[Nfbf-l] Exciting Newsline happenings

Sun Jan 31 06:16:39 UTC 2010

So as not to clutter the list with "thank yous", I thank all of you for your 
encouragement and willingness to help.
Sherri
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Minichiello" <jbmini at comcast.net>
To: "NFB of Florida Internet Mailing List" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbf-l] Exciting Newsline happenings

Sherri You should be proud. Your hard work has been a big factor in this
success. Keep it up. I will help in any way I can    . Joe Minichiello,
Second Vice President
National Federation of the Blind of Florida
President, Greater Jacksonville Chapter
904-608-0105
jbmini at comcast.net
----- 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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