[Oabs] Recap from tonight's meeting.

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi all,

Though formal minutes were not taken for tonight's conference call, I
wanted to make sure everyone had access to an account of what we
discussed.  Please read on for details about how we are going to
prepare for convention, reminders, and more.

Old business was brief; we just approved what we discussed in
September.  Everyone at the last meeting was present again tonight.
New business mainly consisted of organizing a plan for gathering items
for our auction basket and door prizes.  As a reminder to those who
agreed to help out, here is what I have you all down for procuring:

Emily and Lillie Pennington:  Ask for donations from Patty's Popcorn,
see if Greaters Ice Cream will donate a box of chocolates and
hopefully a gift card, and get some nicer hot chocolate and apple
cider mixes from Kroger.
Myself: I will get the slippers and/or fuzzy slipper socks, and a
Darton Restaurant gift card (for those you don't know, Darton is a
company that owns a couple chains including Olive Garden and Red
Lobster.  This one gift card is good at any of the Darton
restaurants).  Will pick up a copy of Frozen, as it is a good family
movie.  Will ask Wal-Mart manager if the store would be willing to
donate a gift card and/or sponsor us, and if they want to let the
payment for some of the smaller items slide or cover the Darton gift
card, that's fine too.
Brandon: will get the basket and some wrapping for it to go in.  (Be
sure to get clear wrapping so the items inside will be visible).

Other convention prep responsibilities include:

Tickets for split the pot:  Aleeha, tickets 1-100; Kaiti, tickets
101-200; Emily/Lillie, tickets 201-300.  All who have slates and know
how to use them should bring them if we need to make more.  If you can
bring a brailler, that would also be awesome.
Kaiti: Will pre-cut fhodog, hamburger, and pizza ballots for voting at
student seminar.  Will personally call Tim Pennington to request his
artistic expertise.  (Yes, I am aware that Emily and Lillie could
easily rope him in if they haven't asked him already, but he and I are
also buds).
Kaiti: Will bring instruments from the music therapy stash for songs
(If you want to help with this aside from Emily and Aleeha who already
said they'd like to play, just let me know so I don't bring too
little.  I won't bring much and I've already got some ideas of
instrumentation for certain songs because they make musical sense, but
if 3 people want to play I don't want to just bring 2 egg shakers, for
example.  Also, if you're particularly gifted rhythmically and can
improvise rhythms within a simple 4-4, let me know that as well.  It's
fine if no one can do that, but it would just allow for you and I to
have some fun.  I plan to encorperate Elif's cane idea as well).
Emily has generously offered to buy the pizza for the division.  She
and I were thinking of getting your basic Peperoni pizza, cheese
pizza, and maybe one or two other ones with different toppings.  There
will be options.
Emily and Kaiti are both planning on going to various restaurants in
our areas to ask for donations for door prizes.  Take whatever the
store is willing to give you in terms of gift cards.  When choosing
locations to go to, try to stick to major chains like Chipotle,
Panera, Starbucks, etc.  We want the card to be useful to most people.
E.G, I won't bother going into Bad Frog Frozen Yogurt, because
although I know it's great and a favorite around Dayton, I know that
Cincinnati doesn't even have one.  Potbellies and Smashburger are also
not the greatest choices, as they're fairly uncommon.  Likewise, I'm
sure the northern Ohio people won't buy Kulvers cards because people
in southern parts of the state can't use them.  (Unfortunately).  It
is best to go directly into the establishment and have the flyer, the
sponsorship form, and a business card handy.  If you are a current
state or national scholarship winner, or have won scholarships on
either level in the past, be sure to mention that so the manager sees
that you are a person that the NFB and the NFB of Ohio have helped.

