The President’s
Corner
BY Jim Jirak
“For
many years, Lions have helped blind and visually impaired people all over the
world. We, in The American Council of
the Blind of Nebraska, appreciate those efforts; and we are proud that a number
of our members are also Lions and help with your work.”
Tonight,
we are even more pleased to be able to contribute in a more material way to
your efforts to screen for, treat, and where possible, prevent conditions that
lead to visual impairment.
As
pleased as we are at being able to assist those who have assisted us, we are
even more excited by the possibilities of future cooperation. Your organization and ours have many
interests in common; and each has its own expertise. We believe that tonight could mark the beginning of a partnership
capable of doing greater things than either of us could do alone. As you are “knights of the blind”, we are
their advocates and friends with useful experience. The more ways we find to work together, the brighter will be the
future for all visually impaired Nebraskans.
To
mark a turning point in our approach to that future, I am proud, on behalf of
The American Council of the Blind of Nebraska, to present to you our donation
in the amount of $11,000.00.”
As
the above delivered remarks indicate, working together in partnership with an
organization with similar interests as ours can, and will some day, prove
beneficial to blind Nebraska citizens.
And as your state president, I take pride in being a part of an
organization such as this who chose to give back to an organization, like the
Lions, who have done so much for blind citizens in our state.
I would also like to
thank Lleana Messer for making the official presentation at the Lion’s state
convention June 3 in Kearney. Thank you
also to Steve Speicher who, so eloquently, drafted the remarks delivered by
Lleana. It just goes to show what time,
talent and teamwork can do. Thanks guys
for the time and efforts invested to make the presentation the success it
was.
Next,
it isn’t often when the state of Nebraska makes national headlines. And when it does, it, as proven
time-and-time again during the Coach Osborne era, can be negative or
non-factual in nature. This time,
however, I am pleased to report Nebraska leads the way in the Midwest on this
issue.
On
March 8, 2000 at the governor’s mansion, a signing ceremony was held for the
newly created Commission, which took effect July 1. With this ceremony, the Cornhusker state became one of the first in
the Midwest to have such a commission.
Conventional wisdom says if Nebraska’s Commission is run like Iowa, the
blind have it made.
Shortly
following the signing of this landmark piece of legislation, four things
happened. First, Bill Orester was appointed
as your ACBN representative to the Commission.
Second, even though the Commission bill requires three of the five
commissioners be blind, all commissioners appointed by the governor are blind. Third, on April 25, Dr. Van Zandt and myself
conducted a telephone interview with The California Council of the Blind,
(CCB.) It is archived and can be heard
on ACB Radio by visiting their web site at WWW.ACBRADIO.ORG. And fourth, a letter appeared in the June
Braille Forum congratulating ACBN on its hard work at getting such legislation
passed. As only a portion of Sanford’s
letter appeared in The Forum, a copy of the letter received by him is included
in these remarks to enable you to gain a better understanding of the difficulty
Kansas is having trying to enact similar legislation. But what is really ironic is the organization that opposes this
concept in Kansas was ultimately responsible for its passage in Nebraska.
“Dear
Jim:
The
members of The Kansas Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired
congratulate you and the many blind and visually impaired advocates in Nebraska
who sustained the effort to create a Commission for the Blind until it became a
reality. This is a great day not only
for Nebraska’s blind and visually impaired population but also for the entire
blindness community across the United States.
In
the states where Nebraska joins among the commission ranks, the efficacy of the
structure is reasserted. In states such
as Kansas, struggling to have similar legislation enacted, we draw renewed hope
and dedication to keeping the course.
For the few states that are not fortunate enough to have a Commission
for the Blind and not even attempting to have one created, the pressure to move
in this direction is strengthened with such encouragement. For all of us, the fact that your
legislation could be enacted at a time when the common wisdom would speak
against such a possibility, serves to quiet our critics and detractors,
demonstrating the truth that odds can be overcome when the endeavor is
meritorious.
Again,
congratulations to Nebraska!
Sincerely yours,
Sanford J. Alexander, III
President & Chairman of the Board”
Turning
my thoughts to the ACB national convention this past July in Louisville,
Kentucky, Nebraska, as well as the convention saw several firsts. And what better way to start a new
millennium than with a series of firsts.
First,
this is the first convention of any blindness consumer organization to be heard
live on the Internet. With the exception
of the July 5 session, due to technical difficulties, all morning general
sessions were heard on ACB Radio.
