HLAA Convention Open Board Meeting - Part Two

This meeting commenced at 8:30 AM on Thursday. The board held a regular meeting and committee meetings in the days leading up to the convention, so much of this meeting consisted of reports from the various committees.

This report is presented in two parts. This is part two.

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Here's Part One

Nominations and Board Development Committee Report

The Nominations and Board Development Committee (NBDC) reported that David Crocker had recently joined the board as a representative of the southern region, and that Dick Neilia will join the board after the convention.

The 2008 Call for Election will be published in the July/August magazine. There will be two applications this year, one for new applicants and another for incumbents.

The NBDC completed its annual board evaluation in April and they recommend that the board follow up on that evaluation. A motion to that effect was made and passed.

The NBDC also presented a slate of officers for the next year. It is identical to the current slate of officers, and was passed by the board.

Remarks by Jan McNamara of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association

Anne Pope noted that she had recently attended the conference of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA) and had a wonderful time there. She remarked that the conference was full of energy and attendees included many young people. She then introduced Jan McNamara, the Executive Director of CHHA.

Jan reported that CHHA is working on a hearing loss awareness program to address the gap between consumers and hearing loss professionals. It's common for people to be given hearing aids without receiving other vital services, including education, follow-up, counseling, etc. CHAA is trying to develop a partnership with the professionals to ensure that appropriate services are available. They have pamphlets that address this goal, and they encouraged people to drop by their booth to pick them up.

They are also working on two projects with speech recognition (SR) technology. One is a respeaker technology using a third party. This would function much like translators currently operate in international meetings. Located in a booth, the respeaker would revoice what was said on the floor into an SR program, and the resulting text would be available as captioning. They have a project to implement this system in Parliament, and it is progressing nicely.

They are also working with a university in Nova Scotia to develop VR technology that people can use for meetings. They realize that this technology won't replace CART, but consider it to be an option for groups that can't provide CART. The software currently has an 85% accuracy rate without speaker training.

CHHA is also working with the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) to improve the quality of television captioning.

Jan commented that CHHA has a very active Young Adult (YA) network. They have worked very hard to develop that and it is succeeding and growing. They have formed their own chapter, which is nationally chartered, and meets over the Internet. Jan noted that the YA group is her pet project. They'll often have 20 people at an online meeting. They send out an agenda ahead of time. People who wish to speak are required to register, so that an orderly meeting can occur.

The YA group has been working with similar groups in Europe, and they have concluded that employment for people with hearing loss is a worldwide issue. So they are working to get additional information on that topic.

The YA group also has a program to mentor kids with hearing loss. They are working with a group of parents of children with hearing loss on that project, and will be meeting at the 2008 conference for a two-day mentoring session. The YA group is doing the planning for that event.

The CHHA will host the 2008 conference of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People (IFHH) in Vancouver from July 2 to 6 next year. The Proposal for Presentations is available on their website and people are encouraged to submit them.

In response to a question from Anne Pope, Jan reported on how the CHHA got the YA group going. It started with a federal grant to provide leadership training to hard of hearing young adults at five Universities throughout Canada. Participants were required to be between 18 and 29 years old. CHHA developed a three-day workshop and materials, including a facilitators manual and student workbooks. After conducting the workshops, they had five pockets of young adults throughout the country.

Then they moved on to Phase 2, in which they asked each group to send two leaders to a national workshop, at which the leaders worked to develop a program appropriate for young adults. These national leaders did a great job of doing that, and the program seems to be working.

The YA group has a representative on the CHHA board, so the needs and concerns of the young people are communicated to the CHHA leadership.

In response to a question about services for children, Jan reported that there are chapters for parents of kids with hearing loss, and a couple of them are very active. There is also a separate organization for kids with hearing loss. The Voice for Hearing Impaired Children is growing and working to become a national organization.

HLAA Fundraising

Vice President Vic Matsui reported on the status of the Annual Fund. He encouraged people to offer their ideas to solicit funds from corporations and individuals. He also reported that, because of the Walk4Hearing, HLAA did not have a spring appeal this year, but will have a donation drive in the fall. Their goal this year is to raise $250,000 separate from the Walk4Hearing.

Vic noted that HLAA has two separate tables on the exhibit floor, one for the Annual Fund and one for the Rocky Stone Endowment Fund. He also noted members' comments that HLAA is stressing members with its frequent solicitations, and vowed that HLAA would work to get more funding from corporations this year.