[NFBV-Fairfax] Requesting Your Participation in Our 2021 Richmond Seminar

Sat Jan 2 19:22:58 UTC 2021

Please consider participating in this year's Virginia Affiliate Richmond
Seminar.  No travel involved.  You can make a difference right from your
home.  Below is a message from our Virginia Affiliate President Tracy
Soforenko.

Thank you,

Annette Carr, M.Ed.

President, Fairfax Chapter

National Federation of the Blind VA Affiliate

--- Message from Tracy Soforenko, President, NFB VA Affiliate ---

The National Federation of the Blind of Virginia is a powerful force
advocating for blind Virginians. For 2021, we will be conducting our
legislative advocacy over the Zoom platform and we will need you to commit
to attending a few brief Zoom meetings with your legislators. Interestingly,
virtual appointments mean you are not required to make as large of a time
commitment to participate. However, it also means we need to tell
legislators that we have a constituent attending or they won't meet with us.

Here is the 3 step process:

A.	By Wednesday, January 6, Email Tracy.soforenko at gmail.com
<mailto:Tracy.soforenko at gmail.com>  with your name, address, and
availability on Tuesday, January 19. Most appointments will be in the
morning between 8:00 AM and 11:30 AM but some may be in the afternoon. We
need to start making appointments so we need to know who can participate.
Don't wait, tell us you are coming.
B.	Attend one of two Legislative prep sessions to be held over Zoom on
either Saturday, January  16 at 1:00 PM or Monday, January 18 at 7:00 PM.
During this training session, we will explain our issues, connect everyone
with their team leaders, and make certain all questions are answered. 
C.	Attend the appointments that work for your schedule on Tuesday,
January 19 focusing on the appointments with your Delegate and Senator.

The team leaders will be provided a Zoom account for their use and booking
appointments in advance.  This model allows each team to be booking
concurrent appointments.

Our goal is to enable everyone to participate in advocacy in an easy way but
we need you to tell us you are coming.

We need you to ensure our voice is heard in the offices of the General
Assembly.

If you have never attended a Richmond Seminar, we strongly encourage you to
attend and participate in representative democracy in action. Everyone is
assigned to a team with an experienced leader. The General Assembly members
and their staff are very receptive and welcoming. They know we are
organized, articulate, and well versed in the subject matter.

We will put everyone on the team to work, sharing our issues and answering
the questions of legislators and their staff.

The issues we will bring to Richmond are still under consideration but will
most likely include:

*             Accessible absentee voting

* Expanding resources for the Virginia Department for the Blind and

Vision Impaired; and

*             Special Hiring Authority for Virginia State Government jobs.

The final list of issues will be presented at the two training sessions
scheduled for Saturday, January 16 and Monday, January 18.

Visit the NFB of VA Affiliate webpage for news and information from around
the state:

http://nfbv.org/

News and information from the NFB National Office is available at URL:

https://www.nfb.org/

Sign-up for the NFBV Fairfax Chapter e-mail list at URL:

http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbv-fairfax_nfbnet.org

Sign-up for the NFB of VA Affiliate e-mail list at URL:

http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbv-announce_nfbnet.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbv-fairfax_nfbnet.org/attachments/20210102/0838c877/attachment.html>