[NFBF-L] Anouncing the 2022 washington Seminar - We're going hybrid and we'll need your help!

Sun Dec 12 12:13:32 UTC 2021

Attention Chapter and Division Presidents, please forward this email to your
members, as some of them may not be part of our email lists. Thanks you

Good morning Florida Federation Family!

I am very pleased to tell you that details about our 2022 Washington Seminar
have been announced and plans are moving forward to carry out one of the
most exciting Seminars ever.

Every year members of the National Federation of the Blind gather together
in order to place before our members of Congress critically important
legislative priorities which,  if passed into law), would advance the lives
of blind Americans. For decades Floridians and other Federationist would
travel to Washington DC to meet with House and Senate members, but in 2021
due to the COVID-19 outbreak we took a dramatically different approach and
conducted our business from our homes. I am so proud that  65 different
Floridians were involved in the 29 different meetings held early in the
year. For 2022, it has been announced that our Washington Seminar will take
another new approach. The Seminar will use a hybrid format in order to
successfully complete our goal of meeting with our 27 House members and 2
Senators.

During the 2022 Washington Seminar, which will take place February 7th
through the 9th, a small delegation from Florida will travel to Washington
DC for a select group of in person meetings, while many of us will meet
virtually with other Representatives. Both of these teams are truly
important  to our mission and neither one is more important than the other.
The reason for the much smaller than normal delegation traveling north to
chilly Washington is due to, as you might suspect, social distancing
constraints and continued concerns about the ongoing COVID situation. We
believe that there will be some offices in DC still not allowing in person
meetings.

Your Affiliate Board has selected the following individuals to be part of
the in-person delegation for 2022. Please join me in congratulating: 

Karolyn Campbell, (Central Florida Chapter)

Z'leah Liburd, Tampa Chapter and Florida Association of Blind Students

Adriann Keve, Jacksonville Chapter

Doug Ingram, Tallahassee Chapter.

These members will be accompanied by Florida Legislative Directors, Russ
Davis and Camille Tate.

We will be meeting frequently with the in-person delegation and with the
entire Affiliate over the next several months to prepare for the 2022
Washington Seminar and in fact our first meeting with all interested in
being part of the big event will take place on Monday, December 20th at 8:00
PM. Look for a Zoom meeting invitation and link soon.

One final important piece of information that I am happy to share with you
all is that, the list of Legislative priorities has been announced by our
national office. We will be presenting the following four initiatives to our
elected members of Congress:

Access Technology Affordability Act (H.R. 431/S. 212)

Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act (H.R. 4853)

Twenty-First Century Website and Application Accessibility Act

Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act (H.R. 2373/S. 3238)

For those who have been attending our regular Legislative Committee meetings
throughout 2021, you already will be familiar with all of these priorities.
We will continue to review them in detail though as we move closer to
Seminar, so stay tuned.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this information packed
email and I very much look forward to working with each of you as we get
ready for February and beyond. Hope to see everyone on Monday, December 20th
at 8:00 PM.

Respectfully,

Russ Davis,

Legislative Director, National Federation of the Blind of Florida

Ph. 904-993-8433

Email: Russell at radiorusty.com

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