[Nfbv-fairfax] NFBV Fairfax Chapter Meeting - Thur Mar 21

Wed Mar 13 01:51:29 UTC 2019

The Fairfax Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind will be meeting
on Thursday, March 21, 2019 from 7:00pm - 8:30pm.  Those wanting to purchase
dinner can plan to arrive between 6:00pm - 6:30pm.  The meeting location is:

Red Hot and Blue

4150 Chain Bridge Rd,

Fairfax, VA

703-218-6989

(Corner of Chain Bridge Road & Judicial Drive)

We meet in the Meeting Room at the top of the stairs to the left.  

For additional information, contact Annette Carr, amcarr1 at verizon.net
<mailto:amcarr1 at verizon.net> , 703-915-2837.

Being a member of the NFB is like belonging to a big family.  Family members
support each other in many ways.  At our next meeting, we will be having
Show-and-tell of our favorite "gadgets".  The word "gadget" is defined
loosely, meaning any item that you use to allow you to Live Your Life You
Want.  It can be made for the blind, or not.  It can be computer or Smart
based, or not.  Come ready to share and support your fellow NFB members.

Agenda:

*	Roll Call of Board members 
*	Member and guest  introductions 
*	NFB Pledge (See below) 
*	Secretary's Report

*	Approval of minutes - (See Below) 

*	 Treasurer's Report 
*	President's Report
*	National Office Presidential Release - pending technology
availability
*	Old Business 
*	New Business 

*	Discussion of committee creation (Membership, Communications, Fund
raising) - Annette
*	Discussion of future meeting programs - Annette
*	Discussion of future activities - Annette

*	Presentation: Gadget Show-and-Tell
*	Announcements & final comments 
*	Adjournment

NFB Pledge

I pledge to participate actively in the effort of the National Federation of
the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind; to
support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by its
constitution

Minutes from the February 21, 2019 meeting of the Fairfax Chapter of the NFB

Called to order: approximately 7:10 PM.  

Officers and board members in attendance: Annette Carr-president, Rodney
Neely-Secretary, and Jay Burke-board member.

Others in attendance: Ahmad Subhi, Niem, Dr. Fred Schroeder, Cathy
Schroeder, Tom Leopoldt, Patty Leopoldt, John Lacey, and Kaye.

NFB Pledge: Led by Dr. Schroeder 

Minutes of the January 2019 meeting: approved.  

Treasurer's report:  No accounting report.  Joy Relton, Treasurer would like
for a committee to audit the chapter's accounting books to insure that no
financial irregularities have occurred.  More details at a future meeting.

President's report: Annette Carr - 

*	The cake walk was held on Saturday, February 2, 2019 and was a big
success.  The cake walk was part of the Fairfax city Chocolate Lover's
Festival. 
*	Review of Richmond seminar - 1) bill to ensure web sites of VA
credits unions are accessible to blind/visually impaired Virginians.  2)
more funding for the VA Department of the Blind and Visually Impaired   
*	Review of Washington Seminar - 1) a tax credit for the purchase of
assistive technology, 2) a bill to mandate the establishment of standards
for making home appliances accessible, and 3) a bill to use funding from the
AbilityOne program to enable blind people and people with other disabilities
to work in private industry. 
*	Joy sent the Fairfax chapter constitution and bylaws to NFB national
headquarters.

Committee planning: We would like to establish some committees: 

*	Membership: Bobbi Cohen is interested in the membership committee.
*	communications, when people join the NFB, they should be included on
the VA state NFB email list, the chapter email list, the NFB national email
list etc.  Ahmad and Niem are interested in helping with the communications
committee.  We need to have more publicity about the events that we
participate in.  We need some assistance posting some of this information on
social media.  We need to use social media to publicize our events and to
highlight our participation in events.
*	fund-raising: 

*	Jay Burke is interested in leading the fund-raising committee.  
*	We need to identify specific goals for which we want to raise money.

*	We need to raise money to pay for our president and vice-president
to attend quarterly state board meetings in Richmond, VA.  
*	Increase               chapter contributions to support statewide
activities. 
*	need to develop a budget to use as an outline so that we can
establish our fund-raising goals for 2019.  
*	need to find something to sell at the Fairfax fall festival and at
national convention.  
*	donate older blindness specific technology and sell raffle tickets
for it, or sell it on one of the buy-sell trade lists.  
*	ask local merchants to give us gift cards to give away as raffle
prizes.  
*	Host 50-50 bingo or poker nights.       
*	Ahmad suggested selling braille wrist bands with people's names in
braille on them.

*	holding our annual fund-raising event at Rita's Italian Ice in the
summer.  
*	Programs: identify guest speakers to present at our monthly meetings
on topics that are of interest to our members or might impact blind citizens
of Fairfax county.  
*	Other committees: As we identify activities, we will need committees
to lead planning and coordination.  We need to find a target to focus our
efforts on since we are a small chapter.  We need to find one major activity
to benefit one major group of blind people.  Bobbi and Joy are interested in
working with seniors.  Maybe we could go and play games at one of the local
senior centers.  

Information sharing:  Self-driving Automobiles - Dr. Schroeder told us about
self-driving connected automobiles.  Since there are approximately
253,000,000 blind people in the world, the self-driving automobiles should
build in  different modalities.  For example, the cars could have a map on a
screen or a flat screen with menus.  But these controls should also be
available using something like a voice assistant like Google or Alexa.  We
should build accessibility into the original versions of the self-driving
automobiles rather than trying to retrofit the self-driving automobiles
after they have been developed for general use.

Announcements: 

State Convention: This year our VA state NFBV convention will be held in
Portsmouth, VA.

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