President’s Letter 7/15/07

Posted in: TAD President's Corner by TAD Administration on July 18, 2007 | 0 Comments

Texas Association of the Deaf, Inc.
P.O. Box 1982
Manchaca, Texas 78652
www.deaftexas.org

July 15, 2007

Dear Members, friends and supporters of TAD:

It has been nearly one month since we had our productive TAD 44th Biennial Conference in Arlington from June 21 to 23. People are still talking about our conference activities, especially Libby Pollard’s educational workshop on parlimentary procedure and other worthy presentations. We will definitely think of inviting her again next year for a special statewide leadership and parlimentary procedure workshop for both young deaf people and a separate one for adults. the TAD Executive Board will make plans on September 23, Sunday, at TSD Ford Building in the MPR from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Members and the public are invited to comment and observe our board meeting. As usual, TAD will have a booth during TSD Homecoming the day before.

Of course, our conference has rooms for improvement and the Board will develop a special guideline booklet for the next conference in 2009. A prelanning conference committee will do some preliminary work with Texas Society of Interpreters for the Deaf. A motion in 2005 mandated that we have a concurrent conference with TSID in South Texas. We have collected our survey forms and feedback data from different sources so we can improve our peformance Rest assured that our business meeting will be longer and logistically planned in june, 2009. Unfortunately, we ran out of time last month and i promise that it will not happen again.

During the business meeting we passed two important motions. One motion stipulates that our membership will last from conference to conference instead of a two-year length from time of joining tad. Such a motion will make it easier for the membership committee to keep track of members, albeit more accuracy and consistency. Other motion relates to the fact that the members want to allow for an open-bid for any VRS provider who wishes to partner with TAD. the motion rendered our agreement with CSDVRS null and void. Rest assured that there was never anything bad, suspicious or evil behind the doors. Frankly, we ran out of time during the business session to explain the nature of that agreement, which would mean enriching the Texas Deaf Community with civil projects. Our board meetings are always open to the public, so please check the calendar on our website at www.deaftexas.org. While there, don’t forget to look at the wonderful conference photos Grant Laird, Jr. took for us.

For the second half of the summer I will attend a fundraiser for our Miss Deaf Texas, Katie Murch, in Corpus Christi on July 20. After that there will be a statewide conference for TEA Stakeholders who will address the shortage of educational interpreters. Board member Marianne Sasseen will represent TAD. Another board member, Chris Kearney, will attend the Dallas Black Deaf Advocates banquet on August 11. Since I am still the interim editor of THE DEAF TEXAN, I will get busy developing the summer newsletter. Meanwhile, you will be seeing the website changing, updating and featuring new graphics and information.

Not the least, look at the list of committees under “Team TAD” and see if you wish to volunteer for vacant positions. The more volunteers we have, the better TAD will look for the next two years. Remember, volunteers are the life blood of tad.
If you wish to present any idea, comment, or concern, email me at Steve@deaftexas.org anytime. I will respond to you pronto.

Sincerely yours for the betterment of the Texas Deaf Community,

Steve C. Baldwin
TAD President