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State Convention
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NFBCO Web site CalendarNotes from the Editor’s DeskLate summer and fall are very busy times for the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado. As incredible as it seems it is already time to wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving. As always, many of us attended the 2007 National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, where great fun was had, much business was conducted, and more than a thousand people marched through the streets for our first ever March for Independence. If you were not able to join us at this exciting time I encourage you to start making plans to attend our 2008 convention in Dallas, Texas. In October we held the 53rd Annual State Convention—one of the best state convention’s we have had. More than two hundred blind Coloradans and out-of-state visitors were in attendance. Read more about the state convention below. Please remember that if you have any ideas, suggestions, corrections, or new information for either the NFBCO Web site or newsletter please contact Lorinda Riddle at 303-778-1130, ext. 236 or send an email to lriddle@cocenter.org. Greetings from the PresidentAs we flip the last couple of pages of the 2007 calendar and as the holiday season is upon us, let me begin by wishing you and yours the absolute best of this season! Additionally, the penultimate month of the year gives us the opportunity to reflect upon that which has passed. Overall, I think that we can look upon 2007 as an unqualified, stunning success. We battled through a variety of obstacles to create the Colorado Commission for the Blind. No one yet knows what fruit the Commission will bear, but I am confident that we will be able to use it as a positive agent for change. Speaking of the Commission, we have been told that appointments to the Commission will be made in the next couple of weeks. If this occurs, the first meeting of the Commission would take place in early 2008. Stay tuned for further information on the Commission. I think it is also fair to say that our 53rd Annual State Convention was a remarkable success. In terms of numbers, I think we set some records. Our Possibilities Fair had more than 230 attendees. Colorado’s blind and visually impaired seniors received a new message about blindness—one of hope and freedom. For the main part of the NFBCO Convention, we tallied 218 registered. Beyond the impressive numbers, though, I feel confident in saying that all thought the substance of the Convention to be excellent. There were a variety of different agenda items, break out sessions, and other events that reached people on many different levels. The Convention demonstrated that we are strong and vibrant and we are accomplishing our mission. We are changing what it means to be blind and doing so for the better. The Convention reminded us that even though we have a great deal of work to do, first class citizenship for the blind is no longer just a fanciful dream. It will be our reality! For more on the Convention and to listen to the session, go to our website at www.nfbco.org. Before we call it quits on 2007, we have one more significant event. We will hold a NFBCO Board of Directors meeting on Friday, December 14, 2007, at our Colorado Center for the Blind in Littleton, Colorado. Dinner and refreshments will be served. All are welcome to attend. If you would like to attend and eat, please contact Lisa Bonderson at (303)504-5979 or (303)778-1130, ext. 215 or at lbonderson@labarrelaw.com. Please be aware that there will be a charge for the full dinner we will be serving, probably around $10.00 a person. In 2008, one of our first events will be the Washington Seminar where we will go to Washington and educate members of Congress as to the important issues faced by the blind. If you would like to join us on the Washington trip and receive financial assistance from the affiliate, please contact Lisa Bonderson by December 15. She can be reached at (303)504-5979 or by email at lbonderson@labarrelaw.com. So, in closing, I want to wish all of you the happiest of holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!! I should also wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. Speaking of same, I also want to thank you for your support of our Federation. Our philosophy is powerful and our goals noble. However, it is our membership that makes it happen. Thank you for all that you do to make life better for blind Coloradans!! Colorado Commission for Individuals Who Are Blind and Visually ImpairedAfter much effort by the affiliate this past spring, the Commission will finally become effective. The Governor's Office of Boards and Commissions has received about thirty applications to serve on the Commission and the selection process is underway. The Commission shall consist of no more than fifteen people, eight of whom must be blind. NFB President Scott LaBarre states that the Commission will study rehabilitation and other services for the blind and make appropriate recommendations to the Division of Rehabilitation, the Governor, and the General Assembly. Longtime supporter of the blind of Colorado, House Representative Joe Rice, a Democrat from Littleton, Colorado, and Senator Suzanne Williams, a Democrat from Aurora, are thanked for their sponsorship of the bill. Kevan Worley of Colorado Springs and president of the National Association of Blind Merchants added that the Commission has the potential to bring about some real reforms in training for the blind. “It’s just common sense to include blind people in the study of how training is provided, and the Commission brings the consumer of services to the table,” he said. “For example, at one time sheltered workshops—places of low pay in a custodial setting—were thought to be a good idea but few people believe that today. Blind people in the twenty-first century need twenty-first century training ideas,” he stated. Please let the Commission know your thoughts on services for the blind in Colorado. The 2007 NFB National Convention RoundupMore than 100 Coloradans attended this year’s national convention in Atlanta, Georgia and many of us walked in the March for Independence. We walked about 3 miles to raise awareness about blindness and to raise funds in support of local and state outreach efforts for blind people. Halfway through the March a rally was held in Olympic Park. Colorado was well represented at this first-ever March for Independence.Students and staff from the Colorado Center for the Blind and other members of the affiliate joined in the early morning march through the streets of Atlanta.
