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In the Media
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Sight-impaired voters can get ballot help
Brad Shannon, The Olympian May 15, 2008
- OLYMPIA — Voting machines designed to help the disabled cast ballots will
be available for three hours Friday at the Panorama retirement community for
the May 20 North Thurston Public Schools levy election. The AutoMARK machines
let a sight-impaired voter listen to ballot options and vote in secrecy.
Machines will be available from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Panorama's Quinault
auditorium in Lacey. The machines also are available at the Thurston County
Courthouse and by appointment before Tuesday's all-mail election. People
wanting to use a machine should call the county Auditor's Office at
360-786-5408, and a machine can be brought to the voter's home or workplace.
The machines read the ballot choices to sight-impaired voters and also magnify
the print, Auditor Kim Wyman said. Voters using AutoMARK need to bring ballots
with them. The auditor's elections office also is running logic and accuracy
tests at 10 a.m. today on the ballot-tabulating machines that will count votes
Tuesday evening. The test is at the elections shop at 2915 29th Ave. S.W.,
Suite E, in Tumwater.
Go to our
In the Media page to find out what is
happening in the blindness community.
Upcoming Events
Our speaker for April 19 will be Matt Harnyak who will be speaking about the
211 system which links callers with social-service agencies, such as a shelter
for battered women, food bank or mental-health counselor.
We have cancelled the May 17 chapter meeting so that many of our members can again work at the
Lacey Sunrise Lions booth during the
Lacey Spring Fun Fair. They will hand out
hundreds of CCCB flyers, WCB brochures and Braille alphabet card with children's
first names brailled on them. Members will also be
at the
Olympia Host Lions low-vision fair, scheduled to take place at the
Olympia Community Center. The
fair will feature hands-on displays of low-vision resources as well as panels
and speakers. We are to make a fifteen minute presentation and Mike Cunningham
will be on a low vision panel at the close. Mike and Howard Ferguson will be
manning a table to hand out brochures and flyers.
Saturday, May 31 at 2 p.m. will be our chapter's bowling event at the
Westside Lanes in Olympia.
On July 19 Sam Hunt, State Representative from the 22nd district, will
address our chapter giving us his views on the recent legislative session.
Olympia Readers Book Club
by Alan Bentson
The Olympia Readers book club met on May 10 at the Colley home to discuss
"The Nine Tailors" by Dorothy L. Sayers. Everyone seems to have enjoyed it, and
the discussion was lively. I for one am going out and reading a lot more books
in this series!
We will meet again on Saturday June 14, at 2 p.m. to discuss "My Sister's
Keeper by Jodi Picoult. This has been a selection by book clubs all over the
country, and since its appearance Jodi Picoult has come out with several other
successful novels. The NLS annotation reads: When Kate is diagnosed with a rare
leukemia her parents create test-tube baby Anna to save her life. After years of
medical procedures Anna, now thirteen, is expected to donate a kidney. She files
for medical legal emancipation and throws the family into a fundamental moral
crisis. 2004.
If this seems interesting to you read the book and join us for our
discussion.
From the President's Desk
by Berl Colley
On the Monday before our October meeting one of our newer members,
Bob Lewis,
passed away. Bob and his wife Suzanne joined the chapter last January. Seven CCCB
members attended his funeral.
Our guest speaker at the November meeting was Dorothy O’Laughlin. She has
served as the outreach person for the Timberland Regional Libraries for 28
years. This was after she retired from her regular job of 34 years. Dorothy will
be 97 next spring. Also at the November meeting we had our 2007 elections.
Gloria Walling was re-elected to the position of Vice President and Alan Bentson
was elected to the position of Secretary, replacing Denise Colley. Our officers
for 2008 are Berl Colley President, Gloria Walling Vice President, Alan Bentson
Secretary, Howard Ferguson Treasurer and Terry Atwater Immediate Past President.
We had eight members attend the WCB convention in Spokane. Our
congratulations go to Denise Colley who was elected WCB’s President for
2008/2009. Congratulations also to Alan Bentson who was re-elected to the WCB
Board of Directors for the same period and to Terry Atwater who was elected as
the Alternate Delegate to the
ACB National Convention in Louisville next July.
On Tuesday, November 20, six CCCB members met with city of Olympia Public
Works administrators to look at the Campbell audible signals that Olympia wants
to install in 2008. We identified three intersections to audibilize and two more
that will be done if the money is available.
Each December we have our community Christmas party for blind and visually
impaired people who live in the area. Over 30 people came to this year’s party
to eat and exchange gifts. The party was held at the Chambers House Restaurant,
located at Panorama. After good food and a lot of gift opening, stealing and
teasing we went home feeling like 2007 was successfully closed.
At our January 2008 meeting Jean Gallo, head of the
Business Enterprises
Program for the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind, spoke
to us about the potential for blind and visually impaired people in Washington
State to earn a good living. Vice President Gloria Walling gave CCCB members a
very ambitious social schedule that goes through the summer. It includes such
things as a pizza party, a bowling night, a wine tasting function, and
partnering with the Lacey Lions for a pancake feed, the Lacey Fun Fair and
joining with them and other organizations in a cancer awareness walk.
The CCCB did not conduct any fundraising events in 2007 but we will be
focusing on doing one or more in 2008. To this end we have had an executive
committee meeting and two fundraising committee meetings so far this year.
We want to welcome two new members to our chapter who both joined in January.
They are Michael Cunningham and Jamie Bates.
Getting Around Our Website
At the bottom of each web page a navigation bar links you to information
about our chapter and its officers and committees, upcoming chapter events,
meetings, links to helpful and interesting community resources, fundraising
efforts, chapter documents including the constitution and bylaws, website
policies including our privacy policy, contact information, and finally a site
map listing all our pages with an option to search the text of the entire
website.
WCB Vehicle Donation Program
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![[Blind & VI Web Ring]](http://www.viguide.com/images/bvi1.gif)
