RFB&D-NJ Unit Volunteer Newsletter 1-07 (text)

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Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
New Jersey Unit
69 Mapleton Road
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
Phone 609-750-1830
Fax 609-750-9653

Reader’s Note

Tony Gruenewald, Editor

January/February 2007

Town Hall meeting scheduled Thurs. Jan 25 at 5:30 p.m.

Executive Director Stephanie Campbell will be moderating a town hall meeting where you can hear about the future of RFB&D and the New Jersey Unit, give feedback and ask questions. The meeting will also include Production Director Jessie Falcone.

The meeting is in lieu of the survey distributed by the board of directors the last few years.

If you cannot attend, please leave comments in the Volunteer Feedback box located by the sign out area.

Refreshments will be provided.

Remembering Gitti Sinding

Gitti Sindingpassed away on December 27 after battling cancer. She volunteered for the New Jersey Unit for 25 years reading general and German books. Gitti had worked for The Gallup Poll and Opinion Research Corporation before coming to RFB&D.

RFB&D was just one of several organizations where she did volunteer work. At RFB&D she was a fixture on Tuesday mornings and afternoons. The Unit held a 90th birthday celebration for her in 2005.

Gitti’s warmth will be remembered by all who met her. Bryce Rittenhouse commented that “from Gitti’s mouth, German became a beautiful language.”

The New Jersey Unit will record a German text in honor of Gitti’s life and her contributions of time and talent to RFB&D.

You’re invited to celebrate lives well lived

The families of Gitti Sinding, Betty Wood, Anne Sheldon and Ruth Alampi will be invited to the studio for a ceremony celebrating their contributions to the New Jersey Unit. The event will happen on Saturday, February 17 starting at 11 a.m.

You are invited to join us to share memories of these volunteers who donated more than 120 years of their immense time and talent and let their families know how much we appreciated the hour we spent with them.

9,500 hours for 2007?
Only with your help!
75% (7,125 hours)
50% (4,750 hours)
25% (2,375 hours)
100% (9,500 hours)
Push the hour-o-meter over the top! Our goal for the 2007 fiscal year (July 2006-June 2007) is 9,500 hours of recording. After six months of the new fiscal year, we've recorded 4,745 hours, which puts us on target. Please help sustain us during the winter months when many volunteers head south. With a lot of caffeine and a few throat lozenges, 9,500 should be no problem.

Have you picked up your Volunteer Handbook?

For the latest news from Development, check out the Development Info board strategically placed between the restrooms.

Mark Your Calendars!

Record-A-Thon 2007 is coming April 16-21!

Coming Soon! The NJ Unit Volunteer Facebook!
What's that?
You'll find out soon!

Dear Aunt Bea,
Aunt Bea is just as pleased as Very Berry Hawaiian Punch over the reception you've given her! She is extremely happy to be part of the New Jersey Unit family.

Dear Aunt Bea
I'm conflicted. I'm in booth 7, the next team is patiently waiting for me to end my session, but I can't figure out where to end. I can't get to the end of the file. The people before me ended in the middle of a paragraph at the end of a page. I've heard this is bad etiquette.
Too Conflicted to Conclude

Dear Conflicted,
Good question. It is NEVER good form to end a session in the middle of a paragraph, even if it is the end of the page. Believe it or not, it does make it a lot less difficult if you end at the conclusion of a paragraph somewhere in the middle of the page. The next folks who come along don't have to figure out whether you've made the page mark for the next page. This will help get the book to member more quickly, because the book won't be held up in order to fix missed marks.

Dear Aunt Bea,
This file I have to check is really long. Do I have to listen to every word of it?
Bored at Checking Station B

Dear Bored,
In a word, “NO!” For our members, time is of the essence. They need us to get recordings to them as quickly as possible. According to the RFB&D–NJ Volunteer Handbook and the national guidelines:
Check only the following
• Beginning of the file for extraneous noise
• Volume level for consistency
• Navigation (page and chapter) marks for proper placement
• Edits for smooth transitions
• One figure per reader for clarity and accuracy
• End of file and where readers change for extraneous noise
• Special instructions for handling elements in the book such as highlighted texts, line numbers, footnotes or margin notes. Check one element per reader.

If you catch an error such as a word omission or substitution, only note it if it changes the meaning of the text. The exceptions are K–3 books which should be checked more thoroughly and stumbles, word corrections, omissions and substitutions should be noted for correction.

Volunteer happenings

Joyce Galanter trekked to Churchill, Manitoba to spend some time with the local polar bears. Cindy Money spent some time in Berlin. (If we meant Berlin, NJ we wouldn't bother mentioning it!) Phyllis Braninis taking “a slow boat to China,” during January and the first part of February. Hopefully, she'll take another boat home to us in New Jersey. Rose Marie Proietti is off on a cruise around the tip of South America. Cathy Wheeler Christmassed in Deutschland.

Congratulations to Stephen Coales who became an American citizen in December.

Kuna Yankell started 2007 with her home featured on HGTV’s National Open House.

Vince Frascella was the chair of the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Vex Challenge held at The College of New Jersey on December 2. In the Vex Challenge, teams of high school students from across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland compete in games with robots they've built. In this competition, the robots played a basketball-type game. Vince also volunteers as a coach of a robotics team to help mentor future engineers and scientists.

If there's any news you'd like to share with your fellow volunteers, please tell Tony Gruenewald or send him an e-mail at tgruenewald@rfbd.org.

It's an epidemic

Coat and jacket weather has left me asking a question: Do we have to sew name tags into your outerwear? During the last week I am writing this, we have had three cases in which someone has left the studio taking another volunteer's similar-looking jacket from the closet. It may be a side effect of this year's flu vaccine...or it may be a symptom of a strain of flu the Centers for Disease Control didn't count on.

As you leave, ask yourself:
• Is this my jacket?
• Hmmm...it looks like my jacket, but why
does it feel so snug/loose?
• Whose car keys are these?
• I didn't leave a used hanky in my pocket, did I?

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
New Jersey Unit
69 Mapleton Road
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-750-1830

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