President Melissa shares updates from the NAD Board meeting that was done in person earlier this year at the NAD Headquarters, Dismantling Racism in the Deaf Community priority (www.nad.org/about-us/priorities) and their first webinar in the series, “Real Talk, Good Action: The Healing Process,” (www.nad.org/webinar-real-talk-good-action-healing) and Steve Hamerdinger’s resignation as one of the Region III Board members.

Original PR: Link

[ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT]
MELISSA: Hi, I'm Melissa with updates for this month. On January 12-15, the NAD Board met in person for the first time since January 2020. It was amazing to meet in person! Keep in mind, last summer and fall, we checked in with each other and discussed our willingness to meet in person. Once everyone felt ready, we scheduled the meeting for January. We all flew into Silver Spring, Maryland and met at the NAD Headquarters. We followed COVID-19 safety precautions. It was great to see each other in person for the first time in two years. During the weekend, we had team building activities, we discussed the priorities, shared updates from our Affiliates and State Associations, looked into any upcoming legislative bills, and continued our preparation for the NAD Conference this summer. It was a productive weekend! We're looking forward to the next Board meeting.

I'd like to share an update from one of the priorities, Dismantling Racism in the Deaf Community. First, thank you for those who filled out our survey last November to help the committee determine next steps. The survey's input helped us with two things: develop a training curriculum for organizations and host our first webinar last week. The webinar, 'Real Talk, Good Action: The Healing Process' had a moderator and three panelists; they did an amazing job sharing their experiences and discussing how one can heal from racial trauma. Truthfully, I learned a lot from them. The series will continue so there will be more webinars. If you missed last week's webinar, you can watch the recording from our website. You can also join us for the next webinar. I encourage you to join the webinar series and share with your families and friends. I invite you to help us dismantle racism in the American Deaf community.

I also wanted to take the time to thank Steve Hamerdinger, our Region III Board member, who recently resigned from the Board. Thank you Steve for your three and a half years of service to the NAD Board! That position will remain vacant until July, when we'll fill it through the elections at the NAD Conference. Thank you for watching!