[Riverside-San-Bernardino] summery of the Presidential Release for June 2020

[Kelly Hill]

Presidential Releases from the National Federation of the Blind and print transcripts can be found here:
https://www.nfb.org/resources/publications-and-media/presidential-releases

This is a summery of the Presidential Release for June 2020. You should listen to the actual audio or read the transcript for the full experience.

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Welcome by PAM ALLEN first vice-president
There was a pole asking live listeners how long they have been a member of the National Federation of the Blind.

Mr. riccabono is proud of our work with blind students across the country to get access to the advanced placement exams available from the College Board. (recent press release here:
https://www.nfb.org/about-us/press-room/blind-students-and-advocates-resolve-dispute-college-board-over-ap-exams
We were able to get an agreement about a week ago, to make sure that blind students across the country have access to hard copy Braille and tactile graphics.
we are working actively on access to voting and have had interim victories in many places including New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

our National Federation of the Blind Braille enrichment for literacy and learning in home edition is happening for the first time ever.
There are forty-five young people participating.
Participants have received a huge box of stuff and if you know of families that have not signed up yet We have two more sessions available this summer that are coming right up, so please encourage families to go to NFB.org/bell<https://www.nfb.org/programs-services/nfb-bell-academy> to register for one of our upcoming two-week in-home edition programs.

in-person Federation meetings
the board of directors previously put a stay on in-person Federation meetings through May 31 or as local conditions call for. We have sent a communication now to all of our affiliate Presidents, advising our affiliates to make that decision based on the local conditions and to continue to coordinate with the national organization.
  Mr. Riccobono  expects that we're going to continue to have virtual meetings in some places  for a while, and he thinks all places should continue to have virtual participation along with our in-person meetings, but he is excited that in some places we might be able to continue to open up or start to open up to having some in-person gatherings, even small gatherings.  He encourages everybody to continue to follow the best practices in terms of wearing masks and keeping yourselves and all of our members safe.
At the time of this speech (Thursday, June 4, 2020) there were 11 days left to register for our national convention.
You do not want to be left out of the registration group, so please go to www.NFB.org/convention and register before June 15.
Affiliates should be reaching out to members to make sure that everybody has access, and if for some reason people don't have access to be able to register, we should help them get access to register.

We want to make sure we don't register multiple individuals on the same email address.  To do that, there are a couple things you can do.  First of all, on the website, www.NFB.org/convention, there is an accessible, fillable PDF that can be filled out and sent in via email or could be mailed in.  You can fill that out for every individual that is registering.  That does not require an email address.



The second way is you can reach out to the team here, and we can send you a spreadsheet if you want to log multiple registrations on a single spreadsheet. Reach out to Susan Skaarer to get that.  Again, keep in mind the June 15 deadline.  Susan's email address is

sskaarer at nfb.org

Mr. Riccobono shared some numbers to encourage our affiliates in this area.
To be in the top ten, you've got to have at least 100 people registered.
At #10 is Pennsylvania 99 people registered
Number nine, South Carolina with 105
Number eight, Pam, Louisiana with 107
Number 7, New Jersey, with 118
Number six, Colorado with 123
number five, Ohio with 147
number four, which is California.  183
Number three is Arizona, 191.
number two, Maryland.  254 people
number one is Texas with 264.


Total registered to date as of earlier today, 3,214 individuals.

last year in Las Vegas, we registered in person 3,284 people.  And our biggest convention ever in person, 3,347, New Orleans.

our convention is happening July 14-18.  We have decided our primary platform will be the Zoom webinar.


Our general sessions will also be streamed via the web in a variety of ways, so you don't have to get on Zoom or the telephone to do that for the general sessions.
these are the traditional general sessions that we have streamed in the past.  That's the NFB board meeting.  That's all of the general plenary sessions.  And of course, the banquet.
We are planning to offer options for voting amongst registered members of the convention.
We do need door prizes, and we want you to send them in advance.
We have provided affiliates with instructions about what to do if you prefer to ship them from where you are.  Please coordinate with your affiliate President.  They have all the info about that.  We do need door prizes, and we do have a secure way of providing cash and gift card door prizes to winners.  You're going to want to be logged on, though, to make sure that you can get those door prizes.
Three more chapters got on the PAC plan.
if you give a $20 donation between now -- actually it started some time ago -- and noon on July 18 Eastern Time, you will be entered into the Kenneth Jernigan convention drawing, which will make you eligible for a great prize.
You could win an opportunity to go to our 2021 convention somewhere in the country.  You will get round trip transportation for two to the 2021 NFB convention as well as hotel at the convention, convention registration, banquet tickets for two, and $1,000 in walking around money.
There is additional information and rules that can be found on our website at www.NFB.org/convention<http://www.NFB.org/convention>.

There is a quire that will perform at the convention, but they started rehearsing June 5th.  For more information contact Rachel Grider,
Rachel.Grider at gmail.com<mailto:Rachel.Grider at gmail.com>

We will have the rookie round up meeting on Tuesday, July 7, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time and we're all virtual convention rookies, So Be there. Pam has promised interesting things if you want to preview and make sure you're in tune to know what to do for our five-day convention.

