[Nyagdu] Nyagdu Convention Report

[Margo and Elmo]

Hi, everyone.

I am margo Downey, the newly elected president of Nyagdu.  We just had a wonderful Nyagdu luncheon and NFB New York state convention.

I'd like to report first on our elections.

Lucy Cox and Shelley Bamrick stepped down from office due to circumstances in their life situations which need more of their time at this point.  

elections were held to fill the two vacancies for the coming year.

the officers are:

Margo Downey, president
Joyce Carrico, Vice President
Julie Phillipson, Secretary-Treasurer

We have officers but everyone is important and it's time for all of us to enthusiastically roll up our sleeves and help Nyagdu really take off to do many things.

some of those things were discussed at this year's NYAGDU luncheon:

1.  find more members so we can do more work to expand what it means to be blind and what it means to be a guide dog handler;

2.  Start the process of revising our state access law to strike the sentence which states an I D card can be requested and to begin the process of getting the  access law into the Penal Code.  At next year's National Convention in Detroit, a resolution will be presented which will state that all state access laws will be in the state penal codes.

3.  We need to do more community outreach and education with the public at large and with entities such as health care facilities, police and fire departments, emergency medical personnel, and so on.

Rayne Wayne, our state NFB NY Treasurer who is also an attorney, talked with us about our rights and responsibilities as guide dog handlers.  

I want to thank Lucy Cox and Shelley Bamrick for serving as officers and hope you'll be able to help us with our Nyagdu projects.  
Tracy Carcione is gong to look at our state website to see what's up there and will help determine what types of  items to be placed on the Nyagdu page. From her work with that, we will plan a Nyagdu brochure.

We will probably want to take a look at the guide dog brochures from NFB itself so we don't have to completely invent the wheel.

Very shortly, I want to write a letter and/or email to Chapter Presidents and division Presidents to find other guide dog users who are not presently attending Nyagdu functions or who are not on this list.  We want to invite them to join with us.

After Tuesday's elections, I'm going to talk with a couple of Assemblypeople about the state access law.  I have approval from Carl Jacobsen to at least start talking to people.  Let's hold off on that until we see who's elected in our districts and then we can all figure out what to do.

Please send your comments, questions, complaints, thoughts, and ideas to this list so we can all work together.

also, very shortly, we will begin to hold regularly scheduled conference calls.  

I want to thank all of you for helping us move forward in our journey.

Sincerely,


Margo Downey, president
new York Association of Guide Dog users

Email:  
margo.downey at verizon.net

Phone:
(716)886-0567
Cell:  (716)541-5574