[Travelandtourism] End of 2013 Report from Travel & Tourism

Sat Dec 28 22:39:32 UTC 2013

Thank you.

Denice Brown

In a message dated 12/28/2013 9:46:18 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
cherylandmaxx at hotmail.com writes:

Please reply  all when responding to this post. 
Happy New Year to the Members, Officers  and some of the Leaders with the 
NFB Travel & Tourism Division, a proud  division of the National Federation 
of the Blind.
I hope next year I can do  this again, if re-elected in July as President.
I also want to remind those  that are reading this that we are not just a 
leisure travel division, we are  also not for those who are travel 
professionals, but we will be encouraging  those some ideas about working in the 
field, whether being a travel agent, or  possibly in customer service, and other 
areas. As well as, advocating in  congress whether it be in DC or our own 
states.  So. please take another  look at this division.  If you don't like 
the topic, you got the friendly  delete button, but before you delete it, look 
more than what the topic reads,  you never know what is going on.
In 2011, I was very proud to be asked to  take over the position as 
president by Don Gillmore, who was then president,  and Milton Taylor, who has been 
Treasurer of the division since 2004, and had  to resign a few months ago 
to be honored by the Lions Club International in  Utah, by being nominated 
and now elected 2nd Vice District Governor there,  being a Lion myself, this 
is a great honor, and Milton has stated that we  wants Lions and NFB to be 
able to work together more, I hope I can follow in  his foots steps myself 
with my club here in Brentwood, at least try.
Milton  Taylor, has served not only the NFB for many years, including being 
President  of that Affiliate, but has been our Treasurer for 10 years. I 
know this is not  an easy job, holding both Treasurer and Vice President of 
the NFB of Greater  Long Island Chapter, plus wearing other hats in our family 
with the NFB.
We  now have a great lady, who is our Treasurer, Mrs. Glenda Farnum, from 
the NFB  of Oklahoma, if you have not already welcomed her please do so.
This  division has doubled in membership since 2012, when I was officially 
elected  to my 2 year term, and this could not be done alone. 
We have a great group  of officers, that I am proud to say, we are the best 
of friends as well, which  is very important, we have our own opinions, but 
we are able to bring all of  these to the table with great respect.
All of our positions are up for  re-election at National Convention in 
Orlando, and we hope that you will  re-elect us.
Introductions if you don't already know.
Vice President -  Maurice Shackelford from Atlanta, GASecretary - Margo 
Downey from Buffalo,  NYTreasurer - Glenda Farnum from Warr Acres, OKBoard 
Member - Amy Baron from  Minneapolis, MNBoard Member - Jemal Powell from 
Chicago, IL
And myself  President - Cheryl Echevarria from Brentwood, NY
As mentioned this division  has grown a lot since 2011, since National 
Convention in 2013, we have not  only held teleconference for our Board of 
Directors, but we do an "At Large"  Chapter Meeting every month, these meetings 
will be posted, and I do hope that  I can convince David Andrews to post 
these meetings as well, everyone, please  and thank your for your very hard work 
that you do David. 
We are hoping  that all of you who are paid and non paid members will come 
to the at large  chapter meetings, to learn what we are doing during the 
year. We are actively  trying to work with NAGDU and the National Office on 
issues that affect us in  the way of all travel related issues.
All of the meeting information is up  on our website, 
http://www.nfbtravel.org, which is updated by our webmaster  Lavar Phillips from Woodside, NY, 
who is also a member of the division and  myself.
We have a twitter page, which is  https://twitter.com/travelandtouri1 and a 
Facebook page NFB Travel and Tourism  Division, launched in April 2012, 
which we have people from all over the  country and the world, blind and not 
blind that enjoy our information.
We  are very proud to have brought to the NFB and to the Convention, as 
well as  some write ups in the Braille Monitor about our trips and tours, by 
bringing  Mark Jones, Manager of Domestic Services for Guests with 
Disabilities for Walt  Disney Parks and Resorts from Disney Theme Parks and Resorts, 
first from my  radio show on the Echevarria Travel Show, which is run and prod
uced by the  Northeast Chapter of the NFB of New Jersey, the same radio 
station that brings  you Thru Our Eyes with Joe Ruffalo and my show and 2 other 
shows that are live  and call in shows.  Mark also come on our 
teleconference calls to talk  about concerns we had with the Disney Parks, and educated 
us on these issues,  he also took the officers of the division to the Magic 
Kingdom at Walt Disney  World prior to our meeting at convention, about the 
accessibility at the parks  and also with our concerns with guide dogs as 
well.  He also not only  spoke at our meeting, but he came back to speak at the 
NAGDU meeting.   Wonderful Man and thank you Mark for doing this.
We also had Mr. Rob Nevin,  from U-R-Able to come and speak, about the 
software  ALT, who spoke about  working in customer service with this wonderful 
program, to help us work even  possibly faster than our sighted workers, he 
also donated a door prize for our  meeting, which were wireless headphones.
Our other guest who also did  double duty at the convention by speaking 
about NAGDU and Travel & Tourism  was Mr. Steve Olsen from the Association of 
Zoos and Aquariums, spoke and  urged us to let his organization know of any 
concerns we have while visiting  zoos or aquariums, especially with our guide 
dogs. He was also very proud to  say that Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney 
World was on the members of the  organization. The AZA has been around since 
1929 and began accrediting in the  late 1970’s. AZA now has 221 members and is 
supported by dues.
You can find  all of this information on our website, as well as, how to 
join the division  and to pay your dues, either via paypal.com or check/money 
order, or wait  until convention to pay in cash.
2 final things we did this year, one was  to do our very 1st Fundraiser 
Trip Event, again this information is up on our  website. We did a very 
successful trip to Las Vegas and Utah in October, we  had 24 people with us from 9 
states.  We were successful enough to make a  donation to the National 
Challenge during meet the blind month.
We also are  taking reservations now for our 2nd Annual Fundraiser Trip to 
Country Music  USA - Nashville, which will be from Monday October 6 - Friday 
October  10th.  Again information up on our website for pricing and payment 
 plans.
Well I summed it up there with the 2 together.
We hope those of  you on the list, will become more active, especially 
those that are paid  members, those that are not, we hope you will join, this 
division cannot  thrive and survive without you the members.
Some of the things we want to  do in 2014, is to possibly join with NAGDU 
in this Resolution and maybe bring  more people to come and speak to both 
divisions or to combine something  together.
We have a lot that needs to be done in the realm of travel, not  only for 
us to travel independently, but also in the realm of employment, you  don't 
have to be a travel agent to work in the travel profession.
God  Bless!
Thank you and Happy New Year!
Cheryl Echevarria, PresidentNFB  Travel &  
Tourism631-236-5138cherylandmaxx at hotmail.cominfo@nfbtravel.org

Disabled  Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 of NY StateOffering the Best in 
Meaningful  Travel Experiences for Everyone!Cheryl Echevarria,  
Ownerwww.echevarriatravel.com631-456-5394reservations at echevarriatravel.com

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for all her braille needs.  Gail  Smith is the Secretary of the NFB of 
Alabama           
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