[Nfbc-sj] MINUTES FOR NOVEMBER 18 2023 MEETING

[Brian Buhrow]

	hello.  Here are the minutes from the  November 18 2023 meeting, which took place via Zoom.

1.  Partial roll call:
Brian Buhrow (secretary), Jamie Crane (president), Brian Quintana (Vice President), Elizabeth
Stewart, Tim Elder, Kristen Ingalz, Steven Sanith, Kendrick, David Hoffman, Bryan Bashin

2.  Notes from the November 2023 NFB Presidential Release:

O  Start of the annual Braille Readers are Leaders contest, sponsored by the American Action
Fund.  See:
https://actionfund.org
for details.
Contest runs from December 4, 2023 through January 22, 2024.

O  The SSDI COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) will be 3.2% for 2024 and the Substantial
Gainful Activity (SGA) limit will be $2,500/month.
The SSI payments (National) will be  $925/month.

O  If you receive SSDI or SSI payments and have issues with your case, please contact:
Jesse Shirek at the NFB National office.
She can be reached at jshirek at nfb.org or by telephone at: 410-659-9314, EXt. 2348
Issues can be things like: over payment disputes, questions about how  to report substantial
gainful activity, submitting work expense reports, etc.

O  Netflix is releasing: All the Light you cannot See, starring Aria Mia Loberti, a legally
blind actress.  This is a 4-part mini-series based on the book of the same name.  There is a
scathing review of this book in the Braille Monitor by Sherry Wells-Jensen, posted in another
message on this list.  President Riccobono wants us to check out the series and is glad an
actual blind person is playing the part of a blind character.

Jamie proposes we watch the series and then have a followup discussion at a future meeting.  
Kristen knows Aria, and will reach out to her to see if she might be willing to attend one of our
chapter meetings.


3.  David Hoffman reports that John VanderVort's sister, Carol Silvaria, gave him John's NFB
membership pin, which she said John cherished very much.  She told David John was proud to be
a member of the NFB.

4.  It was decided we would have our Holiday meeting on Saturday December 16, 2023 at 3:00PM at
Santana Row, as we've done in the past couple of years.  Address and location details on the
exact location of the meeting will be forthcoming in future e-mails.

5.  Jamie and Kristen, both residents of Santa Clara County, report that when they've inquired
about services from the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco, they've been referred back
to local county service providers.  This might be worth looking into, if for no other reason, then
to verify our understanding of what Lighthouse offers to south bay county residents.

6.  We may need to switch to a new Zoom meeting room for our meetings.  Jamie reports that she
can no longer log in as host to the meeting and Brian was unable to make the dialin interface
work, despite trying from multiple phone numbers and phone companies.

	Please let me know if I missed any items from today's meeting.  thank you all for coming
and engaging in a very lively and stimulating discussion of various topics.

Sincerely,

Brian Buhrow, Secretary