[NFBOK-Talk] NFBOK Update

Tue Sep 19 23:57:10 UTC 2023

Hello, everyone,

As many of you may know, the NFB of Oklahoma recently held it's 2023 state convention. Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to some great discussion. Following elections at the convention, our new board is as follows:

President, Audrey T. Farnum
First Vice President, Leah Campbell
Second Vice President, Trey Lewis
Treasurer, Glenda Farnum
Secretary, Theresa Mendez Booze
Board member Cathy Tuton
Board member, Jeffrey Penick

I look forward to working with this fantastic group of enthusiastic leaders. I thank you all for your willingness to serve and help build the National Federation of the Blind of Oklahoma.

I would also like to thank outgoing President, Sanho Steele-Louchart for his efforts serving as president and I wish him well in his new and exciting opportunities. While he has left the state, he promises to stay connected and remain a friend to NFB Oklahoma and likewise, he will always be a friend of NFBOK and be welcome here.

One of my goals while I serve your new president is to improve on communication to our membership about what's going on in the organization. With that in mind, I bring you the first of what I hope will be many email updates.

NFB of Oklahoma now has a dedicated phone number. Our new business number is 405-445-0610. Of course, I can still be reached at my personal number that many of you already have but the board decided a dedicated phone line was important to present ourselves as a professional organization. The business hours for the new phone number are Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The NFB has recently launched its self-service member profile service on nfb.org. Members should have received an email invitation to set up your profile. If you didn't receive the invite, please send me an email off list to president at nfbok.org<mailto:president at nfbok.org> and I'll alert the appropriate contact to get it fixed.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Stray Dog Café as we welcomed Dan O'Rourke to Oklahoma during his Route 66 Ride for Literacy. It was a great evening, and it was wonderful to get to know Dan and hear about his adventures both on the bike and on the ice in his role as an NHL Official. Dan successfully completed his journey and raised a lot of money for the NFB's literacy programs in the process.

Following their annual August recess, both the House and the Senate returned to session starting Tuesday, September 12. This is a perfect time to contact your senators and representatives and urge them to cosponsor some of our key pieces of legislation before the end of the year. In the House of Representatives, please ask your representative to cosponsor both the Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act (H.R. 1328) and the Access Technology Affordability Act (H.R. 3702). In the Senate, please ask your senators to cosponsor the Access Technology Affordability Act (S. 1467). Currently, none of our Oklahoma congressional delegation is co-sponsoring any of these initiatives so let's get busy and let them know what we think.

Finally, remember that our At-Large Chapter meets via Zoom on the first Monday of every month at 7 p.m. so our next meeting will be on October 2, 2023. We use the same link every month so copy it and save it to your desktop or a note so you will never have to go looking for it.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7470007233?pwd=NkxPVHNYcCtJZEk3ckh6dW1PNEFxdz09

I will send out a reminder with the full invite next week. If you have ideas for topics you'd like us to discuss at an upcoming chapter meeting, please let me know.

Thanks for your time reading this. Please feel free to reach out to me any time. I will attempt to return texts, emails, and voicemails within 24 hours.

Warmly,

Audrey T. Farnum
President
National Federation of the Blind Oklahoma
405-445-0610
president at nfbok.org<mailto:president at nfbok.org>
www.nfbok.org<http://www.nfbok.org>
Live the life you want.

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