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Melissa shares an update about the NAD quarterly Board meeting that happened recently and the progress of her "President-President" meetings so far.

VIDEO DESC & TRANSCRIPT: NAD President Melissa Draganac-Hawk is standing in front of stone wall. The NAD logo appears on bottom right corner as a watermark.

MELISSA: Hi, I'm Melissa. I hope your 2019 was off to a good start. I have two topics to cover in this update: the NAD quarterly Board meeting that happened recently and the progress of my "President-President" meetings so far. The NAD Board visited North Carolina and South Carolina. We were mostly busy with our business meeting during the trip while also visiting some places. On Wednesday, we visited a regional center of the Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing of the NC Department of Health and Human Services in Wilson, North Carolina. We also visited the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf. On Thursday, we visited the South Carolina School for the Deaf. We also visited the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) which is a program under the NAD. This was a great opportunity for the NAD Board to visit DCMP and see what they are doing. They distribute captioned educational videos for deaf schools and programs for the deaf, as well as for families with deaf and hard of hearing children. You can learn more at DCMP.org. Later that evening, we attended a deaf community forum hosted by the South Carolina Association of the Deaf (SCAD). People raised important issues for our consideration. On Friday, we visited the North Carolina School for the Deaf. Later, we visited Alder Springs, a nonprofit community apartment complex that was funded without government support and designed for the unique needs of deaf people. Later that night, we attended a community forum co-hosted by the North Carolina Association of the Deaf (NCAD) and the NC Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, where important issues were brought to our attention. On Saturday, we went to an office building run by the Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing of Davidson County for our all-day business meeting. In the afternoon, the Board had a diversity training session with Darian Burwell. We really benefited from the activity that she conducted during this training. Afterwards, the NAD Board had several work sessions to continue our progress on current projects. Later that evening, we enjoyed a community potluck organized by NCAD. While the week was very busy, we were also productive with staying on top of our priorities and different projects. We will be sharing a report regarding this soon. The second thing on my agenda in this video update is the "President-President" meetings I've been having since I became President. I've been having video meetings with the presidents of different affiliates and State Associations. The purpose of these meetings is for me to find out what concerns they have, their strengths, their challenges, what they'd like to see the NAD to improve on, and what kind of resources they suggest the NAD provide. I truly appreciate and enjoy these meetings. I respect these leaders for their hard work because they are volunteers too! I look forward to continuing these meetings. I've met about 40 people so far, and am committed to meeting every president. Thank you.

Video cuts to grey background with the NAD logo quickly changing in different bright colors from teal to white to black to hot pink to green to orange to teal to yellow to purple to finally the official NAD logo with copyright text underneath “The National Association of the Deaf (c) 2019 All Rights Reserved”.