[Ohio-talk] Ohio Association of Blind Students, looking forward to 2015.

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hello, all,

On behalf of the Ohio Association of Blind Students, I would like to
thank everyone for an amazing convention this year.  I hope and think
that I can speak for other members of the division when I say that the
younger crowd really enjoyed themselves.  (Several of us are Beatles
nerds as well).

For students who were not able to attend the convention, and for those
who missed the awards presentations at the banquet, our 2014-2015
board is as follows:
President, Kaiti Shelton.
Vice President, Aleeha Dudley.
Secretary, Macy McClain.
Treasurer, Emily Pennington.
Board Member, Elif Emir-Oksuz.
I think this is a great set of officers, and that we can expect
continued progress to be made this year.  Welcome aboard to Elif and
Macy, who are stepping into new positions of responsibility with the
division.  And of course, thank you to the members who repeatedly
contribute to the federation, such as Aleeha working the streaming,
and Emily who helped me and her Cincinnati chapter members out selling
fundraising items.

Speaking of fundraising, our split-the-pot fundraiser raised $184.
The $92 winnings were generously funneled into the "Drive for 75"
fund, which the students really appreciated as our treasury is still
small.  Thank you to all who bought tickets.

Plans for 2015 are already in the early stages.  Tim Pennington, Emily
and Lillie's father, has experience in web design and has offered to
help OABS establish a web site.  Not only are his web sites
aesthetically pleasing, but they're very accessible.  I have
personally seen some of his web design work, and am excited to see
what OABS will be like on the web.

Recruiting new members is a continuing concern for everyone in the
affiliate, and it is so for the student division as well.  We have a
total of 12 members who payed dues at convention this year, and will
encourage members who did not attend to contact Emily to arrange for
the money to be mailed to her.  Macy suggested a week or two ago that
we accept due payments via PayPal.  Though we did not have enough time
to make that possible this year, we are looking into accepting dues in
this method and offering pre-registration for our pizza party/meeting
next year.  In case you don't know, OABS now has a dedicated email
address.  If any student you know needs general information about the
division, they can contact oabs.nfb at gmail.com.  Aleeha, Emily, and
myself are available through that account to respond to emails and
steer potential members in the right direction to join.

 A review of scholarship winners:  Emily Pennington, recipient of a
$5,000 NFB scholarship at the national level, was in attendance this
year.  Affiliate scholarships were awarded to Elif Emir-Oksuz (Jennica
Ferguson Memorial Scholarship), Kaiti Shelton (Robert M. Eschbach
Memorial Scholarship), and Jonathan Thomas (NFB of Ohio Scholarship).
I happen to know that all 3 recipients of affiliate awards are very
grateful for the awards they were granted by the affiliate, and
speaking for myself, I think the scholarship committee was spot on.  I
had a conversation with Elif after the banquet, in which I told her
who Jennica Ferguson was, and I know she was happy to know more about
the woman the scholarship is named after.  Likewise, I joined the
Federation after Bob Eschbach was in his prime and I never had the
opportunity to meet him, but I know he did a lot of good for a lot of
people in the Federation.  I hope that I can live up to that in some
way in the future and do the same.

My hope is that the student division will some day be able to sponsor
a scholarship, at least at the $500 level.  It may not be next year,
or even the year after that; but that is where I'd eventually like to
see the division go.  I'm also hoping that the student division might
be able to provide what I'm calling "Convention scholarships," which
would work like a scholarship in the sense that students would have to
apply for the funds and a committee would decide how those funds would
be allocated, but the money would go towards paying National
Convention registration, air fare, hotel costs, etc.

Like the affiliate, OABS is in need of some external sources of
funding.  Tim Pennington suggested in the parents meet and greet at
our meeting that we look for corperate sponsorships to make donations
to the organization.  While I think this is a fantastic idea, I have
no idea how to do it.  We'll be working on that in the year to come,
and may also explore some grant programs and apply for those.
Additionally, OABS would be a great mentoring platform for younger
students, and parents of blind children.  I have already talked to
Carol Acres about getting the students involved in building the
parents division, as well as getting those students of the parents
involved in our division so we can be a resource and sounding board
for them, too.  I'd like to thank the parents who did stop by;
although none of them were necessarily in need of help from the
students, they were a great help to us and participated in discussion
about where the division should go this year.

I may call upon a few of you dedicated Federationists to participate
in a membership call either this month or the next.  Though the
"Federation Philosophy: Why Students are Important to the Movement"
call is mainly for the benefit of those who were not able to come to
convention, I know I can't get enough of that topic of conversation
and neither can the members of the board.  If you are particularly
interested in being on the panel, please contact me so I can organize.
The meeting will either be in November or December depending on when
we can get Patti Gregory-Chang to call in about the national
scholarship program, and if you will be on the panel Aleeha will
contact you with details about calling in and other information.

On a personal note, I had a fantastic time at this convention, and
remarked to several people that I thought it was the best of the 4
state and national conventions I've attended.  I appreciated having
the opportunity to learn and share Federation music with you all, and
had a fantastic time at the Beatles fundraiser and silent auction.  I
had a conversation with Eric, in which I said something along the
lines of, "You're running me ragged, Duffy," and he responded, "Get
used to it, because you've got this music gig for years until I can't
get you to do it any more."  If you enjoyed the Federation songs,
there will be plenty more next year.  I didn't hit all the ones I
wanted to play this year, but I did get the major ones in for the most
part.  I'll see if I can't learn that United Airlines Song, Barbara.

Thanks for a wonderful weekend,


-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton 2016.
Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma