RFB&D-NJ Unit Volunteer Newsletter 7-08 (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

July/August, 2008

Tony Gruenewald, Editor

You did it!!!

I’m sure the throat lozenge industry was wondering why its sales spiked in May and June. You did it! You read, you directed, you checked, you bookmarked all the way to 9,953 hours of recorded material for the 2008 fiscal year! For those of us who don’t read Math books, I’m told that it’s 153 hours over our goal of 9,800 hours.

Just so you know that no good deed goes unpunished, the goal for July 2008-June 2009 is (gulp) 10,100 hours. Throat lozenges and chewy cranberry squares for everyone!

You’d think we’d be able to operate the phones

Sometimes progress is painful. In June National headquarters installed a fancy new phone system that will help us better communicate down the road. Of course, we had to work a lot of glitches out of the system. You know, things like not making you go through a menu the length of War and Peace to speak to someone or figuring out how to pick up or transfer calls without cutting you off.

Anyway, we’ve got most of the bugs worked out, but occasionally when more than one call comes in at once someone gets a busy signal or gets sent into phone menu limbo. Just call back. We apologize for any inconveniece.

Join our Speaker’s Bureau

Would you like to be a part of our Speaker’s Bureau? You’ll be going to civic organizations and senior centers to talk about volunteering for RFB&D. We’ll give you all the material and background information you need to make a presentation.

If you have any questions or would like to volunteer to be an RFB&D speaker, talk to Michelle Ioselevich!

SAVE THE DATE!

The 2008 Volunteer Recognition Luncheon will be Thursday, September 25 @ Queenship of Mary Church in Plainsboro.

Volunteer happenings
Call it Driving Miss Susan if you want. Our own Susan Schwirck is starring in Driving Miss Daisy at the Center Playhouse in Freehold. It will be playing Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 and Sunday afternoons at 2 from July 25 through August 24. For tickets or more information, visit www.centerplayers.org.

Bill Zellers was country hopping through Europe. Ken Olshansky was biking through France. Gwen Southgate is summering in Maine and putting the finishing touches on her book. Helen Davies is summering in Vermont. John Schivell was in Idaho. Martin Corwin is in The Berkshires. Your editor has been visiting family in Connecticut and North Carolina and will be off to Mexico City for a week in August.

Victory Chase and her husband Ted have had a busy year of travel abroad: Bulgaria and Romania last fall, with five days in Budapest and then Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in April, followed by a family get-together at a villa in Umbria in Italy in June. Summer will be spent in New Jersey letting their bank account recover.

You know him as volunteer Frank Glaz. Listeners to WJFN Oldies 99.7 of Huntington, Long Island know him as Frank Todd, the evening disk jockey. (Or is it “personality?”) Here in Jersey and around the world, you can hear him simulcast on www.wjfn.com. Oh, the miracle of modern technology that the radio station in Huntington is being hosted by a guy sitting in his house in Central Jersey. He is also hosting an acoustic music series in New Brunswick. The terrific John Gorka (I’m From New Jersey”) will be performing on November 8 and the side-splitting Christine Lavin will be there in June. For more information, visit www.secondsaturdaymusiccafe.com.

As a shameless a bit of self promotion: make www.tonygruenewald.com your new favorite waste of bandwidth.

Do you have news to share? Tell Tony Gruenewald or email him at tgruenewald@rfbd.org.

Gas prices got you down?

Do you read a specialty (Math, Computers, Economics, Medicine, etc.)?
Do you self-direct?
Can you devote six hours or so a week to recording?
Would you be interested at recording at home?
If so, see Michelle.

Dear Aunt Bea…

Aunt Bea reminds everyone that the studio will be closed on Saturday, August 30 and Monday, September 1 for the Labor Day holiday.

Dear Aunt Bea,
Sometimes I get so confused when I’m checking. Some people hit the mark, then say the page. A few others say the page,
then hit the mark. Who’s right? Does it matter?
The Divine Miss Mark

Dear Diving Miss M,
It goes like this…hit the mark…announce the page. If you announce the page before you hit the mark, if the listener wants to go to that page, they’ll never hear which page they are on. If you hit the mark and say the page simultaneously, instead of say, page 72, the listener hears, “two.” Remember, mark, then announce the page. If you’re checking and you hear anything else, indicate it as a correction.

Dear Aunt Bea,
I’ve been volunteering a few months. I’ve done the directing and checking thing. I think I’m ready to try to do the reading thing. Short of wielding sharp instruments, grabbing a book and blockading myself in a booth, what do I do to become a reader?
N. Ara Rator

Dear N. Ara,
All you need to do is reach out to one of the staff members (but not with the sharp instruments) and ask to begin preparing for a reading test. If you haven’t been taught to check yet, please ask to be taught. We’d like you to do that a few times before you begin to study.

