[Nfbofnc] 2009 Washington Seminar

[Gary H. Ray]

Fellow NC Federationists!

Gary Ray here.

I wanted to give you a short re cap of our efforts at the 2009 Washington
Seminar.  The Seminar is one of the most important things we do each year.

North Carolina sent a delegation of 17 folks this year.  We had folks from
our Students Division, the Forsyth Chapter, the Guilford Chapter, the Wake
Chapter, the Cumberland Chapter, the Harnett Chapter, and the Mecklenburg
Chapter.

The State paid for the rooms for those attending.  The Mecklenburg Chapter
made an additional donation to our effort that allowed us to rent a small
buss and about 11 of us road up and back on that.  We really appreciate the
additional support from Mecklenburg.

We went up on Sunday and came back on Wednesday.  We had appointments with
all of our Representatives and Senators, meeting in person, or with one of
their staff.  I think we saw about 5 of our folks, in person which is a
pretty good average.

Our legislative points were:
-Quiet car legislation
-Social security penalties for blind folks on disability
-a consumer bill of rights pushing for legislation to make appliances more
accessible

We also had great fun while up there.  We broke bread together a couple of
times, laughed, and talked about many things.  We renewed relationships with
others from the many state delegations who were there.

I must note that Lusi Radford and Sharon Newton hid fudge from us on the
ride back.  This is not a good thing, because as State President, I needed
to tooth test all fudge coming back into the state.  I am currently
considering actions to correct such issues in the future.  These actions may
consist of searches of bags and carry on luggage.

In all, a good time was had by our delegation and we did good work for the
Federation.