[NFBC-SFV] May 2020 minutes of the Chapter meeting

Mon Jun 1 20:11:47 UTC 2020

Good afternoon. Hope everyone's safe and well.

Below is the Chapter's May minutes.

For any corrections and additions, please free to notify me. 

Happy Monday!!

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May, 2020 Chapter Meeting 

The National Federation of the Blind of California

San Fernando Valley Chapter 

The meeting was  called to order at 10:04 am Began with the Pledge of
Allegiance, the NFB Pledge and the 1 minute message. 

Trivia question for the day: something that you gave your Mother  for
Mother's Day over the years that was memorable  to you. 

In attendance: 23 attendees. 22 members and 1 guest. 

Nancy and John Albarran, Terry Almy, Keith Cabala, Jaymee Castillo, Racquel
Decipeda, Karen Elo, Betsy Estrada, Juanita Herrera - Vice President, Ron
Hilliard - Member-At-Large, Tiffanny Johnson, Lindsay Kerr, Malik -
Treasurer, Anthony Melena, Jerry Morales, Lynne Nishihara,  Julie Skujins,
Joy Stigile, Robert Stigile - President, Jane Suh, Julian Vargas, Rochelle
Yohai and Jose Lomeli - guest.

Announcements:

* Racquel announced that the Hearts For Sight just launch one of their new
program which is a support Group. They have 2 sessions from 12 pm to 1:30 pm
on a Friday and on Monday from 5:30 to 7 pm. This is facilitated by
Dr.Mojiana Moghadam. She's an APTC and being supervised by a MFT - a
Marriage and Family Therapist. If you are interested and you think that you
would benefit from a support group like this  and if you need  someone to
talk to where you can get support or if you are facing some challenges or
even want to share, this is a good platform where you can talk to other
people. Then after a couple of weeks, they will also launch another support
group for families and friends of visually impaired individuals. This is
more on working on the relationship dynamics so families would be able to
help blind people out with whatever we need  such as emotionally and coping
up with  blindness especially for new people. And families also adjusting
with their blind family member. It  will be on Friday from 5:30 to 7 pm. She
will be sending out emails about it. 

* Julian first,  had a reminder about him maintaining a list of
covid19/corona virus resources for blind and low vision users. He's
regularly changing and adding things that would be helpful. You can go to
his website:  <http://www.techjv.com> www.techjv.com and look for the link
for covid19 corona virus resources blind and low vision. Secondly, Apple and
Google had teamed up on, to try to help to track the spread of the corona
virus by helping people be notified if they potentially came into contact
with somebody who has self-identified of having tested positive with
covid19. This is not mandatory if you don't have to. The way that it will
work is it's not going to send any personal identifying information about
you. It's going to use something called Bluetooth low energy when you are
close proximity to somebody else who self-identified. If you run this ap and
you tested positive and you are voluntarily participating in it, you would
select that you've tested positive. Now anybody who'd come close contact
with you and it's been in  nearby contact to be close enough where the
Bluetooth L.A. can pick up the signal and you've been the proximity of this
person for a certain amount of time that is long enough that you can
potentially been exposed and that you'll be notified. With this, you might
want to limit your exposure. This is something that is coming. Julian is
running the beta, IOS 13.5. He has already seen the privacy and health
section. By default, it's not check. It's off.                 It's
something that you would have to opt into it. So, you're in full control of
this but in the long run it's good way for people to participate in. We got
to have this country back open up. We got to get things moving and this is
one way to do it. This works in other countries too,  to help them to track
down and limit the spread of the virus. Lastly, Julian mentioned that,
because of everything that has been going on, we ought to be careful with
scams especially with stimulus money that are floating around.  Scams are
looking  around for this. So, be very careful in emails. Don't just click
links that claims to be from Social Security or IRS. Don't give your
personal information. Contact them directly using the known good numbers.
And again, he  have these links for IRS and Social Security on his  website.

* Robert announced that on our June 13 Chapter meeting, we will have a guest
speaker. Her name is leslie from vanda pharmaceutical  which we often have
them as one of the sponsors in our State / National conventions. She'll
speak with us at 11 am and will talk about the non-24 sleep disorder.

He also announced that every Saturday, the CAGDU ( California Association of
Guide Dog Users) will have a social hour. But today in particular at 4 pm,
they will have 2 guest speakers. Guest speakers are melissa smith from
guiding eyes for the blind and lucas Franks from seeing eye in new jersey.
They will talk about how we would work with our guide dogs with social
distancing. Anyone is welcome. You can call Robert if you are interested to
be added in their guide dog list serve and get information about the Zoom.  

Lastly, as you know that every Friday at 7 pm, we have our social night in
this conference call. 

And in the last night's social call, Sheila announced that she had finished
her 900 hours of Master's Program for Massage Therapy. 

Secretary Report

Joy made a motion to approve the April  minutes read and adjusted, seconded
by Julian. And the motion carries.  

