Farewell and Hail
By Cheryl Heppner
As this HLAA conference winds down, I must take a moment to compliment
the Florida Host Committee. Chair Alan Brown and his Co-Chairs Barbara
Bavido, Lynn Rousseau along with their many committees have done a wonderful
job, and Florida has shown us great hospitality.
Next year's HLAA conference will be hosted by Hearing Loss Association of
Oklahoma City from June 19-21, 2007.
Traveling the Spread
One complaint at this conference is that the Coronado Springs resort's
rooms are spread out among many buildings across the grounds, and there is
no easy way to quickly pop from the conference to your room and back. I
talked to one exhibitor whose plane was delayed a long time. She didn't
arrive at the resort until 1 am, and her room was in one of the buildings at
the far end of the resort. By then the shuttles that drive a constant loop
had stopped running.
Wednesday night we had rain with big and heavy drops of water and
lightning that came like an early initiation to the nightly fireworks. There
have been sprinkles at other times, but nothing that drags on like the rains
experienced up North this week.
You can go largely under roof from complex to complex and building to
building. It chews up more mileage and takes much longer than using the
paths, but it's the kind of thing we people with hearing dogs learn early in
our visits. You just can't get yourself and your dog under an umbrella, and
a wet dog at a conference is a very sad thing.
End of the Exhibits An ice cream social in the exhibit hall this
afternoon brought the last influx of people before the place closed down.
The exhibits and exhibitors were wonderful and it will take me days to go
through my notes and type up all the information I gathered.
As the conference neared its end, George Kosovich was holding the fort
for Lise Hamlin and Carol Sliney at the TDI/CEPIN table. I tortured him with
a quiz about what CEPIN stands for, and (with help from Jon McCelland) what
photos and material were on the display behind him. George, forbidden to
cheat by looking, was graded unfit for prime time. He seemed delighted. For
the record, CEPIN is Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network.
Save Now for Vancouver Colin J.S. Cantlie, Special Advisor to the
President of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, was cheerily making
the rounds to tell all and sundry that we must attend the Global Community
of Communication Congress in Vancouver from July 2-6, 2008. Sponsored by the
Canadian Hard of Hearing Association and the International Federation of
Hard of Hearing Persons, it's at Vancouver Wall Center -- http://www.sheratonwallcentre.com.
Among the features will be Gael Hannan's dynamic new show, "Ear Rage",
taking the audience through the emotional peaks and valleys of hearing loss.
You'll follow her experiences with "The Hearing Test", "Breaking in the New
Hearing Aid", "Learning to Speechread", "The Fine Art of
Self-Identification" and other landmarks of life on the edge of hearing.
Young adults with hearing loss from across the globe will be attending to
discuss what issues they deal with, learn what their countries have
implemented, and exchange ideas.
For more info: Canadian Hearing Association, 1-800-263-8068
congress2008@... http://www.chha.ca
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