Serving the blind and low vision population of South Central Kentucky
A chapter of the Kentucky Council of the Blind

SCKCB Minutes of August 24, 2005

The meeting began at approximately 7:11 pm at the Bowling Green Public Library. Members present were Ron and Palma Milliman, Max and Sue Robinson, Mitchell Reed, Kimberly and Michael Parsley. Also present were two new potential members, Kristen Wilson and Ronda Pennycuff. The two guests told the group a little about themselves, and for their benefit, we went around the room and everyone introduced themselves.

The minutes from the previous meeting were read by Palma Milliman, as our acting Secretary. Since our Treasurer, Lisa McKinley, moved to Owensboro, Palma also gave the treasurer's report, as the acting Treasurer. We currently have $1,713.61 in our bank account. Motions were made and seconded to approve both reports as given.

Old business: Ron gave a report on both the SCKCB and the KCB picnics. The blind devices and technology workshop was briefly discussed, and President Milliman indicated he was having difficulty locating prospective participants and would continue to work on it. Instead, it was agreed that we would all try to remember to bring blind aids, devices, appliance, and technology catalogs to our meetings and review some products in the last part of each meeting. Our current brochure was discussed at some length. Some of the issues discussed were: who is our audience/target, should we make our current brochure available in various alternate formats, e.g. regular print, large print, Braille, audio cassettes, and/or CD's. The general consensus was that we should try to drive traffic to our web site as much as possible. It was also suggested that we might need to add to our web site.

No final decisions were made concerning the brochure, except Ron would investigate to find out if large print and Braille copies could be produced by the Office for the Blind or if some other source would be needed. Ron will also be contacting Nancy Tulley about helping us distribute them to the Office of the Blind clients. It was further decided that Kimberly and Ron would work on writing a new, more comprehensive PSA that would be used, in part, to drive traffic to our SCKCB web site.

President Milliman also informed us about a grant proposal that he has been working on to allow us to further develop and expand our website. The grant proposal has been submitted to the City of Bowling Green for assisting non-profit organizations.

New business: President Milliman advised everyone of our upcoming elections in September. The issue came up about what our SCKCB Constitution said regarding length of terms and term limits for the various officers. The questions were not definitively resolved since nobody had a copy of our constitution in their possession.

It was pointed out by President Milliman that the month of October was designated as Disabilities Month, and White Cane Day was specifically designated on October 15th. It was determined that October 15 was a Saturday, and it also fell on WKU's Homecoming Weekend. Ron suggested that we set up a SCKCB exhibit table in front of the Wal-Mart, Campbell Ln. store on that day to draw recognition for White Cane Day. Sue offered to hand craft a blind teddy bear replete with a SCKCB Tee-shirt and white cane to raffle off as a fundraiser. The group was generally favorable to this idea. Since this date also coincides with WKU's Homecoming, we are going to try and get a photograph of Big Red with a white cane to help bring attention to White Cane Day. Kimberly Parsley suggested that we contact Jeff Younglove with Special Events at WKU, since he handles all of Big Red's activities.

We also discussed some new activities for this coming year. Among them are Poker Night, watching a blind related movie such as At First Sight, and a field trip to APH in Louisville. Mitchell Reed suggested a "poker run" as a fundraiser in conjunction with one of the motorcycle clubs in the area for this next Spring.

Regarding our web site, Kimberly Parsley suggested that we search for other web sites that we can link from in order to increase our exposure.

An occasional dinner meeting was mentioned as something else that the organization could do that would be different.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:50 p.m.

Respectfully submitted: Palma Milliman