During portions of the general sessions, listeners were able to take
part in the question and answer periods following several presenters. Questions were e-mailed to
CONVENTION@ACBRADIO.ORG and read to the presenters for their verbal response to
the convention as well as the listener on the Internet. The July 5 session, however, was heard on a
delayed broadcast.
Second,
the largest delegation from Nebraska in nearly ten years was in attendance in
Louisville. With a statewide membership
of 57, there were 12 members that made the trip, excluding, of course, guide
dogs. And as next years national
convention is in Des Moines, there is no reason why our turn out can’t
double. The dates are June 30-July
6. Room rates are $60 plus 13%
tax. While nothing is definite,
transportation options are being looked at by your executive council. Start saving your pennies now and watch The
Braille Forum for reservation details.
Lets have Des Moines be the largest Nebraska delegation ACB national has
seen.
Third,
a caucus experiment took place. It has
been, for some time, the wishes of some that Nebraska should caucus. That is, afford the candidates running for
offices a chance to explain their positions on issues of importance to the
membership in the sate holding the caucus.
In short, convince the delegation to vote for them.
In
the thirty-nine year history of ACB, Nebraska, this past July, held, what is
now known as a “small fry affiliate” caucus.
Smaller affiliates were invited to enable the candidates to have a
larger crowd to present to. And while I
envisioned a total of four members and no candidates for a turn out, we had a
total of 6 Nebraskans, 2 North Carolinians, 3 from New Jersey, 1 Missourian, 1
from Connecticut, and 1 from Tennessee including all but maybe 3 candidates
seeking office. And as this concept has
proven successful beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, look for Nebraska to continue
the president set in Des Moines.
And
fourth, it was announced during the opening ceremony Sunday evening that, at
their midyear board meeting also held In Louisville, Kentucky, the board of
directors approved charter ship of a new special interest affiliate,
controversial in nature. And resulting
from this approval, BFLAG, or Blind Friends of Lesbian and Gays was, and will
continue to be, seated on the convention floor as a voting special interest
affiliate.
What
do you think? Is there room in ACB for
an affiliate of this nature? Is this
what ACB is about? What would the
founding fathers think? And more
importantly, should charter ship have been granted?
At
the Saturday morning business meeting, an attempt was made to have the board
reconsider the granting of the charter for BFLAG. Resolution 2000-20 directed the board too revoke the charter as
it was alleged proper notice had not been provided as prescribed in the
constitution. This resolution further
called for the convention to approve all new charter ships being granted by the
board. Needless to say this resolution
did not pass as it was declared out of order by the chair. It was the ruling of the chair that the
board did follow the constitutional requirements in granting charter ship. The chair further explained that if this
resolution would have passed that the board could be severely limited in
conducting business during its meetings if final charter ship approval were
required by the convention for this, or any affiliate seeking their
charter.
In
my opinion, there is room in our organization for all types of people. If they have the organization at heart and
are willing to work for the “betterment” of blind citizens, their color,
gender, national origin, weight, height, and yes, sexual preference mean
nothing. The board did the correct
thing in granting BFLAG charter ship.
Just because one doesn’t agree with the life-style is no reason to request
revocation of the charter. Remember,
“People First! Causes second!” And yes, believe it or not, we can learn
from those who are different than we are.
Turning
my thoughts to the 2001 state convention, as directed by the convention in
Nebraska City, the executive council met
via conference call and voted to hold the spring convention the weekend of
April 20-22 in Lincoln at the Airport Inn Best Western. Room rates are $54.75 plus 9.5% taxes. Room reservations can be made by calling the
hotel at (402) 475-9541. Be sure to
mention ACBN to receive the discount.
Before
I conclude, at our spring convention this past April in Nebraska City, we were
advised by Bob Deaton from SVI that, resulting from the recalculation by the
federal government of funding for older blind, three grants totaling $150,000
would be given to consumer organizations requesting funding for special
projects. Resulting from this, I would
like to congratulate the Omaha Share-A-Fare program and ACBN on their
respective grants. Share-A-Fare
received $30,000 for their cab program while ACBN received $50,000 for a soon
to be enacted transportation program statewide. See the article in the September Braille Forum. And finally, this is a story about four
people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was this important job to be done and everybody was asked
to do it. Everybody was sure that
somebody would do it. Anybody could
have done it, but nobody did it.
Somebody got angry with that because it was everybody’s job. Everybody thought that anybody could do it,
but nobody realized that everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that everybody blamed somebody when actually nobody
asked anybody.
Until
next time, think about the moral of this.
And be good to one another.