Announcer:
Live life you want. Nobody can stop you. Shoot for the sun and break on through.
The following message is brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind. Live the life you want.
Live the life you want. Yes, we know the truth.
Mark Riccobono:
Greetings fellow Federationists. Today is Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. And this is Presidential Release 558. This is the release for the month of March. And when I recorded the release for the month of February, we had a lot of snow that we were dealing with in Baltimore and really across the nation.
And now getting ready for the month of March, we have a lot of snow that many of us are dealing with, not so much in Baltimore, but definitely other places along the East Coast. So hopefully the warm weather will be coming with March.
I know that things are definitely heating up in the work of the National Federation of the Blind. And I do hope that each and every one of you have been staying safe in the cold and blustery conditions that we've experienced this winter. I do have a few things to talk to you about on this release that relate to things heating up in the Federation.
And the first, of course, is our national convention, which will be coming up from July three to July eight in Austin, Texas. And that's the primary topic I want to talk to you about on this release. I do have a couple other things for you, but to talk to you specifically about our national convention.
Why is the national convention important? Well, this could be a good topic for our chapter to discuss. Every chapter should be represented at the National Convention in some form.
Hopefully every chapter has at least one member attending the national convention, but definitely more would be preferred. The convention is the supreme authority of the organization.
The convention is where the decisions get made and things get debated. Direction is set for the next year and the years to come, and the board of directors is elected to carry out that direction.
So being at the convention, being part of the discussion is really important. And it's really important that every chapter try to have someone there to be part of that. Our convention is also the largest platform for networking, training, making connections, finding resources in our community.
Blind people come literally from all parts of the world to be at our convention because there is no other meeting like ours anywhere in the world that's blind centered, blind directed, and truly at the same time driven by members from local communities all across this country.
And we recognize that one of the reasons to come together at convention is that we get the benefit of all of us, our expertise coming together. There's no way that any one of us could know all of the things or have all of the connections that are meaningful in the blind community. And so when we come together at the convention, it really brings the power and scale of our membership to the front.
We can make those connections so that when we get a question as a leader in the local community that we're not sure of, we have more people to call on across the country. This is also an important platform for us to move our advocacy agenda and show important public officials and companies that we have power and influence when they have to stand in front of our convention and answer real questions and give presentations.
They know that we are a constituency that they should be concerned about. And this definitely helps us in all of the other things that we do throughout the year. But I think one of the key things is the fact that we gain so much from being together at convention.
We get our perspectives reset. It's really helpful to be able to talk to blind people from all parts of the country and realize, oh, they're having the same struggles that we might be having in Baltimore.
Maybe we can do something by coordinating with this. Or you might talk to someone who is on the leading edge of their community is just now introducing something that hasn't come to your community yet. What are they doing about it? How are they doing it? In Baltimore, electronic scooters have definitely been that.
And I know we've talked with people all across the country as scooters are introduced into their communities. The convention is the place that this really gets brought to scale. And so you will want to be there. At a minimum, you will want someone from your chapter there. Now, how do you find out the convention information?
Well, everything you always want to know about convention, some of you can say it with me, nfb.org/convention. That's always going to be your go-to for the latest information about the upcoming convention. This year, we will be meeting at the JW Marriott in Austin, Texas, and really excited.
It's our first time, I think, at a JW Marriott. You can make your room reservations by calling 1-800-627-7468. That number again, 800-627-7468. You can book your room. Please be sure to give them the Federation's convention booking code, which is B as in boy, L as in Llama, and the number one. BL1 for booking a room for the convention.
The convention hotel rate is $139 for singles and doubles and $155 for triples and quads. That does not include the sales tax and local tourism fee that comes out to about a combined 19%. I have visited the hotel as recently as early February.
We had a reception and meeting there. They are definitely excited to have us in Austin. Our convention has been in Texas a number of times, but never in Austin. It's a really cool city, really great food, really great music, really great people.
And I think you're going to love having our convention there. I'm very excited about it. I want to remind you that the hotel does have the right to charge you a different rate if you do not register for the convention and show up on our registration rules.
