Leadership Training
Takes to Internet
BVA Director of District 1 General Weeks will begin his second series of leadership training sessions on February 21, 2006 via one of four “For-The-People” Internet conferencing rooms.
“If you missed our initial experiment in the fall, you now have another chance to experience the leadership training conference right in your own home,” said Junior Farley, president of the Tennessee Regional Group and coordinator of the four blinded veteran chat rooms available through “For-The-People.”
The training sessions enable BVA members to acquire additional knowledge of the history and workings of the organization. Discussions center on how BVA might be improved, particularly at the regional group level.
The sessions will run every Tuesday and Thursday for three consecutive weeks. They are open to BVA members and can be accessed by registering with www.for-the-people.com. There is no charge for registration and technical assistance can be obtained directly from Junior at 615-746-2328 or rickyf50@hotmail.com. A link from the homepage of the BVA website takes the user directly to the “For-The-People” site.
BVA chat room users also hold a regularly scheduled meeting on “For-The-People” at 9 p.m. EST on the first Tuesday of each month.
Illinois Vet Greets
Barack Obama
BVA Life Member Paul Robinson, a three-term past president of the Illinois Regional Group, met with Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on September 9 during the Senator’s visit to the Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired.
Paul has been a frequent beneficiary of Chicago Lighthouse services since the onset of his blindness some 25 years ago. A Chicago native, Paul joined the Air Force in 1958 and worked on a clandestine operation on the Black Sea while serving in the Radio Intercept Service in Turkey. He was attending a computer software class at The Lighthouse when the Senator stopped by.
Obama is a freshman Senator and a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. The Lighthouse invited Obama to its headquarters to thank him for his support of Javits-Wagner-O’Day, a federal program that creates jobs and promotes training for the blind and visually impaired, and to provide him with a tour of the facility. He connected with Paul during the visit through the efforts of Chicago Lighthouse President and Executive Director James Kesteloot.
“Paul Robinson is one of my favorite people simply because he has such a fantastic story,” said Kesteloot. “Helping him connect with his Senator was a highlight of my year because it is a connection that will have a lasting impact on the people we serve.”
Paul told Obama that blinded veterans are in desperate need of advocates that will acknowledge the cooperative efforts of organizations such as the Chicago Lighthouse and BVA. Such organizations, he said, are concerned that blinded veterans obtain needed training, prosthetics, and other goods and services, and that support from the U.S. Congress is critical.
“I told him that the blinded veterans of the Illinois Regional Group work with and have a very fine alliance—I would say a symbiotic relationship—with The Lighthouse,” said Paul. “And the Senator responded, ‘I certainly will be in your corner to advocate on your behalf and for the Lighthouse.’”
Miller Shines in
Satellite Media Tour
BVA Executive Director Tom Miller, already known as an early riser, had a particularly early wake-up call on the morning of November 9.
Bob Fistick and Tom Miller await cue for one of 14 early morning inerviews during Satellite Media Tour on November 9.
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Accompanying Bob Fistick, Special Assistant to the Director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, Tom was interviewed on 14 early morning television news programs, most of them live, throughout the country. He arrived at the Belo Studio in downtown Washington, DC at 5:15 a.m. for a general briefing and makeup session. By 6:15 he and Fistick were already on the air.
The purpose of the interviews was the promotion of the NLS Talking Books program to blinded and visually impaired veterans during the week of Veterans Day. Tom was introduced at the beginning of each interview as the Executive Director of the Blinded Veterans Association. He spoke briefly of his own experiences as a blinded veteran and the potential value of the Talking Books program to members of BVA.
Participating stations included WAND-TV in Decatur, Illinois; WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Alabama; WFRV-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin; KCEN-TV in Waco, Texas; KUSA in Denver, Colorado; and KGUN-TV in Tucson, Arizona. The interviews were arranged by Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations, Inc.
For more information about the Talking Books program of the National Library Service, call 888-657-7323, or visit http://www.loc.gov/nls www.loc.gov/nls.
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