our Kernel Books are a goldmine of short
stories about the lives that blind people lead and the difference that the
National Federation of the Blind has made in those stories. These short
stories can also be perfect for those among us that are still learning
braille. They're great bite-size ways to do some braille reading.

And so I encourage our chapters to dive back into the Kernel Books as a way
to create a platform for us to talk about our stories within chapter
meetings.

 

And we think about reading Kernel Book stories, that's a great way to
practice braille, but also to get ready for our Braille Readers Are Leaders
contest that'll be coming up in the next month or so. So I want to remind
you that the Kernel Books are all available on our website in text and audio
form. You can go to nfb.org to find them, or you can search the show notes
for this release and find the direct URL.

 

And there are many great stories there really for any occasion that the
chapter might be considering. And I do hope that you use the Kernel Book
stories to encourage members of the chapter to write new stories for the
Monitor, to submit things for our podcast, for our blog. Our stories are
really one of the most powerful tools that we have. And this is a great
opportunity also for our chapters to work with members on telling our
stories in a short and powerful way as a way to talk about the work of the
National Federation of the Blind.

 

Consider it kind of like a little bit of NFB Toastmasters almost there. The
better that we get at telling our stories and sharing the power of our
movement, the more we can continue to move the needle on public
misunderstanding.

 

Now, to get you started, and because we will be celebrating Thanksgiving
later in November, I thought I would offer the audio recording of one of our
classic Kernel Book stories, and this also gives me an opportunity to send a
very special message here on this release. The article that I'm suggesting
to you, there are certainly many other good ones, but the one I'm suggesting
to you is the title article from the Kernel Book entitled Wall-to-Wall
Thanksgiving, which was released in 1997.

 

And the article, Wall-to-Wall Thanksgiving, is a great article and it gives
me the opportunity to note that the author of that article, Barbara Pierce,
will be celebrating her 80th birthday in the month of November 2024. And as
long as we're on the topic of 80th birthdays, just a little over a week ago
Mary Ellen Jernigan of Maryland also celebrated her 80th birthday. So I'm
really happy to share big birthday greetings from the entire Federation to
Barbara Pierce and Mary Ellen Jernigan, and to use that as an opportunity to
share our gratitude for the tremendous work that these leaders have done
within our movement. So we will include the audio as the second chapter of
this release, if you want to use it in the chapter meeting or at some other
point.

 

The last item I wanted to bring up on this release is related to gratitude,
and it is a piece of sad news, but it also is an opportunity to share a
bunch of gratitude. A couple of days ago, we learned that John Cheadle of
Maryland passed away. I cannot in any way do justice to the tremendous
contributions that John Cheadle has positively made on blind people, and for
that matter, non-blind people across this country, parents of blind children
and others. His work as an employee, as a member of the Federation, is deep
and wide and really touches every corner of our nation.

 

I know for me personally, I was deeply saddened to learn of John's passing,
but I do feel a deep amount of gratitude for having been in his circle, have
been influenced by him, and to have had the opportunity to learn from him
and his experience as a non-blind person who was deeply committed to the
organized blind movement. Time after time, John Cheadle did not flinch from
anything that the Federation called on him to do, and he put a lot of his
own heart and imagination into that work.

 

I could share a number of stories, but one that comes to mind is that John
Cheadle had the assignment to teach some of us how to drive during the
period of time when we were testing the technology for the Blind Driver
Challenge. Some blind individuals like myself had never been drivers, and so
we needed to learn how to do that. And so we went out to a parking lot and
John Cheadle was our instructor, but also our navigation system.

 

I will share an inside story that one time driving with John Cheadle in this
parking lot, I did take off the driver's side mirror of the car we were
driving. Got a little too close to a semi-truck that was parked in the
parking lot we were in. I'd say it was a fun moment. It was fun later in
looking back on it. It's one of the many experiences that I personally got
to have with John Cheadle and one of the many gratitudes that I am feeling
as we go into the Thanksgiving season.

 

This is what I wanted to share with you on this presidential release. I hope
all of our chapters get out there, tell stories, review our Kernel Books,
and use that as a source of inspiration. Happy Veterans Day to all of our
members out there who are veterans or have veterans in your family. Happy
Federation anniversary to each and every one of you, and a very big happy
Thanksgiving from the Federation family to the rest of your family. With
gratitude, let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.

 

MUSIC: The preceding message was brought to you by Marc Riccobono,
President, National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314. Office of the
President at nfb.org. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search
for @president at nfb.social. Let's go build the National Federation of the
Blind.

 

Speaker 4: The Wall-to-Wall Thanksgiving, by Barbara Pierce.

https://nfb.org/sites/default/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm98/bm981114
.htm