National Association of the Deaf

Submitted by Jeannette Johnson on Wed, 07/07/2010 - 07:13 Blog:

• NAD Conference

Everyone, especially the NAD delegates were extremely busy yesterday! Things kicked off with the Order of Georges and Georgettes Breakfast breakfast, where Barbara A. Schmidt received the Golden Rose Award, in recognition of her lifetime of volunteer service for the deaf community and being a great role model for the future generations. After the OGG breakfast, the central location was at the Grand ballroom, where the Council of Representatives [CoR] was held.

During the CoR meeting, Cynthia Weitzel received the Robert M. Greenmun Memorial Award in recognition of her dedicated volunteer leadership excellence and contributions to the Minnesota State Association. Bummy Burnstein and Libby Pollard provided an overview of the parliamentary procedures to the delegates, to assist in ensuring the CoR meeting went smoothly. The delegates watched carefully and eagerly to their presentations. After that, the NAD board and committee members gave their reports to the delegates, where two hot topics arose: NAD's budget and bylaws. The delegates carefully analyzed the budget, to make sure they understood what the issues were, and how the money was being spent.

Then a proposal was made to change the NAD board members' terms to 2 terms lasting 4 years each, instead of the current 3 terms lasting 2 years each. Different point of views were offered on why and why not this should happen and the discussions were very productive. It was clear to me that the delegates were carefully considering each report and motions made during the meeting, as it should be!

After the CoR, the state association presidents gathered at the Liberty Ballroom for a private dinner to trade tips and advice. Jack Cooper, Region II Representative, emceed the dinner and shared an excellent analogy for the state association presidents to consider. If a person takes one stick and tries to break it, it can be done easily. However, if you take multiple sticks and try to break it, it becomes very difficult! The same concept applies to the state associations - it is in everyone's best interest to work together to accomplish our goals to better the deaf community. The state association presidents greatly appreciated the opportunity to trade tips and gain wisdom from each other's experiences.

It's only the first day, and great progress was made! What will be next? I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that even greater progress will be made at the end of the Conference!