The Colorado Center's own Orientation and Mobility instructors, For a recap of other convention events read the August/September Braille Monitor Roundup article written by Daniel B. Frye. News from Kevan Worley, Imagination Fund ChairmanAutumn is here with winter fast approaching. It’s time to reengage for this year's March for Independence—TheWalk for Opportunity. Our 2008 goal is to raise one million dollars. It will take our collective energy, action, and imagination to meet this goal. I encourage all of you who have not yet registered to do so now! If you are a returning participant or if you are signing up for the first time, you will find instructions on how to register at www.nfb.org or click here for detailed information. If you have any questions please contact me at kevanworley@blindmerchants.org or by calling 866-543-6808. You can also contact Kristi Bowman at (410) 659-9314, ext. 2406 or via e-mail at kbowman@nfb.org. Thank you, Thank you...I look forward to working with each and every one of you and serving our organization for what will prove to be another exciting year as your Imagination Fund Chairman. 2007 NFBCO State Convention - My Blindness, Myself by Jaime FraderaI speak to you from the heart. In 1981 I was in utter despair. I was going deaf, and that was even worse than going to the school for the blind had been. I was surprised to learn that the crazy doctor, the one who ran a hokey pokey therapy group for blind people, was still operating; and the Mickey Mouse Club for the Blind was still meeting at the same bar downtown where the same blind performer was still playing for handouts. Nothing seemed to have changed. I thought I had graduated into a sighted world. I thought I had a choice not to play dominos and beep baseball, not to get mixed up with the blind Mickey Mouse Club and the crazy doctor, to insist that there was nothing wrong with me. But there were others who did not agree. Actually, I knew a little bit about the radical, militant NFB. Four years earlier, at the training center in Texas, another student would sometimes tell us about it. It was 1977, and he said he was going to a convention in New Orleans. I said something like “after I go to college and get a degree, after I've made it in the sighted world, then maybe I would see about this NFB thing”. Until then, I wasn't ready. But back in San Antonio, in 1981, the pressure was awful. Did I know about Mickey Mouse for the Blind? Wouldn't it be better going to the bar for blind people? Did I know about the doctor who ran the hocus pocus therapy group free for the blind? Didn't I think beep baseball would be fun? Why didn't I join the Mickey Mouse society and listen to talking books? Sometimes the sightless Mickey Mouse Club played ball games against the sighted San Antonio Brewers. NOT the blind man in the bleachers, I never went to those ball games; but I'm pretty sure who won them, and I am pretty sure you know who won them too. I was angry and miserable and didn't know why. Bob, my rehab counselor, set me up for Bugs Bunny analysis with, who else, the crazy doctor, and what do you suppose the crazy doctor found? I heard not a word about Jernigan or tenBroek, though a few muttered somethings about Helen Keller and Stevie Wonder. A relative said I should take reading. Reading was a class for blind people at the community college, and where all blind students got an A while sitting around listening to talking books. But why listen to talking books there when I could listen to them some place else? For example, the Mickey Mouse society? And why take reading again after already having taken reading twice before? Curiously, in 1982, I telephoned the National Center to ask about literature, but I could not hear them and they hung up. I did resist the pressure to live in the apartments for blind people, since I had already lived in them before. It was rock bottom. From here, there was nowhere else to go but up. At a party in 1982, I was given a cassette program narrated by a motivational speaker. The speaker extolled the virtues of courage, patience, and persistence against impossible odds in the pursuit of cherished ambitions and dreams. He said that deeply held convictions and an abiding faith had the raw power to blast tunnels and move mountains, except he put it more eloquently than that. He said that anything worth achieving always involves risk. He said our limitations are mostly self-imposed but there were no limitations on our power to dream. He said if you let your existing knowledge and resources determine your goals you are aiming too low. I pondered this. I had always had a fascination with weather prediction, so why not go to school in Austin and study atmospheric science? It was true that I was broke, ill and couldn't hear, but anything was better than languishing at home. So