November 19 Chapter Meeting – Supporting Each Other Through the Holidays

We had a wonderful annual rap session and potluck centered around the theme of dealing with the communication challenges we experience during the holidays. Ideas, experiences and discussions were held helping all of us find strategies for coping and getting the most joy possible when faced with large group settings.

Please click here with view the meeting transcripts.

Meeting started off with the new member welcome followed by presenting Georgia our monthly WOW! award. Georgia has been instrumental in advocating efforts toward those with hearing loss. She has done countless outreach efforts, coordinated and ran our cochlear implant meetings and continually provides updates to the chapter, whether via meetings or Yahoo Groups, regarding the latest accessibility developments with various entertainment venues. And she is just a wonderful and brighten your day kind of person!

We discussed possibly planning and coordinating postcard bombing efforts toward the FCC due to captioning telephone planned changes in January 2018. Effort is continuing to get rid of the person who normally translates to your phone and have it automated via voice recognition. Obviously this presents numerous concerns in terms of quality of captions and compromises to our ability to effectively communicate with confidence. You can keep up on the latest news by signing up for the HLAA National e-news or following our homepage HLAA news feed (on the right side of the homepage).

We next discussed our annual holiday party. Amazing Grace, who seems to be getting younger every year,  has graciously offered her house to host the party on December 9. We all know how wonderful her house is for hosting so if you haven’t attended yet, make sure you do! Further information will be forthcoming regarding what will be planned, sign-up to plan foods and drinks to bring and time and directions. Danny will hopefully lead the White Elephant festivities assume his “reindeer” allows him!…

Although we have a wonderful chapter and members, we did lose Ken and Lisa who were active with our Steering Committee. We need your help by finding someone who would like to join the committee as we move toward an exciting 2018. There can be misconceptions about just what is involved with being a steering committee member. It really comes down to what you feel comfortable offering to do and allowing a steering committee members to share just what the experience is like. Yours truly writing this article didn’t have a clue when joining but found it to be a rewarding experience and the perfect touch to compliment what I’m comfortable doing and can offer. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, we need you!

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing how to manage and find success during the holiday season. Various chapter members offered their suggestions and tips on how to manage the stress we all experience with communicative demands placed on us with some many family, friends and gatherings. The meeting transcripts offers a great summary of the ideas that you could find useful.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible for our holiday party. There’s much to get excited about in the coming year so it should be a wonderful year ahead!