So you will want to register. And by the time this release hits the chapter meetings on March 1st, registration will be open and available for online registration, which goes through the end of May. After May, you will have to register onsite at the convention, probably wait in line and things like that.
The early registration fee this year is $25 and the banquet price is $85. Those prices will go up at the convention. So please get in there early, register, save yourself some headaches and also save yourself some money. Definitely plan to be with us in Austin.
Now, our theme for this year's convention is a play on what the Austin Texas community has done for a number of decades now. It has marketed itself as wanting to be uniquely Austin, uniquely true to the culture, people, and environment in Austin, Texas.
Their marketing slogan for many decades now has been keep Austin weird. And Austin has used this as a way to really, truly lean into the local culture, building pride in the city of Austin, Texas, helping to grow local businesses and truly being proud of who they are.
This is much like what the National Federation of the Blind has done since our founding in 1940. We've said that it's respectable to be blind. We're proud to be who we are and to tackle the world in the way that we do. And that is very different than, well, almost everybody else in the world looks at blindness.
And so for our convention for 2026, we thought we should use Keep NFB Weird. So we're really trying to lean into being authentically blind centered, blind led and a grassroots blind organization. And this means we're also a very diverse group and we have a lot of joy in being part of this community.
So Keep NFB Weird gives us some fun and joyful opportunities to really be proud of who we are as an organization. I would encourage your chapter to bring its unique character to our national convention and to our Keep NFB weird theme for the organized blind movement this summer.
Announcer:
You will hear more about this and how we'd like you to kind of play on this theme, especially in social media leading up to the National Convention. I will talk about this and some other aspects of the convention on the next presidential release live, which is March 5th.
You may be hearing this after that, so please be sure to go back and listen to that recording so you can be up to date. Now, here are some other things that your chapter should do to prepare for our national convention. First, discuss amongst yourself, who's planning to attend the convention? Who would like to attend the convention, but is not sure what it means or how to do it.
It's a great opportunity to talk about the Kenneth Jernigan First Timers Scholarship, which there's still time to complete here in the month of March. But knowing who in the chapters going to the convention will allow you to coordinate, share ideas, resources, and also talk about how you bring ideas back to the chapter.
Discuss what some of the local concerns are in the chapter and areas where the chapter members feel information is needed from the nationwide network of expertise that we have in the National Federation of the Blind.
If members from the chapter are aware of those things, they can be prepared to seek them out at the convention and bring them back to the chapter to help build the local effort. And of course, if there are policy issues that local members feel the national organization should be addressing, it's a great opportunity to get together and write a resolution and resolutions can be submitted up until the very early part of June.
And so this is a great activity for the chapter to consider over the next couple of months. Now, remember that in authoring a resolution, there has to be a proponent who's available to appear in person in front of the resolutions committee at the convention.
It does not have to be the individual or individuals who authored the resolution, but it does have to be someone that's prepared to speak on behalf of and defend why the resolution is needed.
This is a great opportunity for the chapter to coordinate also with the state affiliate, the affiliate president and leadership to share some of those ideas. Maybe your chapter has a similar notion to another chapter in your state so you can collaborate. So not just taking ideas from the convention, but bringing some ideas to the convention.
We hope you would do that. And we also would suggest that you discuss what it is that members of the chapter need to know about the Federation, would like to know, would like to be more in touch with. So not just the policy aspects, but what about the organization is the chapter wondering about?
There will be many sessions at the convention, the meeting of our membership committee, others, meetings where folks from your chapter can go and get answers to those questions that may be burning in the minds of the chapter members.
Finally, I would add that the chapter should also discuss how members who aren't going to convention are going to participate virtually, but also how we can create some community as part of that. Consider the chapter having a banquet party for those who aren't coming to the convention in person or maybe getting together to listen to the presidential report or be part of the opening ceremonies.
Any number of things, of course, the agenda will be out well in advance of the convention. So you'll have plenty of time to plan and members who aren't coming to the convention, of course, can participate in our virtual experience, but also can continue to influence what happens at the convention by having those open lines of communication with members of the chapter who are at the convention.
I do encourage our chapters to talk about the national convention as it is the most important event of the year for the Organized Blind Movement.