one day I took a Greyhound bus to Austin and then a taxi around town looking for a place to live. Hoping no one would call my bluff, I rented a room in a cooperative house without having any idea how I was going to pay for it. But leaving home, instead of resolving my problems, only made them worse. Where was the money, they wanted to know, and soon I was up for eviction. I felt stressed to the breaking point. I was haunted by the specter of having to live on the street, blind, deaf and broke. The bouts of deafness were getting worse and lasting longer. My father, whom I wished I'd had more time to know, passed away. And finally, there was this problem with the Texas Commission for the Blind. My new counselor in Austin disapproved of my academic planning. Didn't I know I could not hear? Didn't I realize my GPA was too low? She didn't want me to be disappointed. I wasn't ready for school and she had the psychiatric records to prove it. And ignoring the Texas Commission's own regs she did nothing whatever. Well not exactly nothing. You see, she drew a salary. Now, remember what happened to Diane (McGeorge) and her dog, Dusty (when she was denied admission to a restaurant)? Quietly, after years of cooperating, agreeing and acquiescing, I could no longer endure the inept and insufferable mishandling of my life. Someone else was trying to run my personal affairs by telling me what I could and couldn't do, coddling me against the normal and necessary disappointments of life; and I just wasn't going to take that anymore. And I did something I had never done before. I ignored my counselor. I refused to see her audiologist and chose another from the school of nursing. She responded by saying didn't I remember what I was being told and by sending me to a psychologist for testing. She threatened to close my case if I didn't work with her, (meaning I should do what I was told) and by saying I could not do anything without help from the Texas Commission (meaning her, of course). But I continued to ignore her. I ran over to the college, gave them $200 I could ill afford, and got them to register me anyway as a probation student so she couldn't say I didn't qualify. As the deafness and dizziness worsened, I requested a supervisory review, but without having any idea what I was going to do or say when I got there. And I would have to do it alone. I was walking over thin ice that with every step was growing thinner. I shook with fear and an indescribably animal anger. For the first time in my life I was talking back to "god" but couldn't articulate my raw, elemental rage. I wanted to believe the twaddle on those crazy cassettes, but what if it was all wrong? I had taken too many reckless gambles, and now I was losing. Mere hours away from eviction, I called Rachel at the library; and then, if a single person could change the course of history, she suggested I telephone this organization; and when a delegation of Federationists came to reason with me, this time, I was ready. But I was still upset. The last thing I wanted was to get mixed up with more blind people. This was embarrassing. They wanted me to join the NFB. Ah ha! I thought; this must be some pressure tactic they have—you have to join the NFB before they will help you. Well, I joined, but I wasn't very happy about it. And once this case was over then I wouldn't have to pay attention to NFB any more. In the meantime, what I was impressed with was that the things they invited me to attend were not drinking parties or therapy sessions, not bowling matches or baseball games. Instead, to my surprise, Mark Noble was there, and Tommy Craig from high school and a bunch of others who didn't even know me. Yet they were to be instrumental in transforming my life forever, and it is largely a testament to their love and to their faith in me, that I am standing here today. The Federation philosophy I was beginning to absorb would at last free me from the peculiar institutions of my past, and my expectations of what was possible began to rise. I did not come alone to the supervisory review, where the area supervisor, with insufferable arrogance, seemed to think I should do what I was told and that he was my supervisor too. The agency ruled against me, and a fair hearing was scheduled. But the good doctor always taught us, we may lose battles, but never campaigns; except he put it more eloquently than that. With the guidance of my new friends I was learning to gather testimony. My former physics and geology teachers wrote letters. A blind meteorologist working for the government wrote from Maryland that automation was the wave of the future in atmospheric modeling, and there would certainly be opportunities for all who could bring a passion to the study of this fascinating field. I requested from the Commission all my case records, so that we