Board Minutes

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND OF UTAH

February 2025

Board of Directors Meeting

www.nfbutah.org

(801) 631-8108

You can live the life you want, blindness does not hold you back

 

Tuesday, February 11, 7:30 – 9:05 PM.

No motions were made or passed

 

Upcoming events

 

•Saturday February 15. Weber-Davis Chapter meeting about meta glasses on Zoom.

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

•Saturday February 22 at 11:00. Salt Lake chapter elections meeting at DSBVI 250 N 1950 W. Salt Lake City Utah.

•Friday February 28. deadline to register for the IEP Advocacy Seminar.

https://nfb.org/programs-services/education/IEP

•Tuesday March 4. Red Rocks Chapter meeting.

•Wednesday March 5 at 7:30. NFB of Utah Board meeting on zoom.

•Saturday March 8. Utah Valley Chapter meeting.

•Saturday March 8. Utah Association of Blind Students meeting on zoom. Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

•Saturday March 15 at 11:00. Weber-Davis Chapter elections meeting at Cheralyn Johnson’s home in Farmington.

•Thursday March 20 and Friday March 21. Tembroek Law Symposium at national office. Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium

•Saturday March 22 at 11:00. Salt Lake Chapter meeting and DSBVI.

•Wednesday April 2 at 7:30. NFB of Utah board meeting on zoom.

•Thursday May 1, Friday May 2, and Saturday May 3. Utah State Convention at the Provo Mariott.

•Monday June 9 through Friday June 20. Bell Academy at USDB.

•Saturday June 28. Stem 2 you at DSBVI

•Tuesday July 8 through Tuesday July 13. National Convention in New Orleans.

 

Minutes

 

  1. Roll call:

Everette Bacon:                   President:                       present

Cheralyn  Johnson:            1st Vise President:       present

Karl Smith:                             2nd Vise President:      present

Mark Turley:                          Treasurer:                       present

Barbie Elliott:                        Secretary:                       present

Laura Vincent:                     board Member:            present

Kenn Duke:                            board Member:            present

Ned Lindholm:                     Board Member:            present

Willie Black:                          Board Member:            present

Jessie Kramer:                     Board Member:            present

 

The public was invited, 19 participants including board members were present.

 

  1. Washington Seminar:
  1. Meeting with Senator Lee’s office was held in-person and on Zoom. Staff members, Justin and Chip, met with us again. We are hoping to get Senator Lee to come to our convention in May.
  2. Celest Molloy met with our delegation, she was engaged, seemed very interested and took nearly 30 minutes to spend with us. Please send her an email in praise of her taking the time to meet with us. Especially those who live in her constituency. Send her an email at
  3. Congressman Blake Moore spent 15 minutes with us and was warmly welcoming.
  4. Congressman Kenedy represents Provo, since we will be meeting in Provo, we would like to invite him to come to our convention.
  5. We still had 3 specific ideas to present,  but the NFB took a different approach this year. We shared the laws and funding issues that directly effect blind people such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Title II regarding accessibility, IDEA for special education, and the rehabilitation act. As changes take place, we wanted to point out the things that have truly helped us including funding and laws about accessibility rehabilitation, library services, disability law, medicate and education for the blind.

 

  1. National News:
  1. Presidential Release is about Washington Seminar and has already been shared in some chapter meetings locally.
  2. All affiliates must have liability insurance to protect us from liabilities at events and meetings. We have it, and the bill went up, but we have coverage. We may look for other possibilities in future years.
  3. We also have an insurance policy bonding Mark as our treasurer required in our constitution which was also paid. This is a bond for the next five years for whomever our treasurer is.
  4. There are new descriptions of officers and board members for affiliates and chapters. A document with these descriptions  is attached to the February minutes email. Perhaps chapter meetings could take time to go over the rolls and their descriptions.
  5. There will be a new list of treasures for state treasurers out soon. Mark will be invited to participate in this.
  6. The NFBRN (radio network) is now available. It is available on Victor Stream on oo tunes and other radio platforms. It will be coming to Alexa soon. Take some time to queue it up and take a listen. Currently, everything is pre-recorded.
  7.  The Great Gathering in is also available on the website.
  8. The Tenbroek symposium is coming up on March 20 and 21. If you would like to know more about disability law, it is available online. Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium
  9.  
  10. The IEP advocacy seminar is coming up. The deadline is February 28th for those wishing to attend. For more information please visit https://nfb.org/programs-services/education/IEP

 