There are National Federation of the Blind Newsline program surveys and focus groups to determine the future of NFB Newsline. (closed June 10)
Lyft has offered National Federation of the Blind members, another coupon worth $25 per user to assist blind people during the month of June.
Affiliate Presidents have the code available and can work with you to make sure that these codes get to blind people to be used to support activities during the month of June.
We have not stopped monitoring both Uber and Lyft in terms of their discrimination against blind people who use service animals.
We need you to continue to fill out our ride share survey so that we can collect data about discrimination against blind people with service animals in ride share.
Good or bad, we want to hear from you.
www.NFB.org/rideshare-test<http://www.NFB.org/rideshare-test>

If you or someone you know is not yet a member of the Federation, wants to learn more about membership, we have another open house gathering coming up on June 10 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
For more information about membership email:
membership at NFB.org

we have a new partnership with an entity called Pinna
Pinna is an on-demand audio streaming service that provides hundreds of hours of content targeted at children 3-12.
Their programming includes podcasts, audio books, and music.
Pinna is providing a 60-day free trial to members of the National Federation of the Blind, using promo code NFBGET60.
This is only available to new folks who haven't used Pinna before.
make an account on their website, pinna.fm/promo<https://pinna.fm/?promo=1>.
when you go there, you'll need to put in the promo code NFBGET60 in step two of the account creation process.
One of the reasons this partnership comes about is because Pinna offers a broadcast known as Opal Watson Private Eye.  It says here about it:  She is curious, brave, and persistent.  And she happens to be blind.  At age 11, she already has her own thriving mystery-solving business.  Quite intriguing.
The lead character is blind.  That's Opal.  And Opal is voiced also by a blind person, Maya Graves.  So pretty cool to have a blind character leading a podcast, voiced by a blind person.  A number of our members have provided feedback on this podcast and the reflection of blindness in it and they say you should check it out.

Acknowledgement of those who participate in our dream maker circle.
dream maker circle is a commitment to make an end of life gift to the Federation, put us in a will, put us in as a beneficiary.  It helps us to preserve the longevity and sustain the organization by knowing that we can rely on gifts in the future.

the national day of mourning
To show our support of members of the Federation who are black Mr. Riccobono put out an open letter to members under the title of "Love conquers hate," And we are encouraged to read it.
Find the letter here:
https://www.nfb.org/blog/open-letter-members-national-federation-blind
About the letter, Mr. Riccobono says, "It speaks to my own reflections on racial justice, what's happening in the country, and the work of the National Federation of the Blind, and what each and every one of us in this organization can do within our movement to make sure that we give love to our members who most need it, especially at this time."
Our board of directors has unanimously adopted this statement.  We're sharing it on social media, and I will share it with you now as a reflection of the solidarity we have with our black members.

For 80 years the National Federation of the Blind has viewed addressing discrimination and promoting equality as essential elements of our work.  Today we stand in solidarity with the black community in their fight for justice and in their pursuit of equal treatment under the law.  We condemn the continued murders of black Americans, including those of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.  Further, we acknowledge that these horrific deaths represent a vile and longstanding pattern of institutionalized racism that permeates the criminal justice system.  While there are police officers who are doing good work, the fact remains that black and brown individuals are disproportionately impacted by police brutality, unfairly condemning people of color to prison cells and graveyards.

As a civil rights organization with a diverse membership, we strive to grow in our understanding of conditions that affect us.  Throughout our history, we have participated in civil disobedience and honor the value that it holds to bring about social change.  We are firmly committed to enacting our organizational diversity statement which, in part, expresses, "We recognize that our views and convictions will be challenged, and we expect this challenge to take place in a climate of tolerance and mutual respect in order to maintain a unified organization."

Recognizing that this is a time of intense grief, a time of learning, a time of reflection, we stand with our members who are in pain, and we pray not only for peace but for justice.  We stand in solidarity with our black members and publicly commit to do anti-racist work within our organization.  We ask our non-black members to take the time to self-reflect in ways we can participate to create an anti-racist world.  With you in love, with you in justice, we affirm that Black Lives Matter.

This important statement, in an important movement, is important for our organization.  We work for blind people, and in this moment, we recognize that we're also not blind to color.  We recognize with this statement the systemic discrimination that does exist.  And we make a pledge to do more about it, by starting right here within our organization, being thoughtful, having hard conversations, finding ways to heal each other in this movement as a starting point for the rest of the nation.
"This statement is an important one not only for our members but to tell the rest of the nation that we as a civil rights organization realize, recognize, and are committed to the fact that racism does not have a place in our organization or in our nation, and that's consistent with the code of conduct that we have adopted and have been advancing in our organization now for some time."

  The podcast ended with an acknowledgement of the births and deaths that have occurred since last month's Presidential Release.

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