January 19th Meeting Report

15 people in attendance.

 Karla Gunn and Jack Barr explained about DBC’s mission.

DBC’s Mission:

 1.   To emphasize the IMPORTANCE of ASL for ALL Deaf infants and young children.

What that means is that AGB is promoting parents to not allow deaf infants and young children to learn ASL when they are in AVT training. 

2.  Is to MAKE the general public are of the prevalence of misconceptions and misinofrmation that devalue ASL. 

Great example shows that AGB tried to have Pepsi to pull out their advertisement with asl performance in it but DBC became proactive and encouraged deaf people like us to contact and thank Pepsi Co. to do it anyway.  DBC is like a watchdog to any organizations especially AGB not to mess with ASL, Deaf people’s true language.  (This was not discussed in the meeting but give you an idea what DBC is trying to do)

Karla explained about AVT.  (If you want to know what is AVT is,  we encourage you to watch this “The Greatest Irony” video by Amy Cohen Enfron.  http://www.greatestirony.com)

Jack explained about what DBC have done in the past including peaceful protest in different conferences in Virginia, Colorado, and Indiana.  The big conference is in Milwaukee, this summer from June 27th and 29th.

Jack and Karla explained that the core DBC has six people on the board and DBC of Wisconsin is a branch of DBC.  

The core DBC will take care of conference meeting rooms, workshops, planning of the events. etc.

DBC of Wisconsin will consist a committee that would provide support to core DBC which includes:

1. Media Contacts- Jason Altmann will take the lead to contact news, newspapers, etc to provide coverage during the event.

2.  Interpreters – Vaughan Hallada will take the lead to arrange interpreters for the event.

3. Outreach – Jack Barr will be making trips to deaf communities in midwest to encourage deaf people to attend the event.

4. Child care – we would like to encourage deaf and hearing children to attend the event to show that they can sign and communicate effectively.   Also, to plan children activities that day too.  We are looking for volunteers to assist with this.

5. Entertainment – Dan Houlihan will work with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Alliance to provide entertainment like Deaf Comedy night during the evenings.

6. Hospitality – we are looking for volunteers to provide assistance to participants who will be coming to the event.

7. Fundraising/Donations – we are looking into several fundraising events to raise funds to support the event this summer.

We agreed to meet every third Sat of the month at SLAD starting at four pm.