And yet another update

Dear Members of AADB,

Instead of calling this the President’s Report, we will call this the BoD (Board of Directors) Report.

We will try to give monthly reports as to what has been happening.
Again, I ask that all members pass this report on to whomever may be interested.

First, there seems to be some confusion as to whether members can contact the board directly. Kacie Weldy is working on updating the board contact information on the AADB website.

It has taken some time to interview new board members. We have one seat left and we are in the process of asking1 member of their interest and skills. Once this decision has been made, the board must officially vote this new person in and we will make the announcement.

We are currently working with the CPA (Certified Professional Accountant), as we had to file an IRS’ 990 Form extension. This form is now due on August 15th. The CPA Firm was waiting for one more item from the AADB Office in order to complete the 990 Form and auditor’s report for the year 2010. The question was under the NTFDBI (National Task Force on DB Interpreting) whether we had received monies in a grant or donation. It was a donation so now that is complete, we are in the process of getting this signed and sent. The 990 has been signed today and in the mail for the IRS, the law firm and Debby Lieberman (secretary) to scan.

The audit has been completed, and the board is now looking this over before voting its approval.
We are asking them to make a couple of changes of the wording and what AADB is doing. This should be completed very soon.

We are in the process of making up a list of committees and I am reassigning chair / co-chair for each committee. I will list the committees and who is chair of these committees. After this is complete, each committee will have to have an action plan.

Comittees are:
Executive Committee:
Chair: Jill Gaus
Lynn Jansen
Mike Reese
Debby Lieberman

By-laws Chair-Maricar Marquez

Fundraising committee- Bapin Bhattacharyya and Chris Woodfill are the co-chairs of the FRC. Bapin focuses on actual fundraising while Chris focuses on strategic fundraising plan for AADB. Through, actual fundraising plans have not begun yet, we are progressing on strategic fundraising plan. We have determined that we will focus on four topics of fundraising for the short and medium terms. Those are FCC, SSP, Information Clearinghouse, and Technology.

Finance Committee - Chair-Mike Reese - the FC has been looking over the Audit report and the 990, and now the entire board has been given them to review also. This should be wrapped up very soon and sent to the lawyers to complete prior to August 15th. Also, I have been looking around for potential committee members to add, they would be ones with backgrounds in accounting and the like, to assist us with keeping our finances on track.

Multi-Media committee: co-chairs are Kacie Weldy and Scott Davert
Work is continuing on the website as we have gone through and identified all the pages that are located on the server and which ones are still active pages. The process of updating the "live" pages to have correct information will begin very soon. Once this is accomplished, we will then focus on adding new and additional information and then making any needed changes to the layouts for accessibility and so forth. Thank you for your patience in all of this.

Under the Multimedia and with the EC, we are looking at CONVIO and Common Ground (CG). And we are in the process of doing research to see if there is a cheaper way to get CC information. CONVIO costs up to $1,000/month. We are also using Darran expertise in this.

Policy Committee-Lynn Jansen (report will be sent soon)

Home Office Committee-Lynn Jansen (report will be sent soon)

FCC committee- Chair- Ryan Odland and Jill Gaus- I plan to fly back to Md at the end of August or the beginning of September to meet with NAD and TDI to see what our next step is. We will check to see who else from NAD and TDI could do to help with this committee. Also Joe McNulty from HKNC is collaborating with Perkins and is suggesting AADB also collaborate. Ryan and I will be meeting with him also.

SSP project-Elizabeth Spiers - I reviewed the activities that AADB had been doing within the past year: contacting the legislature to recognize SSPs as a profession, developing a national SSP program where AADB can assist deaf-blind people living in areas with no SSP program to obtain SSPs where they live and work, and certifying and training SSPs for our recent symposium.

I believe that we would be better off using our resources and time to recognize SSPs as a profession, and focus on ways to certify and train SSPs through AADB rather than try to coordinate a national SSP program. I am now starting to locate members on this committee who can help us with this idea, and will soon contact SSP programs to locate some potential curricula and training ideas. I am also doing some fundraising on the local level towards reimbursing the SSPs who worked at the AADB Symposium and for AADB's general expenses.

Advocacy Committee- Chair -Karyn Campbell
One member has indicated he still wants to remain on this committee and another will be contacted in the very near future to determine if that person still wishes to serve. In the last year, we have worked on issues such as issues with Video Relay Service (VRS) services and access issues with the National Library Service (NLS). There will likely be followup work on these issues.

5 Year Strategic Planning Committee: co-chair Karyn Campbell and Mark Gasaway

Networking and Recruitment committee: Chair- Mark Gasaway

Awards Committee-Mark Gasaway

I have also ask Darran Zenger and Ryan Odland to work on a set of guidelines for the AADBL. Changes will also be made with this.

We still need to do some research as well as reorganizing all the committees, we are determined to be resourceful for the sakes of all the members. If you would like to help out in any way you can, please let us know which committee(s) you would like to be involved with and I will forward your name to the right chair person.

Here is the bank information:
When you see a number in (….) this means negative.

Bank of America Checkings

49,687.70 Balance as of July 6, 2011
(47,097.30) McHales Catering
12,000.00 Deposit July 8, 2011
14,590.40 Balance for Bank of Amerca


Wachovia Savings

40,410.60 Transferred to checking 7/26/11

Wachovia Checkings

63,226.79 Balance as of July 6, 2011
(5,857.50) Deaf Choice (C-Prints)
Void DB Tip (NTFDBI)
(2,270.00) Berman Printing (Program Books)
(829.50) Crown Trophy
(174.00) Judy Groner (Silent Auction's supplies)
(400.00) HKNC (Joe McNulty cancelled symposium)
(105.00) Roderick Gordon (canceled Kings Island)
(214.00) Clovernook Center for the Blind (Braille Program Books)
(105.00) Deaf-Blind Explorers
(56.46) Beth Rogers (office supplies)
(2,979.68) Grady Management (July Rent)
(580.50) Verizon
(1,504.84) Copilevitz & Canter (Law Firm)
(2,681.00) Philadelphia Insurance (annual insurances)
(2,979.68) Grady Management (Aug Rent)
(2.28) Grady Management (postage)
(394.60) Grady Management (keys)
(5,000.00) Linton, Shafter, Warfield and Garrett (CPA)
(2,805.25) Convio
(713.40) Ricoh (Copier (lease and maintance))
(51,000.00) Drawbridge Inn
(499.79) Susanne Morgan (NTFDBI)

22,484.91 Wachovia Balance
14,590.00 BofA Balance (see top)

37,074.91 Balance total for both banks

Note: still need to upload CC's amounts from Convio and Merchant
Banks
There will be an addition of around $10,000 deposits (one is
from OADB $6000 for Ohioan's scholarships (registration fees and dinners
(just rec'd on 8/6/11))


Thank you for your support and for taking the time to read this message. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any of the others on the board.

Sincerely,
Jill Gaus
AADB President