Gerry.Grimm@p0.f71.n343.z1.fidonet.org (Gerry Grimm) (07/13/90)
Index Number: 9107
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Hi everyone...just wanted to share a little of the news taking place
out on the West Coast here. This weekend the Washington State Assn
of the Deaf held its annual convention for a crowd of 100 to 300 people
(hard to say the exact number).
The politics of conventions like this are always interesting, and
this year was no exception. Topics of conversation included: the
Washington State Relay System, Unity in the 90's, and the new law
just passed by Congress (Americans with Disablities Act, I believe
is the name). Dinner and dancing took place after the meetings on
Saturday.
One of the more interesting aspects of the convention (for me anyway)
was the "Business Fair". Businesses and groups with information to
pass out to the hearing impaired communtity were in attendance. We
had people from "The Frat", Seattle Public Library, two different
real estate companies, one mortgage rep, a broker from Merril-Lynch
securities, the Seattle Hearing, Speech and Deafness Center, Eddie
Bauer outdoor apparel, A.L. Williams insurance sales, Tele-Page Northwest,
and my favorite (grin) ... the Seattle Hearing Impaired's BBS and
the hearing impaired SIG of the Pac. NW PC User Group (PNWPCUG).
All of the information available at the business fair portion of the
convention was interesting. Most of you are probably aware that there
are pagers (beepers) available for hearing impaired, that can vibrate
and display info on a small screen...the nice part about Tele-Page
Northwest is that they set up a program that allows tdd users to call
in and page people with the pagers. Hearing people can page deaf
users, deaf can page each other or hearing people.....very handy,
and I might add, quite a success with those that have used the pagers.
Debbie Salo and I put on a demo, using a TDD and two computers, of
the SHI-BBS. Readers of Silent Talk recently should know that we
have two BBS phone lines, one for TDD and one for computer. The TDD
line also accepts phone calls from computers at up to 300 baud.
Unfortunately, we couldn't show how to access the BBS via computer,
due to problems with the phones installed at the hotel, but we did
demo the BBS using a TDD. We had a lot of folks that were interested
in the BBS and our computer group. One man from Spokane (in the east
part of Washington) wants us to come and show them how to set up a
BBS for the hearing impaired in that area.
One thing that excited a lot of the convention crowd was that our
computer group (SHI-SIG) will be meeting at a new location startin
in July. I work for Boeing and asked the National Computer Training
Center (a Boeing Computer Services entity) if we could use their facilities
for holding our meetings in the future. Surprisingly enough, they
said yes! We will have a meeting room with 15 IBM XT's, an overhead
projector, an overhead projector viewer that plugs into a pc and displays
everything that happens on the computer, about 7 printers plus a Laserjet
II printer, white board and so on. Needless to say, we're excited!
Eventually, the meetings will become more and more focused on training
the hearing impaired to use computers, but for now we'll just be doing
demos of various software.
I'm out of space here. I'll take this up at another time. I'd like
to hear what other hearing impaired computer user groups are doing....ok?
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Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!343!71.0!Gerry.Grimm
Internet: Gerry.Grimm@p0.f71.n343.z1.fidonet.orgGerry.Grimm@p0.f15.n343.z1.fidonet.org (Gerry Grimm) (07/13/90)
Index Number: 9112
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
Hi Caren...nice of you to offer to help. I can't remember
exactly what I said in the last note so if I repeat myself,
that's the reason. I want to make the SHI-BBS accessible by 800
number for in Washington state users. Being able to spread the
word about events, and so on, depends on people being able to
access the info...and do so without worrying about how much it
will cost them. I know from my own experience, that most people
will not make the call if will cost them money.
The question is how to raise the funds. I'd like to set up a
mini-database on the bbs that would give the phone numbers for
any business that provides access to hearing impaired
people...be it a TDD or interpreting or captioning of videos,
whatever. We need access to that info. We need to get it
easily.
So what I was thinking is we keep accumulating phone numbers of
businesses that fit the above profile and then later ask them to
assist in our project if they want. We'll need to find out more
about the cost of it all, but from my conversations with
business people from the Wash. State Assn of Deaf convention, it
shouldn't be a major problem. Most like the idea and seemed
willing to help.
Any thoughts you have would be appreciated. And perhaps in the
future when I have a little more time, we can get moving on the
project. As for the present, I'd like to know more about your
area of expertise. I can always use help with the Seattle
Hearing Impaired-SIG, arranging demos of software, teaching
others how to use PCs and so on....
Talk to you again soon...
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Internet: Gerry.Grimm@p0.f15.n343.z1.fidonet.org