[nabs-l] Appreciating our roots

[David Andrews]

Joe, when I worked for the NFB, 91-95, there were approximately 40 
employees, maybe 45.  There are now well over 100.  There are also 
many more programs now.  I don't think third floor expansion would 
have held everything.

And ... when it comes to fund raising, you are comparing apples and 
oranges.  You are making the assumption that the money we raised and 
put into a building would also have been available for program 
services.  In addition to my careers in management, assistive 
technology, reading services, daisy books, AT software sales and 
marketing, and news writing, I was also a fund raiser -- and it 
doesn't work that way.  Raising capital campaign money is different 
from program money.

There were times when I doubted the wisdom of some of the expansions 
Dr. Jernigan started -- but he almost always turned out to be right!

Dave

At 04:33 PM 5/3/2010, you wrote:
>Corbb,
>
>Prior to the building expansion there was a third level where renovations
>could have been made to accommodate large-scale events.  The Baltimore
>chapter was more than sufficiently accommodated in the 4th floor conference
>room, and if the scholarship committee was easily managed with the resources
>the Center had prior to the expansion, I imagine any other multidimensional
>activity could have been just as easily housed.  I'm not saying we were
>wrong to expand the building, but I wonder how much of it was based on need
>and how much of it came out of a want.  Fancy foyers and glass elevators do
>nothing to advance our mission except to say that we have a swanky house to
>live in.  Yes, it is our building, but as you can now see, it is also our
>debt.  An expansion that ran an excess of twenty million dollars, to me,
>translates to a lot of programs that could have more effectively reached the
>masses.  I wonder what percentage of those funds could have been used to
>preserve the Jobline service?  More importantly, you site special events as
>the sole reason for reaping benefits from the expansion.  What about the
>other 300 plus days of the year where the building ought to be used for
>practical activities?  Even the NASA program is housed on a university
>campus, so by your logic we have actually failed to meet the expectation for
>the expansion uses.
>
>Jedi,
>
>I think you have a good sense of where I'm coming from.  Enticing young
>people is difficult, because while you do not want to water down the
>philosophy for the sake of drawing in new people, you do not want to run the
>risk of alienating the new generation.  To keep the thread in line with the
>original post, I think history taught us a lot about the unity that could be
>derived from rallying around specific civil rights issues.  Today, we pursue
>equality in the technology arena, but first, you alienate the older
>generation who cares very little for technology; and second, we will never
>fully catch up with the leaps and bounds of technical evolution.  Open
>source is great, but because this is mostly volunteer-driven, how do you
>enforce standards that fully accommodate accessibility?  I am very glad to
>see the technology bill of rights offered as part of this year's legislative
>agenda.  My only fear is that in time this legislation would be about as
>effective as the web accessibility standards that did not account for
>CAPTCHA and other features of the Web 2.0 era.  It's all about balance, and
>even if we devote resources to crafting an equal playing field in
>technology, there is still the issue of procuring jobs that make this
>technology advocacy worth our efforts.
>
>I do not envy the job of our NFB president.  I have mostly found Dr. Maurer
>to be receptive to most ideas that are brought to his attention.  I think
>the difficulty of his job is outlined in the way we want to stay on top of
>the technological evolution that runs today's world versus the fundamental
>reasons that necessitated the NFB in the first place.  He is open-minded,
>yet I fear sometimes he may be a bit too open-minded.  A little smack down
>seems to be in order at times, and from my vantage point it would appear as
>though he is trying too hard to satisfy too many people simultaneously.  Too
>many cooks in the kitchen at the National Center perhaps?
>
>Or, maybe I'm completely off my rocker.  Maybe my theories will be proven
>wrong.  Maybe I need to try to get into one of them there leadership
>seminars to remind me of what it was that made me passionate about the NFB
>at one point, assuming an invitation to the National Center is even
>attainable after my tangents. *grin*  What I do know for certain is that
>somewhere along the way I burned out on the NFB, and this alone would not be
>worth your concern as a future leader, except, I'm not the only one.  The
>difference between today and many years ago is that many years ago people
>felt a good kind of exhaustion.  You can tell from the literature that it
>was really a movement.  Today the NFB has transformed itself into a service
>provider, and it's difficult to work up extra reserves of energy for
>something that is not so much a movement as it is a well-oiled marketing
>machine that caters too much to publicity and not enough to character
>development.  The new breed of independence is good for print and
>television.  It's not good enough for daily life where it matters most.
>
>To me, this is most troubling.  Yet I appreciate the open debate.  I do not
>know that this thread has a real right or wrong answer, because ironically,
>only time will tell how successful the current strategies will turn out.  I
>do hope though that the people that plan to build a career of working for
>the NFB will take note of the points raised here on both sides and build an
>organization that intrigues everyone regardless of generation.  And,
>regardless of organization affiliation, because I think today's generation
>is far more willing to cooperate across the aisle than our proverbial
>parents.  This too will no doubt have an impact on how history evolves.
>
>Best,
>
>Joe