General notes about convention:
If you are interested in selling the raffle tickets, please let me
know no later than Wednesday the 29th.  I will most likely be going to
convention on Thursday night now due to the way transportation is
panning out, so I'll need to know how many selling kits to prepare
before I leave Dayton.  I'll probably make an extra one just in case,
but if you don't tell me you're interested and someone else does not
as well, I might not pack enough.
Several of our division members will be speaking throughout the
convention on various topics.  I know Lillie will be speaking on the
Stem2U panel, Aleeha will be giving a demo of the KNFB Reader app, and
I was just asked today to speak on a panel about Braille.  Speakers,
if you know the time of your speech or panel, please send it to me
when you can.  I would really appreciate it, as I'm still going
through midterms and have been missing emails for a while lately.  I
really want to highlight those who are speaking so the division
members who will be at the hotel can be sure to show support, as well
as learn from what each has to say.  I'm also really happy with the
fact that at least 3 of us will be speaking, and think we'll be
rewe-represented on the convention floor.  If you will be speaking and
I have not named you yet, please let me know that as well.
***TAKE NOTE*** An important note about elections.  If you are
considering running for an office you don't currently hold, I would
encourage you to have a one-on-one conversation with the person who
currently holds the position so you can ask questions about the duties
of that office.  You will want to be sure you know what to expect
before you get infvoled in the elcectio.  Also, as a courtesy, it is
nice to tell anyone you know will be running against you that you're
intending to run, so that no one is totally shocked when they get to
the elections.  Of course, nominations can and may be made from the
floor, but it's just a courtesy to the person you know.  I do not want
to see any discussion of election intentions over the list, or
discussion of what you do not tintend to run foras that information
can be used to make inferences about what you are actually wanting to
run for.  If someone tells you that they are planning on running for
the same office as you, try not to take it personally; elections are a
democratic process that is a part of every organization, and I don't
think anyone here has any sort of bad feelings towards another person
that would motivate them to run against another person out of spite.
A huge no no that I will be very upset about if it happens, is
campaigning over the list.  This is not a huge organization like NABS.
Most of us know each other, and I don't want anyone who joins the list
prior to coming to their firsta convention and student seminar to be
bombarded by campaign emails before they get to know the group or
individuals.  Also, campaigning is also what the speeches will be for
when we are carrying out the elections.  If you want to practice your
60 second elevator speech, I would encourage you to do so.

We will follow Robert's Rule as normal.  We will allow for trickle
down, so if say you aren't elected to be corresponding secretary, you
could still run for treasurer or one of the board member positions.
Depending on how many people attend the meeting, we may vote on
whether to amend our constitution to altar our board structure so that
we can fill it again.  This would be accomplished by combining the
recording and corresponding secretary positions into a single officer
role, and reducing the number of at large board members to one to
create an odd numbered board if it were to happen.  Anyone who swishes
to votein the elections must pay dues to Emily prior to the election.
We will vote to establish the official amount of dues as our first
order of business after introductions, so people can have sufficient
time to give Emily money.  In the election, I will remind everyone to
not vote on popularity.  We all need to vote based on what we feel is
best for the division, and not allow for high school stuff to get in
the way of that.  Always go with the person who you think would do the
best job.

Dr. Maurer will most likely make an appearance during our seminar, but
it will be on a he gets there when he gets there basis.  If he should
not happen to show up at the seminar, I would encourage you to sneak
in a conversation with him at some point in the weekend.  Although I
only shook his hand at convention last year, and bumped into him in
the hallway, I can say from those encounters that he's very nice.  He
also agreed to have a selfie taken with Emily this year at convention,
which I might have to join in on too.

I will send out a copy of the seminar agenda in a few days.  YI will
be the hard copy, so feel free to produce it in the medium of your
choice or store it on a notetaker if you wish.  Aleeha and I will also
make several other methods of receiving the agenda available at the
time of the seminar.  I will have a brf file on a flash drive or SD
card , which we can pass around to those who would like to access it
on notetakers.  Aleeha will have a copy of the document ready to air
drop to users of Iphones and braille displays.  I will also bring a
limited number of braille and large print copies, so everyone should
have a way of accessing the information.  Also, remember to tell your
friends you may meet that there will be ***FREE PIZZA**!
-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton 2016.
Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma