by Christopher Gray
This message is being written to you immediately following the president’s meeting and mid-year board of directors meeting held in Birmingham, Ala. We all received a warm welcome and a weekend of true southern hospitality from the Alabama Council of the Blind, “the other ACB” as they are fond of calling themselves. The Alabama Council is an outstanding example of what an affiliate of ACB can be and they wanted to demonstrate that to mid-year participants. They played a major role in making the weekend a major success. I particularly want to acknowledge Alabama president David Trott and his wife Rhonda, while not forgetting the many other outstanding contributors from Alabama to this weekend.
It is hard not to leave a president’s meeting without a feeling of rejuvenation and a renewed sense of what and who we are in the American Council of the Blind. The meeting in Birmingham was no exception, though several hours of our meetings were spent discussing matters that have led to concern and frustration on the part of some ACB leaders and members. In a two-hour session held on Saturday afternoon, I and members of the board of directors and board of publications discussed at length a series of questions and addressed numerous related issues in order to fully inform affiliate presidents and other ACB leaders about many events and possible allegations that have been discussed in these pages and elsewhere in ACB. In considering this session, I believed that the interests of all would best be served through the holding of a facilitated discussion during which I would leave the chair and place the meeting in the hands of an impartial moderator. In addition, I asked Melanie Brunson, our acting executive director, to work with the moderator to develop a series of questions that could be used to guide the discussion. These measures might help lay to rest the allegations made regarding either the president of the board of directors of ACB seeking inappropriate degrees of power or control within our organization.
The facilitated discussion was moderated by Barry Levine. We all owe Barry a great debt of thanks for a job well done and a truly productive, informative and positive exchange of views. These two hours allowed us to make huge strides forward in communicating the truth of what has occurred and is occurring today in ACB. I encourage all interested ACB members to order tapes of the mid-year meeting and to listen to that session as well as my “President’s Update” presented during the first morning session. Tapes can be ordered from the ACB Store, 1-877- 367-2224.
Several clear conclusions came from the proceedings at the president’s meeting. First, the vast majority of presidents believe that it is time for our organization to return its focus to efforts on legislative affairs and those other items that support the programs and infrastructure of ACB. Also, virtually everybody assembled seemed to find particular value in the time spent approaching one another in person rather than through written e-mails that have a tendency to escalate a war of words into crisis where no crisis exists and where reasonable people can air concerns or differences of viewpoint and then move back to the affairs for which we created organizations like ACB.
Many events occurred over the remainder of the weekend that support this agenda. The board moved in two significant areas to provide support for our members and for the blind generally. First, action was taken to demonstrate continued and specific support for Randolph-Sheppard vendors throughout the country with regard to enhancing their ability to compete effectively for jobs in military food establishments. Second, the board approved organizational support for work to begin regarding the inaccessibility of new point of sale machines in stores that do not allow the owner of a debit or credit card to enter their pin number privately. We believe it is a matter of inaccessibility for a blind person to be required to divulge their pin number to a sales clerk or a nearby shopper in order to make use of the in-store debit machines at check-out stands. Both of these matters will almost certainly be the subject of resolutions in Birmingham this summer.
The board also took action to fill two vacancies on the ACB board of directors. The first vacancy considered by the board was that created by the resignation of Steve Speicher, first vice president. His seat is filled as ordered in our constitution by the second vice president, M.J. Schmitt of Illinois. The board elected Mitch Pomerantz of California to take her seat as second vice president. This left Mitch’s seat and that of Dawn Christensen to be filled. In two separate elections, the board chose Cynthia Towers, Seattle, Wash., and David Trott, Talladega, Ala., to fill these positions. All three of these board appointments remain in force until the summer convention in Birmingham, at which time these individuals must stand for election by the assembled membership. I am extremely pleased to have, once again, a full working board, and a board of directors that is clearly committed to moving forward the affairs of this organization on behalf of the entire membership of the organization.
Our weekend together in Birmingham this February was definitely a time of renewal and strengthening of ACB as an organization. Affiliate presidents, the board of directors, and other interested participants found common ground in a united willingness to support ACB, regardless of whatever momentary differences may have appeared to divide us in the past three months. Our basic beliefs have not altered and our purpose cannot be blunted by moments of concerns and questioning as long as those questions are asked for the good of the organization as a whole. It is clear that ACB leadership stands where it has always stood: bonded together to work for the betterment of and the establishment of rights for blind Americans. In the coming months we will move forward in that vein and with that purpose uppermost on our agenda.