Treasurer's Report

Month of April, the beginning balance $6,440.17. 

Deposited $10 from Tiffanny's member dues and $32 from Candace Luther's
See's Candy. 

Withdrawal of $50 for PAC plan. 

Ending balance: $6432.17

For this month of May, beginning balance is $6432.17

Deposited $358.60 from the Pathfinder Chapter's See's Candy. 

Withdrawal of $50 for PAC plan.

Ending balance: $6790. 

Malik is still holding cash of $32 from Betsy's See's Candy which has not
been deposited yet.  

National Convention 

It will be on July 14th to18th. It will be online instead of having it in
Houston. So, everyone will be able to attend. They still do not know yet if
it will be in Zoom or some other platform. There are 2 things that they want
to make sure that they can first,    have the translation for those who can
only speak Spanish. Secondly, they need to have close caption for the deaf.
Stay tune for the announcement on what they are going to do whether to use
Zoom or other platform. Now, he added that if you made reservation at the
Hilton America, you don't need to contact them to discuss your reservation
refund. The National Office is taking care of that. If you have not receive
an email from the Hilton America Hotel regarding your reservation, then you
need to contact Susan skaares at the National Office. Her email address is
<mailto:sskaares at nfb.org> sskaares at nfb.org. What you want to include is your
reservation number and your contact information and  the dates that you are
going to be arriving. She will take a look at it and will get back with you
with your refund information. As you know that there will be no longer the
banquet this year. So, someone should be contacting you  from the National
Office regarding your convention registration and banquet fee in refunding
it. For those who, they have contacted already, many of them have asked that
they're banquet fees be used as a           donations towards convention.
However, if you decide to get your refund or use it for whatever you need.
Someone should be contacting you soon. 

Robert is encouraging everyone to sign up for free registration. You can go
to nfb.org/convention and get the registration from there. 

There is also a way to make a donation if you would like to pay the
registration fee but they are not asking for it as a mandatory fee.
Typically registration is $25. Keep in mind that they do have convention
expenses. They have to pay for the platform expenses such as Zoom with an
additional of close captioning for the deaf members and other things that
need to be paid for. So, your donations are very much appreciated. 

Convention registration is open till June 15. It's highly recommended to do
it soon and if you need any help, you can call Robert. 

There will still be door prizes. Since we're not sending anyone on grants
this year, it might be nice if our Chapter can make a donation to our
National Convention to help out such as door prizes. Terry made a motion to
donate an amount which will be discussed later,  for contribution for door
prizes. Seconded by Ron. Terry made another motion to leave it up to the
Board to discuss at a later time the amount of money that will be used for
door prizes., seconded by Joy. 

Robert discussed the Jernigan grants for first attendees at National
Convention. They're talking about having a contest for people to write a
paragraph about attending their first convention experience. Submit it
either write it or   send it as a video or as an MP3. So he's highly
recommending everyone to participate. 

Robert discussed about advocacy and as you know that this is one of the
NFB's biggest part of what we do. At this time, the NFB is still hoping for
the next stimulus package that comes out, to have the Technology
Affordability Act as part of it. So, he was recommending everyone to email
or call your congressional members and left them know that you want them to
include HR2086. Contact your Senators and asked them to include S815 in the
next stimulus bill. What that would do allow for a tax credit when and after
purchasing technology such as JAWS, braille display and/or any technology
base. You can get a tax credit of up to $2500 for purchasing technology. Our
voices needed to be heard so call your  congressional members  and Senators.

Along with that, the NFB is also working to get a waiver for those who are
applying for SSDI, Typically it takes 5 months after you have applied to get
any decisions and  it takes 24 months for Medicare. The NFB is trying to get
that waived so it doesn't take that long.

Also, if you have been applying with Social Security and you have to
electronically sign your signature and there has been an issue with it. the
National Office needs to hear from you and contact Valerie Yingling via
email at  <mailto:vyingling at nfb.org> vyingling at nfb.org. 

There is a form that you need to sign if you are wanting someone to
represent you at a hearing for Social Security form 1690.        Valerie
would like to also hear from you if you need to sign that form and are not
able to. These are all things that National Federation of the Blind works on
in our behalf. People at the  National Office have ways who to talk to, to
make things more accessible and to get it done.

In California, everyone has to register to vote in the November election. 

Governor Gavin Newsom  mentioned that all Californians voters will be
receiving a ballot in the mail. You will fill out this ballot and send it
back in. It will be a pre-paid postage for the mailing So robert encourages
everyone to vote.  . 

Robert introduced our guest named Jose from Carson and gave a little
background about himself. Julian made a motion to welcome Jose as a new
member. Seconded by Malik. 

Julian made a motion to adjourn the meeting and it was seconded by Malik.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:27 am. 

Recorded by: Racquel

Respectfully submitted by:

Sheila Marie B.C. 

Cell: 818-404-7646 

Chapter Secretary and 

Chair of Fundraising Committee

NFB.SFV            

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