Now, just a couple of other things to present to you on this release. And the first has to do with membership. We're continuing to examine the shared process that we have for onboarding new members to the Organized Blind Movement.
And we have now had a new member process in place for a number of years, and I want to thank all of those chapters out there who are expertly implementing and quickly implementing our new member process, getting members signed up, getting them voted into the chapter, and then getting them put into our new member form at the national level so that we can send them information materials and their membership coin.
We're now evaluating this process and how we can further improve it. And so starting with the month of March, we will be planning a survey that targets individuals who are new to the Federation and new being in their first year of membership.
The goal is for us to gather some information, check in with our new members, and to ensure that we are truly fulfilling on the promise that we've made to make our organization welcoming, to support new members on their journey, and to learn about how we collectively, both at the national level and local level, can do better in that regard.
You don't need to do anything. There's nothing for you to do about this. I'm just telling you because this will now be built into our series of emails and onboarding materials that members get. So new members will be receiving an email with the link to the survey.
So if you're a new member, you're hearing this, please be watching for that. And as our chapters onboard new members, let them know that during the year they will get some periodic outreach from our national organization, asking them to fill out a short survey about their experience and how we can continue to improve it.
And of course, I would definitely ask you to assist people in completing that instrument if they need it. Now keep in mind that in an affiliate, you may want to create some partnership. Some people may feel nervous about giving information about their onboarding experience when it's within the same chapter, so maybe our state membership coordinators can help people with that. \
This data will help us continue to improve in being the organization that we seek to be, so please help to promote it amongst our new members. I also wanted to give you a quick update.
Of course, Washington Seminar was still going on when we recorded the February release, and it truly was a fantastic Washington seminar. Federation members showed up despite the challenging weather to really make an impression on the members of Congress in a way that I think we couldn't have even planned for.
So your hard work, your perseverance has definitely paid off as this Washington seminar did show real results. Since the end of this year's event, we have gained 12 new co-sponsors on the Access Technology Affordability Act in the House, five new co-sponsors on the Access Technology Affordability Act in the Senate, and four new co-sponsors on the Blind Americans Return to Work Act in the House.
And we are still following up with a number of commitments that members of Congress made to co-sponsor our bills. Now, if you haven't already submitted all of your Washington seminar reports on your meetings, please, please, please do so quickly, but also to each and every one of you, again, you can continue to follow up on our legislative priorities.
It is a critical month. March is a critical month for increasing our co-sponsorship on our bills. We know being an election year, that the calendar will be limited for moving our bills forward.
And the more co-sponsors we get, the more possibility there is to advance our agenda in 2026. Now, if you did miss the great gathering in activity, you can revisit it and listen to the audio on our Washington seminar page, nfb.org/washington-seminar.
I also want to call out that on that page is a special recording of the distinguished legislative award that we presented to Representative Steady Hoyer of Maryland as part of that gathering, a really remarkable presentation. And I'm really glad that we had the opportunity to do that as part of this year's seminar.
Those are the things I wanted to put in front of you for the month of March. I do hope that things continue to warm up where you are. I do notice that we are in the spring convention season already as a couple of affiliate conventions will have happened by the time this recording goes out to the chapters.
I do have some Federation family notes that I don't have time to share with you on this release. I will share them on the March 5th presidential release live. So that's another opportunity for me to remind you that you can, of course, tune into the presidential release live, but if you do miss it, you can follow up by getting the recording at nfb.org on our publications page through NFBRN, our online constant radio stream, or through our YouTube channel.
I do encourage you to engage with and listen to our live events. Those are the things I have for you for the month of March, but I do have some customary endings before we close.
What falls during March, but never gets hurt?
Well, that would be the rain, of course.
Which crime fighter likes March the most?
Well, that would be Robin.
And what did the lazy person who was not thinking say on the 15th of March?
Beware of the ideas of March. Enjoy March Madness and let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.
The preceding message was brought to you by Mark Riccobono, President, National Federation of the Blind, 410-659-9314. Officeofthepresident@nfb.org. Follow President Riccobono on Mastodon. Just search for @president@NFB.Social. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind.