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NJ Unit Volunteer Newsletter
January 2005  Mike Casserly, Editor Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope you enjoyed pleasant holidays, and return with your batteries charged. Last year we saw a lot of changes at the studio. This year begins with some new ones. Beginning Monday, January 31, the 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. sessions will run two hours Monday through Thursday. The 1/2 hour lunch break was eliminated to permit volunteers to leave at 4 p.m. rather than 4:30, when traffic is worse. Evening, Friday and Saturday sessions will remain unchanged. Monday – Thursday Please return your New Schedule Confirmation Form to Jessie by Jan. 21st. The studio is grateful for the overwhelming response to our request for potential K-12 Readers. Over the coming months staff will approach volunteers to begin studying as books and test prep materials become available. Reaching Out Last week Educational Outreach Director Chris Ranaghan spoke to volunteers about the vital mission in which the entire Unit is engaged. She focused on a part of the picture few volunteers at the studio ever see – the impact of the recordings on students. "Students are doing so much better when they are able to use RFB&D's Learning Through Listening program. Teachers who implement our program see students improve in their classroom reading," Chris reported. Chris and Professional Development Provider Ben Rivera should know - they travel throughout the New Jersey to make sure schools know all about the RFB&D educational benefits. Right now there are 386 schools that are members. Our potential is to have every school in NJ be a participant! Backing them up are Membership Coordinator Debbie Passafiume, Curriculum Specialist Sherry Deutsch and four "outstanding volunteers": Betsey Butler, Debbie Faigen, Susan Kaplan and Shelly Sachs. (All four also help out in the studio.) Currently Rutgers University is conducting a study of RFB&D's recordings in a large urban district in New Jersey. The study will continue through June, and a report is expected in September. But to learn how RFB&D recordings dramatically changed just one person's life you need only to read to the end of this bulletin. Staff News Once again we say goodbye to a part-time temporary staff member. This time it's Frances Ertel, who begins the year preparing for a possible application to business school. Frances, you may remember, was once part of the corporate world, and once again she hears its siren call. Among other responsibilities, Frances took on the job of evaluating new Self-Directors (our fastest growing group of volunteers.) We will miss you Frances! (But not too much, because you'll be volunteering as your schedule permits.) Also good news is that we have a new part-time staff member: James Butera, who, like several current staff members, began as a studio volunteer. James has a B.S. in biology from some place called "fair Hah-vuhd." James learned about RFB&D from volunteer Joyce Maso, whom he met at a Princeton Adult School class. Production Notes Book Markers ( Directors – accurate paperwork is still lacking on many worksheets. Checkers – If you ain't SMILin' please see staff. If you is SMILin' don't forget to note it on the yellow worksheet! Signing Out - In the good old days, when you went on vacation all you had to do was Volunteer News
And congrats to our new Readers!: Carol Aspray and Raleigh Rigler - K-8; Robin Mockenhaupt - Medical; Kyle Garst - Theology; Ann Laughlin, Zack Faigen and Leslie Jennings - General. The recent winter break brought the return of longtime volunteer and current law student Mike Tchorni. Also here early in the month was Mike Harrison, now a freshman at Boston University. Thanks for your help, guys! Many thanks to the following people for helping us wrap presents at Barnes & Noble earlier last month: Barbara & James Brown, Chris Buchner, Connie Dowling, (Production Director) Jessie Falcone, Ruth Friedlander, Ann Greek, Jean Gunkel, Harriet Ingerslev, Jonathan Kugel, Rose Marie Proietti, Oriel Quinlan and, of course, (Development Director) Sandi Wilson. Thanks to your efforts we raised $177.27. Thanks again to Jonathan Kugel for helping out at Ten Thousand Villages on December 12. We raised over $500 that day!