Shop for a Cause for RFB&D-NJ Unit
on Saturday, September 20 at all Macy's

Purchase a savings pass for $5 from the New Jersey Unit (see Gretchen Orr) and bring it to any Macy’s stores on Saturday, September 20. Receive up to 20% off purchases (see below).

The NJ Unit gets the $5…you get the savings!

Shop For A Cause Savings Pass:
SFAC Savings Passes entitle the bearer to special savings on select merchandise throughout the store in addition to regular and sale merchandise specials. All day limited exclusion savings pass includes:

20% off* regular, sale & clearance women’s, men’s & kids’ apparel & accessories, fine, bridge & fashion jewelry, bed & bath items, housewares, frames, luggage, china, crystal & silver, all kitchen & personal care electrics & technology items.

10%* off regular & sale furniture, mattresses & rugs.

Plus, open a Macy’s account and get an additional 20% off!

*EXCLUDES: Cosmetics and fragrances, fine and fashion watches, designer and bridge handbags (including Coach, Dooney & Bourke, Juicy Couture and Marc by Marc Jacobs), designer and bridge shoes, Louis Vuitton, Polo/Ralph Lauren, Lauren and Tommy Bahama, Lacoste, 28 Shop, Oval Room, Martha Stewart Furniture, Lauren Ralph Lauren Furniture, Waterford, Lalique, Baccarat Tempur-Pedic, All-Clad, Henckels, and Wusthof. Not valid on EDV, Macy’s Gift Cards and Gift Certificates, special orders, previous purchases, restaurants and nonmerchandise-related services, Gift Registry kiosks, gift wrap, selected licensed departments or as payment on credit accounts. Discount will be deducted from the current price (regular, sale or clearance, as applicable). Cannot be combined with another savings pass or discount offers, except for new accounts (subject to credit approval). Valid Saturday, September 20, 2008.

Jerry Monastersky

Jerry Monastersky who became a Thursday evening fixture the past three years passed away in late June. A couple of years ago I was surprised to learn he was THAT Mr. Monastersky, a guidance counselor at my junior high school 35 years ago. Jerry wasn’t my guidance counselor, but he was assigned many of the most difficult kids (to call them students would be a stretch) in town. Let’s just say if you came from my side of town you were expected to graduate to Rahway State Prison and some of the kids Jerry worked with would have been voted most likely to be convicted (and years later were). He also taught science in several of the district’s schools. Sharing stories with him before the 7 p.m. session helped me reconcile a lot of unresolved things from that time in my life.

Keith Reid-Green

Keith Reid-Green passed away on July 11 after an illness while recovering from a serious traffic accident. Keith came to volunteer for RFB&D in 1996 because his son, who is dyslexic, used our recordings as an undergraduate student. It was no surprise to learn that Keith had been a graduate student of Irv Rabinowitz’s. Like Irv, he was an expert on a wide array of subjects. You could count on Keith to fill you in on what you needed to know about computers, math, physics, engineering, chemistry, archaeology, biology, French, German, Spanish, Latin and jazz.

Keith was a retired Director of Mechanical Design Techniques Research at RCA Labs and Distiguished Scientist at ETS. And when he wasn’t doing that, he played banjo in a jazz combo called Priority Five with fellow ETS employee and NJ Unit volunteer Skip Livingston.

Who is she? Where did she come from? Whatever happened to?

As June turned to July the studio staff turned some pages. Cathy Wheeler, who was in the studio on Fridays and Saturdays and one day during the week, is off on new jet-setting opportunities. Her background in psychology was very helpful in analyzing texts and reading tests and her “can do” personality helped us get a lot of recordings to our members. Hopefully, she’ll have some time to come back and volunteer. Jeff Kaplan is back to wearing his volunteer cap again. (We have to change our secret staff handshake again.) His friendly presence in the studio drew raves from many volunteers and having someone who could step in who already knew how to direct, check, edit, etc. was a huge help.

Terri Attridge is the new fulltime weekday Assistant Production Director. She comes to us full of energy and creativity from Rutgers University and Starbucks (where she still fills in and brings us yummy leftovers). She also has an extensive photography and graphics background and will be a big asset in helping Tony spruce up the unit’s look. So let’s all give a big thanks to Jeff and Cathy and a warm welcome to Terri!

R-A-T 2009 is all about Jersey!

We’ve already started planning for Record-A-Thon 2009 which will be April 20-25. This year we’re celebrating the tenth year of our Educational Outreach Center as well as the contributions of studio volunteers to its success. You’ve recorded the books that the almost 500 schools our Outreach Center supports need for their students.

So this time we’ll celebrating Thomas Edison, Frank Sinatra, The Boss, Count Basie, Susan Sarandon (she went to my high school) and, most importantly…YOU!

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

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