February 12, 2001
Dear SignWriting List:
Our Annual Membership Meeting this year was held on February 10. It
was a warm and friendly meeting with 20 people gathered around a
circular table. As always, my father, who is our treasurer, went over
the year's finances in detail and we discussed the complications of
running a nonprofit organization here in the US...lots of paperwork
and lots of rules and regulations we must follow. Everyone seemed
quite surprised at this, and commented that they didn't realize all
the work that is required behind the scenes of an American nonprofit
organization!
We are a very dedicated group. Our organization is 26 years old...In
the meeting we voted for officers. Before the meeting began, we had 8
board members, but we voted in two new board members at the
meeting....James and Kristi Short....so now we are 10!
James and Kristi Short are a hearing husband-wife team. They are
computer experts...each with different skills. And funny - they are
not "short" at all....they are both very tall people...so their last
name doesn't fit them - ha!! (grin)
James is a web designer. He is an expert with FileMaker, the database
program we will be using in the future to create our SignWriting
Online Dictionary Database. James is also an expert on creating video
documentaries, that are TV quality, done on a Macintosh. So James
will be the video editor I will work with, for our new documentary,
"SignWriting in Deaf Education", which will have several videos...The
first video will be about the Albuquerque public schools and Cecilia
Flood's outstanding research in New Mexico.
At the meeting we discussed grant writing for the FileMaker Online
Database project. I explained the project in some depth.
Kristi Short is a practical idealist, who believes in our work
strongly. She has good ideas on how to reach the general hearing
community here in the local area...she wants to help us educate
hearing people here...and she is right...that is needed. So we talked
about how we could bridge the gap between the hearing and deaf
communities. Not an easy job....
Then a reporter from a local newspaper arrived late at the
meeting...she was fascinated by it all, but started with the common
question from hearing people...She asked: "Isn't there just one sign
language in the world?" smile..
Everyone at the meeting had already discussed this at length so we
all smiled at each other....and after about a half hour of just
enjoying the meeting, the reporter told me she felt she should get a
better journalist to help her write this article, since the subject
matter was so hard for her!
So we then had food and drink, and the conversation led to the
wonderful web sites we have. Some board members actually came back
later to sit and study the web sites.
Two web sites were a big hit...
1. The SignBible Site
King James Bible in American Sign Language
by Ron Dettloff and the Deaf Church in Michigan
Webmaster: Jerry Spillman
https://cyberjer.com/signbibl/index.htm
2. Gebaerdenschrift.de
SignWriting in Germany
Webmaster: Stefan Woehrmann
https://www.Gebaerdenschrift.de
People are fascinated by the idea that the Bible can be written in
Sign Languages now...
And Stefan's animation was very popular...The opening animation on
Stefan's site is an animated German Sign Language sentence ...Even
our hearing board members were signing along with it...it is a
valuable tool to teach signs to people...no matter what the Sign
Language!
So it was a great meeting, and during the meeting, the SignWriting
List was on my mind...I hope someday we can all meet each other in
person as well!!
So that's my report!
All my best -
--
Val ;->
-----------------------------
Valerie Sutton
SignWritingSite:
https://www.SignWriting.org
SignWriting List Archives:
https://www.egroups.com/group/sw-l
To post a message to the SW List:
|
SignWriting List Forum