  1. Local news:
  1. Free AIRA access locations are available. SLCC and USU are now available for free. It is also available at the natural history museum and the museum of fine arts. The SLCC website is also accessed by AIRA for free including access to canvas in case someone would like to use the website. If you are in downtown Salt Lake, AIRA is free for 30-minute stints.
  2. Kristine Ha was here for the Sundance film festival. She worked with Dan Kameron at Bubba Ella’s Café. For the interesting morning news segment on Thursday to show blind people cooking and running a restaurant.
  3. Our pharmacy bill was shared with doctors, clinics, and others in favor of this bill. There were some concessions made such as extending the deadline for making it happen, concessions were also made that braille, audio, and large print to make sure that audio and large print would be available but not braille because pharmacies don’t have access to making that happen. Some rural retell establishments were opposed to the bill along with some pharmacies. It was held for possible reconsideration, but this usually does not happen. The committee voted 7 to 3 to hold the bill, we only have 23 days left of congress session. Usually when bills hold like this, nothing happens.
  4. HB 20 for property tax changes won’t change the dollar amount, the change being considered is just a movement of code. So, the monetary change we passed in a resolution last year will have to wait for next year’s legislative session. Everette said we should invite the congressman Karl who has talked to about this to our convention and reread the resolution.
  5. People have been wondering about how the tariffs imposed on other countries such as Canada might affect products from HumanWare. Karl says at this time disability equipment is not under the same rules for tariffs as products from other countries, so right now, no extra fees will be charged.

 

  1. State Convention:
  1.  The Provo Marriot is now accepting reservations for our convention on May 1, 2, and 3. Call the hotel and make your reservations on the phone. You can also do it online. The link for this is the hotel block will be held until April 20.
  2. Mark Riccobono will be our national representative. He has not been here for 10 years. We Don’t know if Melissa will be available to join him. Joe Stretched will also be coming.
  3. Comcast is sponsoring along with other venders.
  4. We are still looking into purchasing a sound system. Karl’s friend put together a bid for a sound system. He is the owner of Clear Sound. He sent us a bid to consider. His bid is $2500 with a 2-year warrantee. Considering that we pay over $17000 per convention to use the hotel sound system this saves a lot of money. Questions arose about deaf blind needs, Spanish translation needs, connections, microphones, speakers, etc. Mark suggested having Karl’s friend or another professional to help us learn the system and it would still be well worth the money and save us a lot of money in the meantime. We decided to research and educate ourselves more and vote on it next month.
  5. The theme. Cheralyn created an awesome ad for the theme, when you can’t see the path, make your own. Lights Camera Access could be a breakout session according to Chelse.
  6. Ned is working on the scholarship application; it will be available soon. He is planning to have it available the same day as registration comes up.
  7. The Friday night activity committee perhaps Cinco de Mayo ideas could be a part of it. Limited funding will be available.
  8. Jerry says he’s aware of mistakes on the website and they are in process of being fixed.

 

  1. Chapter and Division Meetings:
  1. Red Rocks: Jessie says Cynthia Young is stepping down as treasurer. Jessie was reelected for her full term. They also have new board members. Their next meeting will be March 4th.
  2. Utah Valley: Laura says they had their meeting last Saturday. They talked about the Washington Seminar. Their secretary needs to step down for health concerns, but the vise president is stepping in for a while. Their next meeting will be held March 8th. She let us know that Helen Eckman is now on hopes,
  3. Salt Lake: Kenn said that their January meeting was a business meeting talking about Washington Seminar and playing Unicorn Soda’s accessible games. Their elections will be held in February and Karl will be talking about technology. They will have a planning meeting in March on their board.
  4. Weber-Davis: Willie says they had a planning meeting and made the calendar for the year. This Saturday, February 15th there will be a meeting about meta glasses on zoom, Jennifer Kenedy will be sharing some ideas about using them for O and M. March 15th will be their election meeting on March 15th. Sadly, our good friend Scott Wells passed away recently.
  5. Student division: Zachary says that their meeting was on Saturday talking about Washington Seminar and the new radio network. They played a fun song quiz game. March 8th will be about traveling and O and M for students. Please share that national and State Scholarship applications are going to be available soon. There is a student meeting coming up in Chicago and Zachary and Kacey raised $150 for a Utah item at the NABS meeting to support them.
  6. BELL: Karl says Tara and Kirt will be attending a training seminar for BELL next weekend. Karl is working on grant funding and billing.
  7. Stem to you: Ned and Deja went to a seminar a while ago. They picked a date. It will be June 28th.
  8. Spanish Division: Laura says they had a yoga session, concerns affecting Spanish speakers were shared. They have a Valentines activity planned for some time at the end of February or beginning of March.

 

  1. Other business:
  1. No other business was brought up.

 

  1. Adjourn:
  1. The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 PM.