[Ohio-talk] Fw: BUCKEYE UPDATE - April 29, 2009

[Dr. Smith]

fyi

JW

Dr. J. Webster Smith
President National Federation of the Blind of Ohio
P.O.BOX 458 Athens, Ohio, 45701-0458
Phone Number - 740-592-6326
"Changing What it Means to be Blind"
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J. W. Smith" <jsmith1 at ohio.edu>
To: <Dr. John W Smith :>
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:37 PM
Subject: BUCKEYE UPDATE - April 29, 2009


> Can you believe that Friday will be May 1st? Time sure does fly when 
> you're having fun, doesn't it?
>
> Some Reminders and Announcements
>
> 1. Our Ohio Caucus will take place in Detroit on Sunday, July 5th from 
> 5:30-6:30pm. It will be held in the LaSalle B Room on level 5, so spread 
> the word.
>
> 2. Contact Crystal McClain to reserve your seat on the bus leaving from 
> Cincinnati on July 2nd at 2 and making stops in Dayton and Toledo and 
> arriving in Detroit at about 8:00 that evening. It will return on the 9th, 
> leaving from Detroit at about 8am.  I will give you more specific times 
> and pickup locations in the next few weeks.  To reserve your seat, 
> however, you need to send or give Crystal $20 (and you can just make the 
> checks payable to her) because you will just get the money back when you 
> claim your seats. Her email is mcmcclain at charter.net and her phone number 
> is 937-935-6188.
>
> 3. Those of you who have Jernigan raffle tickets should get the money to 
> me as soon as possible, and remember that we will be taking one check to 
> cover them and if you want me to turn in your stubs send those to me as 
> well. Of course you can take your own stubs and turn them in if you'd 
> like, but make those checks payable to the NFB of Ohio and put Jernigan 
> Raffle Tickets in the memo line.
>
> 4. All convention assistance forms should be mailed to me, postmarked by 
> May 1st, for consideration this year.
>
> Toledo is Back
>
> It bears mentioning one more time, because it is exciting that we now have 
> a chapter back in the Toledo area. On April 18th 2009, the NFB of Greater 
> Toledo was born and please join me in congratulating its new president, 
> Eric Burghardt. Eric can be contacted at sinat1 at embarqmail.com. Also join 
> me in thanking Vice President Colleen Roth for extraordinary work in the 
> formulation of this chapter.  As many of you know, Colleen is a stickler 
> for detail and in this case it made our job so much easier. It was an 
> exciting meeting and the fact that we had runoff elections for the 
> positions of secretary and treasurer is indicative of the kind of energy 
> and enthusiasm that was present that day and that we hope will continue in 
> this new chapter. I'm pleased to tell you that several members from the 
> new chapter will be going to the national convention and it will be 
> exciting to see them immerse themselves in all the activities in Detroit. 
> It is my hope that we will have many new faces in our delegation this year 
> which will mean that all of us old-timers will have to make sure that we 
> are available to help them in what can sometimes be an overwhelming 
> experience. In short, I don't want any of our new people to feel lonely or 
> left out, so let's make sure that we keep in touch with them throughout 
> the convention, but we will talk some more about this and devise some 
> strategies as we get closer to Detroit.
>
> Spring Board Meeting
>
> On April 25th we had a good board meeting in Columbus with the entire 
> board present. Special thanks should go to Cindy Conley for overseeing the 
> lunch orders.  Cindy tells me that Wendy's got all the orders correct, 
> which is amazing in itself, but I also think it's due in large part to 
> Cindy's efficiency. The parent's division gourmet food basket fundraiser 
> seemed to be successful as well, and we had an interesting presentation 
> concerning the Ohio State School for the Blind Marching Band trip to play 
> in next year's Rose Bowl parade. You should be getting the specific 
> minutes in the not-too-distant future, but I want to thank everyone for 
> coming, and for being on time. Let's keep it up. As it stands now, the 
> next board meeting will be on September 19th, probably in Columbus again.
>
> Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Cincinnati
>
> I continued my whirlwind tour of our chapters by dropping in on our 
> Cincinnati group on Monday evening, April 27th. It was a good meeting and 
> it was striking to me to see the contrast between the Cincinnati group, 
> which is led by Paul Dressell and his years of NFB knowledge and 
> experience, versus our Cleveland chapter, led by a fairly newcomer, 
> William Turner. Both meetings were exciting to me in different ways. It 
> demonstrated to me how diverse we are and how essential it is for us to 
> balance our experienced members with our new members, because we need 
> both. After the meeting you would have loved the scene of 10 or 12 blind 
> people walking several blocks together to a restaurant to enjoy a fine 
> meal. I felt right at home at both the meeting and the dinner, and I want 
> to thank my Cincinnati friends for their warm and gracious welcome.
>
> It is my goal to visit every chapter in these next 2 years and to do what 
> it takes to consolidate our efforts as much as possible. It was great to 
> see Sheri Albers at both the board meeting and the Cincinnati chapter 
> meeting, because her enthusiasm and energy are infectious, and given her 
> recent physical challenges it was wonderful to see the progress she has 
> made to this point. I also want to thank the Dressells for their wonderful 
> hospitality. As you might expect, they were gracious hosts and I felt bad 
> that it had taken me so long to finally visit them after threatening to do 
> so for several years.
>
>
> I think that's about it for now. Enjoy this fine weather and let the 
> excitement build for Detroit. I know Barbara Pierce will be at the 
> scholarship committee meeting in Baltimore this weekend, so let's keep our 
> fingers crossed that we get some winners from Ohio.
>