[NFBNJ] July August 2017 Notes From President Ruffalo

[joe ruffalo]

Greetings to all!

Hoping all are enjoying the last days of summer.
I have combined the July and August notes from your president into one 
email.  Please review the following and share with others.
Please take special notice with the upcoming August/September Braille 
Monitor with highlights from the 77th national convention held in Orlando, 
Florida from July 10 through July 15.

Joe Ruffalo, President
National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey
254 Spruce Street
Bloomfield, New Jersey  07003
973 743 0075
Nfbnj1 at verizon.net
www.nfbnj.org


Items of Interest
1.    State Convention Updates
2.    Congratulations to Agnes Allen and Ever Lee Hairston, both books are 
highlighted
3.    Uber and Lyft;We Need Your participation
4.    Eclipse Info For Monday August 21

1.    State Convention
National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey 41st ANNUAL STATE CONVENTION
November 9th through 12th, 2017
Theme: Live The Life You Want; Let’s Make It Happen
Hosts: Central Jersey Chapter and the Braille Division

The 41st Annual State Convention of the National Federation of the Blind of 
New Jersey will be held at the:
Holiday Inn Hotel
151 Route 72 East
Manahawkin, New Jersey 08050
Access Link accessible.

Mark your calendars and make every effort to attend the 41st annual state 
convention of the NFBNJ. Get Involved. Make a Difference!

Room Reservations
The Holiday Inn is now accepting room reservations for the state convention. 
To make your reservation, please dial 609-481-6100 and use group code NFB. 
Rooms are $89 a night plus tax, breakfast is included for everyone in the 
room for the following morning. The hotel will not charge your credit card 
until you check into your room unless you cancel 24 hours in advance. If you 
reserve your room and unable to attend at the last minute, contact Joe 
Ruffalo at 973-743-0075 and he will arrange a substitute attendee for your 
room. Our block of rooms are available until October 17th, then they are 
released to the general public.

Pre-registration
The Registration Committee is preparing the pre-registration form and we are 
targeting to post and distribute in early September. In addition, we are 
finalizing the procedures to provide payment through PayPal. As we finalize, 
the information will be distributed and posted.

Food Drive
To all attending the state convention, we are planning to collect 
non-perishable food items to donate to a local food pantry in the Manahawkin 
area. Please consider this outreach program.

National Rep
We are honored and excited to have Scott LaBarre, president of the National 
Federation of the Blind of Colorado and the National Association of Blind 
Lawyers, as our national representative for our state convention. Please 
read his bio to learn more about Scott prior to meeting him at convention.

Scott C. LaBarre, Esq.
LaBarre Law Offices P.C.
Denver, Colorado

Scott C. LaBarre owns and operates LaBarre Law Offices P.C., (LLO). LLO 
specializes in employment law, disability rights, Randolph-Sheppard Act 
cases, and some international policy work particularly in the area of 
copyright law. Mr. LaBarre has appeared in federal and state courts 
throughout the United States securing many important victories for his 
clients such as Enyart v. National Conference of Bar Examiners, 630 F.3d 
1153 (9th Cir. 2011)(securing the right for blind students to use assistive 
technology as an accommodation on the multistate bar exam) and Cannon v. 
Palmer College of Chiropractic, 850 N.W.2d 326 (Iowa 2014)(securing the 
right of a blind student to pursue a doctor of chiropractic degree with his 
requested accommodations). He is permanently admitted before the Supreme 
Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals for the 
Second, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth and DC Circuits, the United States 
District Court for the District of Colorado, the Supreme Court of Colorado, 
and the Maryland Court of Appeals (Maryland’s highest court). LaBarre has 
been named one of Colorado’s Super Lawyers, a distinction recognizing the 
top five percent of Colorado attorneys.

Prior to launching his own firm in July of 1998, Mr. LaBarre acted as 
general counsel for the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) of Colorado, 
where he specialized in laws affecting the blind and disabled. Mr. LaBarre 
served in that capacity for five years. Even after establishing LLO, he 
remains very active in the NFB through his volunteer service in many 
leadership roles. In October of 2005, members of the NFB of Colorado elected 
LaBarre their President. He also serves as Chairman of the Preauthorized 
Contributions Committee, one of the Federation’s major national fundraisers. 
Additionally, he is President of the National Association of Blind Lawyers 
and serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Colorado 
Center for the Blind. The Federation has presented LaBarre with the Raymond 
W. McGeorge Award in 2010 for his work on behalf of the blind in Colorado 
and the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award in 2014 for his efforts to achieve 
successful adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to 
Published Works for Individuals Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, and 
Otherwise Print Disabled.

Since 2010, LaBarre has acted as the NFB’s lead delegate to the World 
Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO’s) Standing Committee on 
Copyright and Related Rights to work on an international treaty to create 
the international exchange of published works in accessible formats for the 
blind and print disabled leading to the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty in 
June of 2013. This work has led to his election to the Accessible Books 
Consortium Board, a body sponsored by WIPO and designed to serve as an 
entity implementing the Marrakesh Treaty on a practical level, promote 
cross-border exchange of accessible books for the print disabled, and to 
encourage inclusive publishing.

As an original and current member of the Steering Committee, LaBarre helped 
to establish the Federation’s Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium on Disability 
Rights which gathers leaders from all sectors in the arena of disability 
rights to discuss the current status of the law and to plan needed reform. 
LaBarre has presented at the Symposium on several occasions. He is active in 
national, state and local bar associations through his service in many 
roles. LaBarre is a founding member of the Disability Rights Bar Association 
and serves on its Executive Board as Chairman. In September of 2016, LaBarre 
began a three year term on the American Bar Association’s Board of 
Governors. He has also been a Commissioner on the ABA’s Commission on 
Disability Rights and served as its Chair from 2004-2007. Mr. LaBarre is 
also active in the ABA’s Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice Division and 
reassumed a position on its governing council starting in August of 2013, 
previously serving on the Division’s Council from 2005 through 2009. In the 
last decade plus, he has also performed the roles of a Director in the ABA’s 
Young Lawyers Division, Vice Chairman and a member of the ABA-YLD Bar 
Leadership Team, YLD Liaison to the ABA Commission on Mental and Physical 
Disability Law, a member of the Colorado Bar Association Board of Governors, 
and Treasurer and a member of the Executive Council of the Denver Bar 
Association’s Young Lawyers.

Mr. LaBarre received his Juris Doctor from the University of Minnesota in 
1993 and his Bachelor of Arts from St. John’s University in Collegeville, 
Minnesota in 1990. He left Minnesota in 1993 to work at the National 
Headquarters of the National Federation of the Blind. He moved to Colorado 
in June of 1994. He is married to a wonderful woman who originally hales 
from Armenia, Anahit Galechyan. Anahit and Scott have two children, 
Alexander (born October 2002) and Emily (born December 2004).

Videos from Previous State Convention
Videos from a previous year’s state convention can be viewed on our YouTube 
channel, NFBNJTransformDreams.

Here are the direct links to the playlist for previous state conventions.
•    NFBNJ 40th State Convention (2016)
•    NFBNJ 39th State Convention (2015)

NFBNJ Presidential Reports
Here are the NFBNJ Presidential Reports given by affiliate president Joe 
Ruffalo during our state conventions.
•    2016 NFBNJ Presidential Report

Additional Information
If you have questions and need additional information, please contact:
Joseph Ruffalo, President
254 Spruce Street
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
Phone: 973-743-0075
Email: nfbnj1 at verizon.net

****

2.    We are proud to announce that books authored by two former NFBNJ 
leaders are available for your reading pleasure.

The NFBNJ presents the Agnes Allen Distinguished Service Award at the state 
convention.  Agnes was a longtime leader and she demonstrates her love of 
Braille as she has taught and tutored for over 60 years.  She has provided 
the gift of literacy to hundreds.  Agnes resides in Connecticut.

