[nfbmi-talk] An Update on MABS

[Elizabeth]

Hello All,

It has come to my attention that I have not been doing a very good job communicating with everyone as the President of the Michigan Association of Blind Students. This was not done intentionally, and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused for anyone. However, I would like to take this opportunity to provide an update about what has been going on within the student division.



For those of you who may not know, this past year has been rather difficult for me. I started the year by facing false allegations of violating the student code of conduct at my college regarding using computers on campus. In addition, I also suffered from a serious accident at national convention this year which has taken several months to completely heal. Although I do not wish to discuss the details of either one of these events on such a public forum, I wanted to mention them briefly as a means to explain some of the difficulties I have faced while serving as the President of the student division.



Shortly before national convention, I distributed the application for our student scholarship program. It was my hope that this would help identify new students to bring into our organization. Unfortunately, we did not receive any applications for the scholarship. However, despite this setback, I would still like to plan a student seminar to be held on Friday evening during state convention. My goal is to make this seminar fun, informative, and relevant to blind students of all ages. If there is anything specific you would like to see on the agenda, or would like to speak about during the seminar, please feel free to contact me. 



In addition, I would like to hold elections during our student seminar at state convention. Since I am currently not a student, and I do not know when I will resume my life as a student, I cannot continue to serve as the President of the Michigan Association of Blind Students. However, I currently do not know of anyone who is interested in seeking the role of the President once I step down from this position. If you are interested in serving as our next President, or know of anyone who may be interested in serving as our next President, I would be extremely interested in hearing from you. The only way the student division can carry on into the future is if there is someone who is interested in leading it into the future.



Anyway, I hope this email clears up any confusion regarding the status of the Michigan Association of Blind Students. If you have any further comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to contact me.



Sincerely,

Elizabeth Mohnke    

President, Michigan Association of Blind Students

Email: lizmohnke at hotmail.com