could demonstrate the agency's ineptitude. They said no, but once again, I just ignored them, and guess what happened? They sent us the records anyway. I held them in my hands, and, you know, I felt rather like setting fire to the dammed things. In the summer of 1984 I went to the convention in Phoenix. There, I would learn of blind scientists in related fields. Nobody made fun of me, and I swept the tables for all the literature I could carry to take home. Then, in August, something extraordinary happened. The Fair Hearing conference would never be held. Instead, the Commission reversed itself and dropped its opposition to my going to school. By mail and phone, the counselor who didn't think I knew I was deaf, the same counselor who thought I needed mental testing and thought I had to be protected from disappointment, was all of a sudden leaving rather frantic messages that the fall term would soon start and what was I going to take and what would I need to make it a successful semester? How could this have happened? Was it a mystery? Not really, and there was only one thing that could account for it, our own National Federation of the Blind. We got all the things I needed, and in the spring of 1985 I took a full class load and ended the term on the honor roll. But enough about me. We're on the clock so I'm just going to wrap it up like this. If you know someone who needs to hear our messages of hope and freedom, tell them about the National Federation of the Blind Like me, they may not listen; but one day, like me, they'll understand. What's New From NFB-NEWSLINE®Over the past year NFB-NEWSLINE® has continued to provide subscribers with free on-demand access to over 250 daily newspapers and magazines. Our NEWSLINE Team presented informational seminars and provided training to interested subscribers across the state. NFB-NEWSLINE® also began an internship program which gives students an opportunity to build various job related skills and have some on-the-job work experience. Additionally, we continued to work with local newspapers providing an introduction to the Newsline system. As of this writing available Colorado newspapers are the Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Post, and Rocky Mountain News. We are working to include the Pueblo Chieftain, Boulder Daily Camera, and other local papers. The NFB-NEWSLINE® service in Colorado is great, and can only get better. Perhaps most exciting is our expansion of the local number service. You can help the NFB of Colorado reduce its share of the cost for NEWSLINE just by using one of these local access numbers. So please make a note of your local number and USE it regularly whenever possible. In Colorado Springs the number is 719-302-2379, in Pueblo call 719-404-3206, in Denver and related area codes use 303-552-5797, while in Northern Colorado call 970-372-1152. If you have unlimited long distance calling the Denver number 303-552-5797 is just as effective. But please remember that cell phone calls during peak minutes count for peak minutes regardless of the nature of the number being dialed. Also please check your phone bill to ensure that the local number you are using does indeed count as a local number.
Colorado Center for the Blind—Always an Adventure What is the Colorado Center for the Blind? Business Enterprise
Program Opens Doors at CCB On Tuesdays the trainees prepare lunch for the staff and students of the Colorado Center for the Blind as well as members of the seniors group. They also stock and troubleshoot the snack and soda vending machines. The trainees learn how to cost out meals and foods, evaluate inventory, and calculate profit or loss, as well as learning time management and marketing. Currently they are developing individual business plans which, upon completion, will be presented to the Randolph-Sheppard bid panel for analysis and review. This group of diverse personalities brings individual skills and perspectives to the training program and I look forward to their continued growth and development as they work toward the completion of their training. If you have any questions about the program please contact Randolph-Sheppard Training Coordinator, Julee Mullen, at 303-778-1130 ext 225. Center Students Go To The Prom!
Creating Connections Toward Confidence – The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation Training Grant The NFBCO Newsletter is a quarterly publication sent to all who have provided an Email address. If you want to sign up, change, or remove your name from any future general Email distribution, please contact Lorinda Riddle at lriddle@cocenter.org. Your address will only be used within the NFBCO and its entities. We do not sell, rent, or exchange Email addresses.
Newsletter Archive Spring 2007 NFBCO Newsletter
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