Ever Lee Hairston, founder of the Garden State Chapter in 1991, an officer 
in the NFBNJ and an administrator with the state of new Jersey managing an 
alcoholic and drug program was our national representative in 2011.  Since 
her retirement, she lived in Michigan and now resides in California and 
serves as affiliate president and is a member of  the NFB board of 
directors.

Life without sight: my journey into the worlds of the sighted and the blind
DBC01887
Allen, Agnes F. Reading time: 3 hours, 18 minutes.
Read by Marc Bianchi. A production of New Jersey State Library, State 
Talking Book and Braille Center.

Inspirational
General
Women

A memoir of a blind woman's road to success in overcoming life's obstacles.

****

Blind Ambition: One Woman's Journey to Greatness Despite Her Blindness
DBC01886
Hairston, Ever Lee. Reading time 6 hours, 28 minutes.
Read by Paul Georgiou. A production of New Jersey State Library, State 
Talking Book and Braille Center.

Subjects: Inspirational ; General ; Women

Description: Decades after she lost her eyesight, a woman's powerful, 
inspirational story of ambition and helping others overcome obstacles to 
realize the purpose of their lives.

***

3.    Rideshare Testing:
The NFB’s rideshare testing program will continue for at least two and a 
half more years. Please circulate the following message throughout your 
network and continue to promote the testing among members.

Recruiting Feedback from Individuals with Service Animals Who Travel via 
Lyft or Uber:
As you travel with your service animal via Lyft or Uber, please make sure to 
record your experience in the NFB’s rideshare testing online questionnaire:
https://nfb.org/rideshare-test. As a part of the NFB’s settlement agreements 
with Uber and Lyft, the NFB is conducting testing to assess how successfully 
both companies are implementing new policies and procedures regarding 
drivers’ obligations to transport riders with service animals. We are 
seeking feedback regarding positive and negative rideshare experiences; 
please take time to report your experience.

****

4.    The Soundscape eclipse app for IOS devices is now available in the app 
store.
Received from Jane Degenshein, President, Technology Division,NFBNJ.

The Eclipse Soundscapes Project app is specially designed so that people who 
are blind and visually impaired can share in the awe and wonder of 
astronomical events in real time with their sighted peers.

The app is a joint effort between The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 
(SAO), NASA’s Heliophysics Education Consortium (HEC), the National Center 
for Accessible Media (NCAM), and the National Park Service (NPS). Features 
include an interactive “Rumble map”; audio descriptions of key features of 
the eclipse; a play-by-play description of the total solar eclipse as it is 
happening in the user’s area; and a countdown clock to the next upcoming 
eclipse.

The “Rumble Map” gives the user the sensation of “feeling” the Sun during an 
eclipse. Our technology translates images of key eclipse features into a 
series of unique frequency modulated tones that map out variations in light 
and dark as the user explores the image with their fingertips. These tones 
are specially designed to make the user’s mobile device shake, or rumble, in 
response to the changes.

After the eclipse, the Eclipse Soundscapes app will provide access to a 
database of soundscape recordings from U.S. National Parks and other urban 
and rural locations so that users can experience how eclipses change the 
behavior of different species, including humans. During the next five years, 
the app will expand to include other eclipses and astronomical objects of 
interest giving people who are blind and visually impaired – and everyone 
else – a new way to engage with the universe around them.

Get the app here...
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/eclipse-soundscapes/id1262152991?mt=8

Another opportunity, Eclipse Info

Audio Description of the Eclipse
It’s exciting to report that blind people will have several ways to enhance 
their experience of the upcoming solar eclipse. Below I’m forwarding 
information on how to access audio description of the event, and even a 
tactile phone app!

How to access the broadcast: Go to http://www.acbradio.org/interactive and 
select "Click Here to Play." Then be sure to select the link that opens the 
player that you use to listen to music or stream internet radio stations. 
You can also listen on any telephone by dialing (605) 475-8130 and select 
option 4.

As an alternative, there is also an app for smartphones called Eclipse 
Soundscapes that will provide audio descriptions and tactile feedback about 
the eclipse through the app.
More information on the organization and how to access the app is at:
http://eclipsesoundscapes.org/