[Ohio-talk] Buckeye Update for September 8th, 2011

[J.W. Smith]

I started teaching this week, and although I'm sad to see summer coming to
an end, it is exciting to start a new year.  I hope you had a great summer,
and let me just tell you I am so excited about the football season beginning
on Thursday evening, September 9th.  Maybe one day it will stop raining?  

 

Fall Board Meeting

Our Fall Board Meeting will be held on Saturday, September 17th at the
Gethsemane Lutheran Church, located at 35 East Stanton in Columbus.  The
meeting will start at 10:00AM, and probably end at or around 3:00PM.
Remember that we are returning to our Wendy's fast food lunch orders for
this board meeting, so please if you will be having lunch with the rest of
us, get your orders into Eric Duffy (eduffy at pobox.com) or Carol Akers
(purplecakers at yahoo.com) by at least September 14th.  Also remember we are
asking for at least a five dollar contribution to cover the cost of your
lunch, unless of course your order exceeds that amount.  We will have a
guest presentation from a Columbus resident that is concerned about
providing services for the blind and visually impaired in terms of physical
exercise and other health related issues.  She will be with us for about 20
or 30 minutes, appropriately after lunch. Additionally, Carol Akers will
present a fundraising opportunity during our lunch time, so stay tuned.  

 

Convention is Coming

Our state convention will be held at the Wyndham Garden South Hotel
(formerly the Holiday Inn), in Dayton, Ohio, or specifically Miamisburg,
Ohio, from November 4th to November 6th.  The agenda is shaping up nicely,
but if you plan on attending you should make sure to get your hotel
reservations in as soon as possible, but no later than October 13th to get
our excellent rate of $75.00 per night. The hotel is located at 31 Prestige
Plaza Drive, Miamisburg, Ohio, and the phone number is 934-434-8030.
Additionally, you should be getting your convention assistance requests in
to me as soon as possible as well.  Once again, our funds will be very
limited, but I'm sure all of you will agree that we will do everything in
our power to get as many people to attend  the convention as is possible.
The newsletter should be in your hands in one format or the other, very
shortly, and thus you will have all the information you will need for
preregistration, but I encourage you to save money and to make it even more
convenient for all concerned, so try and preregister for meals, and of
course the convention itself.  This year, we will be having a very important
Leadership Breakfast on Sunday morning, November 6th, complete with a guest
speaker and I'd like to have as many Chapter and Division presidents and
vice-presidents or their designees attend as possible.  I think this is a
very critical time for us in terms of identifying and encouraging affiliate
leaders, and giving them opportunities for additional education in all
aspects of who we are and what we do.  Finally, I'm very excited that my
good friend Ever Lee Hairston will be our national representative this year,
because I have no doubt that she will be an extraordinary source of
inspiration for all of us.  You will not want to miss her banquet address.
I'd also like to encourage you to please stay and participate in our after
banquet activities.  IN recent years, I've noticed a considerable drop off
in this area, in terms of attendance and enthusiasm.  I know that not
everybody is a party animal, but I think it's a great thing to fellowship
with each other after the banquet, and I know that our Miami Valley Chapter
is planning some great fun and entertainment for us, so please don't just go
to your rooms, or have your own separate parties when we could all have so
much more fun together.

 

Meet the Blind Month

October has been designated as "Meet the Blind Month" so I hope that
Chapters and Divisions are thinking about appropriate activities.
Obviously, the activities that combine education and even a fundraising
component are probably the best ones, but let's all do what we can to spread
the word about what it is really like to be blind and visually impaired in
an effort to change some of the negative attitudes that currently exist in
the general population.  

 

Gavel Award and Other Reports

Don't forget to get your Gavel Award Reports into the Awards Committee as
soon as possible.  Remember, however, even if you do not submit a Gavel
Award Report, you need to send me some kind of Chapter or Division report,
understanding that failure to do so will result in a financial penalty.  I
would really like to give the awards committee a lot of work this year, and
make it very difficult for them to pick the Gavel Award Winner.  If you need
the information once again, just let me know.  

 

Dr. J. Webster Smith

President, National Federation of the Blind of Ohio

PO Box 458 Athens, OH 45701

740-592-6326

 

"Changing what it means to be blind"

For more information go to nfbohio.org