[Nfbf-l] Exciting Newsline happenings
Kirk
kvharmon54 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 30 00:28:02 UTC 2010
Sherri, I am so PROUD of you, all of our Newsline florida workers, Grant
Downey, and Sabrina for all that has been accomplished through their hard
and dedicated work on behalf of this fantastic service we are able to
provide to our blind and disabled florida community! These figures with the
tremendous help of Mike Gunde, Jane Carpthe, and the Talking books
Libraries, just blew me away!! kudo's to all that have made this happen for
Florida's reading family! Sherri, you are doing a tremendous job guiding us
with our dedication to help our disabled find the ability to read again on
their terms, not any reading services terms anymore! Our Florida staff has
turned on so many people to Newslline in the last year it just makes me want
to jump up and down, but what is truly exciting is the thought of how many
more Disabled Floridians that have still not found the joy of the NFBFl
Newsline service as of yet! So, even though you and the rest of our friends
that love and work for Newsline have done a tremendous job, we still got
lots of work to do finding and signing up the rest in 2010 and beyond! LOL!
Thanks everyone for helping so many people smile by reading on their terms
what is going on in their communities and World! I have experienced so many
people through sining them up that once they get the joy of reading
Newsline, they start to get more involved in their lives, communities,
volunteer work, ETC. It seems to bring them out of their shells and realize
they can do more and be more apt to start anew, refreshing life, and willing
to learn more about accepting their blindness from within themselves and
start to want to live again anew! I know Tom is looking down at his Newsline
Florida and grinning from ear to ear at what his personal pride and joy is
still accomplishing from his initial efforts and emplementation! Hi Tom!
Thanks to you and all! Your friend in the cause, Kirk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sherri" <flmom2006 at gmail.com>
To: <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>; <flagdu at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 6:10 PM
Subject: [Nfbf-l] Exciting Newsline happenings
Hello everyone.
I just received a newsletter from our Newsline coordinators from the
National Center. There are so many exciting things going on with Newsline
and NFBF.
I am so excited about Newsline and so proud of all my users in Florida. I
hope those who are not using it will contact me and I will either sign you
up or get your user information to you if you are already signed up. I am so
happy for all those who have helped us increase our user minutes. That is
very important in seeking additional funding for our Newsline program! I am
especially glad for our regional and sub-regional libraries who sign up
hundreds of people a week. Sometimes, that results in a duplicate sign-up,
but if you are signed up twice, I can always remedy the situation.
Keep up the good work NFBF! My heart-felt thanks go out to you. And a
special "thank you" to Grant Downey for keeping the Florida channel updated
with all kinds of new interesting announcements and to Kirk Harmon and Katie
Hicks for sending out all those welcome letters. I also thank Kirk for his
work helping me with Newsline calls. I thank Wendy Wilson for her marketing
efforts. I also want to thank Gloria Mills for her work managing the
Newsline funds. My thanks go out to Sabrina Deaton because she is going
through and cleaning up our subscriber data base. And finally, my thanks to
all those who unselfishly give their time to spread the word about our
Newsline program. I thank those who contact me and let me know what they
have been doing and request brochures and literature to hand out. Keep up
the enthusiasm NFBF! And happy Newsline listening. Oh and last but certainly
not least, I thank Joyce Hildreth and the folks at DBS who totally support
Newsline.
Here is just some of the latest news.
Sherri Brun
"We've got lots of good news to share with you this month! We encourage you
to share the information below with your colleagues and clients so that they
can be aware of, and tell others about, these exciting developments.
Firstly, you will all shortly have an opportunity to meet Paul, our new,
more human-sounding voice. Paul from NeoSpeech, who, as you may recall was
subscribers' top choice in our recent poll, will be available sometime early
February. One benefit of this new voice is that it sounds much more human
than the current Eloquence voice, so that newly blinded individuals
unfamiliar with synthesized speech (such as seniors) may feel more
comfortable using NFB-NEWSLINE®. Those with a slight hearing loss may also
appreciate this new voice as it may be easier to hear and follow. While we
do think many individuals will like and use Paul, we want to stress that
this new voice is not a substitution for the Eloquence voice, rather, it is
an additional voice provided to afford our subscribers with greater choice
and flexibility. We view that those who are not familiar or comfortable
with synthesized speech may prefer to use Paul initially, but may in time
prefer the Eloquence voice as it offers a faster reading speed."
"Another terrific development will soon be available to subscribers:
subscribers accessing the news via the telephone can now make an on-demand
request to have an article sent to their e-mail inbox on demand. This is
great news for those who want to read an article again for research
purposes, or if they find they don't have time to fully read or appreciate a
complex or lengthy piece. To use this feature, subscribers simply press #9
(pound nine) during the reading of an article, and the article will be sent
to the e-mail address on file."
"We had tremendous achievement across the board in 2009, making terrific
improvements over the previous year's usage and new member statistics, as
evidenced below:
2008
New Users: 5,916
Total Emails: 1,156,020
Total Calls: 1,675,387
Total Minutes Used: 32,793,945
2009
New Users: 13,340
Total E-mails: 1,833,343
Total Calls: 1,772,046
Total Minutes Used: 33,935,582
Statistically Speaking
In December, 2009 we received a total of 152,392 calls (up by 946 over
November's usage), and added a total of 2,688 new subscribers. Excellent
work, everybody!
Top Ten Minutes Used:
We received a total of 2,883,120 minutes of use in December. Kudos to
Florida and New York, who have made increases of 5,392 and 4,046 above
November's usage, respectively. (Editorial comment) We are still in third
place in terms of total minutes used behind California and New York.
Top Ten New Subscribers: (Editorial comment) For this, I thank our
marketers, our NFBF members out there spreading the word and our Talking
Book librarians for signing up so many people.
1. Florida with 2,335
2. California and Arkansas with 27 each
3. New Jersey with 24
4. Texas with 23
5. Pennsylvania with 19
6. Wisconsin with 18
7. Massachusetts with 13
8. Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan with 12 each
9. New York, Maryland, Washington, and Nebraska with 11 each
10. North Carolina with 10
E-mail Superstars:
We sent a total of 155,994 e-mails in December, an increase of over 7,000
above November's usage.
1. Texas 13,051
2. New York 10,286
3. Florida 8,151
4. Pennsylvania 7,756
5. North Carolina 6,908
6. Massachusetts 6,447
7. California 6,338
8. Colorado 6,273
9. Michigan 5,510
10. New Jersey 5,506
Top Ten Registered Subscribers:
Below is our Gang of Ten, congratulations to you all!
1. Florida with 17,305
2. California with 6,751
3. Maryland with 3,038
4. Texas with 2,967
5. Michigan with 2,684
6. North Carolina with 2,654
7. Wisconsin with 2,438
8. New York with 2,396
9. Ohio with 2,315
10. Massachusetts with 1,956
Please feel free to call me if you have any questions. My toll-free Newsline
number is (800)603-8578.
Sherri Brun, NFBF Secretary and Newsline® Coordinator
E-mail: flmom2006 at gmail.com
http://www.nfbnewslineonline.org
http://www.nfbflorida.org
"Don't give up something you want forever for something you want only for
now!"
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