[Ohio-talk] FW: NFB President’s Notebook - week of 10/10/2016

[richard]

President’s Notebook


National Federation of the Blind


Mark A. Riccobono


officeofthepresident at nfb.org


(410) 659-9314


 

Dear Fellow Federationists,

 

Happy Meet the Blind Month. I have been on the road for the Federation much of the past ten days. It is good to be back in Baltimore for a little while. There is a lot of exciting Federation work underway, including planning for the future. 

 

Prior to the 2017 Washington Seminar, we will plan to have a meeting for all affiliate presidents at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute. This means that affiliate presidents should expect to be in Baltimore prior to their time in Washington. It also means that we will not have a legislative directors' seminar at our national office in 2017. More details regarding the meeting of affiliate presidents will be coming soon. For the sake of your calendar, you should plan to be in Baltimore on the evenings of January 28 and 29. 

 

I hope that all of our Federation family members who were in the path of Hurricane Matthew are safe and have not been adversely impacted. 

 


News:


Presidential Release:
The October Presidential Release is available at https://nfb.org/images/nfb/audio/pr/pr454.mp3. 

 

FBB Blog Post:
As you are all aware, the Foundation Fighting Blindness recently announced the end of the first phase of their campaign that includes the #HowEyeSeeIt video campaign. My most recent blog post, https://nfb.org/blog/vonb-blog/progress-through-telling-our-stories-truth-about-blindness-makes-difference, was written in response to their announcement.

 

Videos from Marrakesh:
Last week, leaders of the Federation participated in the first Marrakesh assembly in Geneva. I was there with Fred Schroeder and Scott LaBarre. Below are links to videos that Fred and I recorded for the assembly:
Tweet and link to my video: https://twitter.com/WIPO/status/781162888841003009
Tweet and link to Fred Schroeder's video: https://twitter.com/WIPO/status/781087345399492609

 

Target Agreement:
Also, last week we announced that Target Corp. is the first company to participate <https://corporate.target.com/article/2016/09/accessibility-team?>  in the NFB's new Strategic Nonvisual Accessibility Partnership <https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-strategic-nonvisual-access-partner-certification>  (SNAP) initiative. The goal of the SNAP program is to increase the accessibility of technology by developing productive ongoing partnerships with organizations in an effort to assist them with infusing accessibility into their culture.

 

Video:
The Spanish version of the HAVA video is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxlwGbw-CHs.

 


Requests:


Recipes for the Braille Monitor Needed:

Gary Wunder would like you to send him your favorite holiday recipes, not only things that you do for the holidays but party recipes that you would use for New Year's. Please send it to gwunder at nfb.org by November 1. 

 


Dates to Keep in Mind:


·         Fall Conventions <https://nfb.org/state-conventions> 

·         October 20-23: NFB BELL Academy Training Seminar (Novice/Intermediate) in Baltimore, Maryland

·         January 30, 2017: Great Gathering-In 

·         January 30-February 2, 2017: Washington Seminar <https://nfb.org/washington-seminar> 

·         March 30-31, 2017: Jacobus tenBroek Law Symposium

·         July 21-29, 2017: Youth Slam, Towson University

·         September 12-17, 2017: BLAST, Nashville, Tennessee

 

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.

 

 

Mark A. Riccobono, President

National Federation of the Blind

200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place

Baltimore, Maryland 21230

Phone: (410) 659-9314

Fax: (410) 659-5129

Email: officeofthepresident at nfb.org

Twitter: @Riccobono and @NFB_Voice

Web:  <http://www.nfb.org/> www.nfb.org