Are you coming to convention? Do you like helping out where needed? The press room is now seeking volunteers to help collate and staple papers, take ads and announcements, and staff the room.
Sharon Lovering is once again the operations manager, aided by Steve and Marcia Dresser and others. She is seeking volunteers to fill two-hour shifts throughout the day (8-10 a.m., 10 a.m.- noon, noon-2 p.m., and 2-4 p.m.). The press room will be open Friday through Wednesday, and be taken down Thursday; it will open daily at 8 a.m. and close to the public at 5 p.m. To sign up for a shift, contact Sharon at the ACB national office, (800) 424-8666 extension 22, or via e-mail, [email protected]. We especially need people with good braille skills to take ads for the paper and the ConventionEar.
This year’s convention newspaper will be called “The Birmingham Beacon.” The Beacon will run from Saturday through Thursday. Ads and other items intended for publication must be in the press room’s hands by 2 p.m. each day. By a directive from the board of publications, ads will be allowed to run for only three days, in order to give important convention announcements more space. Ads should be 100 words or less. (See “Convention Newspaper Fees for 2004” elsewhere in this issue.) The board of publications editorial policy manual prohibits us from producing or distributing campaign materials.
During the evenings, we will need people to help collate and staple the braille papers. Thanks to Enabling Technologies, we will have three braille printers this year, and we will need one person per printer. Got an hour to spare between 5 and 11 p.m.? Drop by and see if the press room needs help.
If you have signed up for home delivery of “The Birmingham Beacon,” PLEASE make sure you drop by the press room to give us your hotel and room number once you arrive. Be certain to specify braille or large print. This will ensure that you don’t miss an issue. And please hold onto your Saturday issue; it will include all the suite numbers, phone numbers, and room changes.
The ConventionEar will be updated twice daily. Deadlines are 10:30 a.m. (or after the morning break during general sessions) and 5 p.m. If we do not receive your announcement until after 5 p.m., the item will not appear in the Ear until the next morning.
Please remember that the press room is a working room. While we understand that convention is a great time to see old friends and new, loud conversations make it difficult to record the ConventionEar announcements and even more difficult to hear the speech synthesizers on the computers which enable us to get the newspaper out to you, the readers. Help us help you get the information you need.
Photocopying will again be allowed this year. Copies will cost 10 cents per page. Please pay the registration office. And if your committee or affiliate needs something brailled, we will be able to do that as well. Make certain you label your disk(s) before bringing them down to the press room, and tell us how many of each format (braille and large print) you will need, by what time. If you bring your item(s) down in the morning, that will help us fit them in during the quiet times between other jobs.
Affiliates, if you know who your delegate, alternate, and nominating committee representative will be, please let Donna Seliger and Sharon Lovering know as soon as possible. Thanks to all who have already sent this information.