The Graduate
Then Barbara's sister-in-law, volunteer Debbie Grauer, told Barbara she might be dyslexic. This correct diagnosis led Ms. Vaning to RFB&D and the college degree she long sought. After a year of full time study Barbara graduated magna cum laude (just .02 point from summa cum laude) from Rider University last June. She is now continuing her education, studying to become a childbirth educator, with the help of our recordings. "You opened up the world to me! Now I can go 15 to 20 pages without a struggle," Ms. Vaning reported. "You can't imagine how much this has changed my life!" New Year's Resolutions Match each resolution to the correct staff member and you may win a fabulous prize (or not!) 1) "I'm going to learn how to decipher every volunteer's handwriting (on the sign-out sheets.)" Development The NJ Unit is seeking people with fundraising experience to become members of the Board of Directors. If you or someone you know is interested please see Jessie. We need your help with our Adopt-A-Text program. Development Director Sandi Wilson has just sent 670 letters to local businesses asking for a $1,000 donation toward the cost of producing a recorded text. There is a list of the businesses that we've approached in the sign out area. Please look over the contact names. If you know someone on the list or if you have a personal contact that should be added to the list, please see Sandi. A personal touch is always helpful to the donor cultivation process. Do you belong to a group that would like to hear about volunteer opportunities at RFB&D? Sandi Wilson would be glad to speak to your group and answer any questions they have. Sandi's direct phone number is 750-9579. -- Have a Great Month and Year! --
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) please remember: It's accuracy, not speed, that counts! Because so much of our reading is now done by self-directors (who use the Director's copy of the book) accurate second copy marking is more important than ever! Whichever copy you mark, please always check your work! Also, please record your progress both on the yellow card and in the binder that goes with the book. This makes it easier for staff to keep track of marking progress. Thank you.
Please do not fill out the last three words of text (in the fifth column on the worksheet) unless the file is a partial. In that case you should also write the (same) file number on the line below to confirm that the file was not finished. Writing in the page number where reading will resume also helps. For completed files some thoughtful people have taken to writing "(EOF)" in the appropriate column. This helps by removing any doubt that the file was completed. 
!) 
something like "John Smith, back 2/17" and we took care of it. In the even better new days you have to write yourself out for each time that you would normally be here. So, if you normally come for two sessions on a Monday, for example, you would write your name in the "Out" column for both times for each Monday that you would be away. Unless, you'll be away for three months or more. Then you can write your name on the Long Term Absences page, which is green, at the front of the Sign-out 
. (Got all that?)
Since our last issue (mid-November) these new volunteers have joined us: David Artuso, Elaine Bine, Arlene Clay, Michele Crawford, Marc Daubert, Bob Ferlauto, Irene Hashfield, Larisa Kane, Patty Kessler, Yuna Larrabee, Helen Little, Emily and John Meyers, Barbara Naar, Dina Owies, Felicia Powell, Lisa Rodriguez, Travis Rothberg, Ramani Sista,Teresa St. Angelo and Dale Wyatt. Welcome!
Bill Kastan will be exhibiting his recent paintings at North Brunswick's Government and Community Complex during the month of February. The complex is located at 710 Hermann Rd. in North Brunswick, and the gallery is open Monday – Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Several of Bill's paintings are hanging on the walls in our corridor.) Mention at the door that you're from RFB&D and you get a 10% discount. (Just kidding, folks.) For more information call (732) 247-0922 x 264.
front, Charlie Brunswick recently returned from a great month in Israel, only to leave us again for a few months of R n' R in Arizona 
. Chris Buchner just got back from a nice week in St. Thomas 
. Joan Efron is off on a seven day cruise to the Galapagos, where she'll soon be "messing with the blue footed boobies." (Hmm.!) Rose Marie Proietti left last week for a 22 day 
from Miami to Honolulu. From which Jeff Kaplan just returned. This was Jeff's eighth 
trip outside the continental U.S. Betsy Butler's family, including son Brett (also a volunteer) just spent two "fabulous" weeks in Turkey. Among the highlights Betsy mentioned was watching her kids swim in the Aegean. 
(Enough already, Wingdings!!) Ellen Arzt reports that she is volunteering at the newly opened Palm Beach County, FL studio during her winter retreat.
Most people think dyslexia is just the tendency to reverse letters during reading. One such person was Barbara Vaning, of Skillman. She'd spent the last sixteen years working on finishing her college degree, one course at most per semester, in part because of her difficulty reading. "Two pages, max, that's all I could handle. I could read the same thing five times and it just wouldn't take," she recalled recently.