This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings
MELISSA RICCOBONO: That's the best part about us offering the Virtual Experience and the virtual ways to tune into Convention. A couple years ago, it was a last-minute decision and was sad but really appreciated I was able to feel as much a part of the Convention as I could from home and actually be able to do some participation, which on the surface it looks like you won't be able to.
DANIELLE McCANN: Do they have ribbons that they wear?
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Really good question. I don't know the ribbon answer but maybe you do. Delegates are the people from each State Affiliate who are charged with being the voice of that affiliate during the Convention. These people are voted on by their state Convention, so you don't just appoint yourself a Delegate. The National Office doesn't appoint somebody as a Delegate. The State Affiliate votes. Often it's the State President. Sometimes it can't be if the State President can't come to Convention for some reason or there's some other type of circumstance sometimes it's not a State President but in general it is a State President.
And again the delegates' job mostly at the Convention we do use a voice vote system and it's all the members that are present and voting are able to vote on questions. But sometimes especially during resolutions, the voice vote is way too close to call and anybody then can call for a call of the roll, and then it is the job of the affiliate Delegate to weigh their thoughts about the resolution, their members' thoughts about the resolution and not just those members that are at the Convention yelling loudest in their ears.
Also the Convention goers who wish they were at Convention but are at home listening on the Virtual Experience or members that for whatever reason can't listen so that's really what a Delegate is and what a Delegate does and so when a Delegate casts a yes or no, up or down, vote for a resolution or an election or whatever else it is, that person really has that responsibility and by voting that person in at a state Convention the affiliate is giving them that responsibility to speak for the membership of that affiliate. Not just the members that are there. Not just the delegates' personal feelings but really what the Delegate feels will ultimately be best for all the members of the National Federation of the Blind.
DANIELLE McCANN: That's a really great definition of who a Delegate is and what they do. And I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. So bear with me just one second. I'm going to share my screen and playing the recording that President Riccobono put together for us so you can have more insight on what a Delegate does.
A little technical difficulty. It's telling me here that it can't play it at the moment. One moment.
(Screen reader)
All right, just one second here.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Good old technology. It's wonderful when it works, and when it doesn't it makes you want to pull your hair out.
DANIELLE McCANN: Yeah, exactly.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: I hear your JAWS.
DANIELLE McCANN: I'm going to stop sharing for a moment while I sort it out.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: All right, that sounds great. How are we doing on the closed captioning side? Do we have stuff for Anna?
STEPH CASCONE: Yes, closed captioning is working, and we'll also provide the transcript for the few moments in the beginning.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Fantastic. Look at us. That is lovely. So Steph, what are you doing today to get ready for the Convention?
STEPH CASCONE: Great question. We're in the final as I think Danielle said of crunch time of getting all the communication pieces together, so all of those notifications that go through the app which Anna will talk about.
Getting the final pre-Convention emails to go so folks know what's happening during the week of Convention, and all the social media which I'll be talking a little bit about, as well. Getting ready to engage in all the different spaces. So we have of course the engagement on the ground in person but then of course all these different platforms that of course the Virtual Experience folks may also be engaging with. So lots of places to be prepared for.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Anna, what are you up to today to get ready for the Convention?
ANNA ADLER: A lot of the same things actually. We are finalizing all of the braille documents that we're bringing for the exhibit hall. I am also preparing for the virtual exhibitor and virtual sponsor preview which will be on Wednesday and Thursday night so getting all of the speakers and all of the sponsors and exhibitors lined up for that so I hope everyone here will join that one as well.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Wednesday is the exhibitor.
SPEAKER: Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern and Wednesday is the sponsor preview at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: They're actually for everybody and you can get a lot of details about what's happening in the exhibit hall. I find I have a harder and harder time getting to the exhibit hall myself. And so it's really nice to have sort of that preview and figure out okay, if I have this little bit of time what am I going to run and try to find quickly before I have to be back so that's really helpful.
People are doing training and/or helping pack boxes for either free literature or the Independence Market, so all around the building people are getting ready for the Convention. President Riccobono has been doing read throughs of presidential reports and banquet speech. These are very secret.
He whispers or goes into the office in the building while we're home, so I don't get to hear a preview at all but that's one thing he's been doing a lot of because of course he doesn't just want to read the speech for the first time when he's up in front of everybody.
DANIELLE McCANN: Just some ad libbing.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Exactly, yeah.
DANIELLE McCANN: Take two. I think I've got it.
(Screen reader)
MARK RICCOBONO: Greetings, Federation family. I wish I could be with you in person to talk with you about Delegates to our National Convention, but unfortunately I have a number of things that are keeping me from being with you in person so I'm happy to give you this virtual presentation about Delegates as part of our Virtual Convention Experience kickoff. Let me thank you for participating in the Virtual Convention Experience and say we do wish you could be with us in person at our convention in Orlando, but we understand sometimes circumstances don't work out.
We hope you will make plans to be in person with us in 2025. Now, I was asked to come participate in this meeting to talk about the role of Delegates to the National Convention, and I want to do that real quickly by grounding you in the fact that we are an organization built on active participation so as members, we need you to do more than just come and participate in the National Convention once a year.
We need an active level of participation throughout the year. And our members do that through participation in our local affiliates. Now, many people participate in the local affiliate by going to local chapter meetings and chapters of course make up state affiliates in many places. We recognize though and always have that it's not possible for every sickle member of the organization to make it to the Convention.
That would be an awesome Convention if that were the case but there are often circumstances that make that impossible for folks, and so every State Affiliate is asked to have a Delegate to the National Convention and this is really authorized through the National Federation of the Blind's Constitution, which sets forth that the state affiliates are the foundation for having a nationwide movement, and we have the state affiliates because we want the organization to be representative of blind people from all parts of the country, not just certain types of blind people, like you might find in our national divisions.
Not just blind people who are educators, who are business owners, or blind lawyers. We want representation from each of the states and we have also onboarded the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico although they're not states. For our purposes they are state affiliates and have equal status to those places that are states. Recognizing that not everybody can be at the Convention, every affiliate has a Delegate.
Often that's going to be the President of that State Affiliate because they're going to be the most knowledgeable. They are the highest-ranking official in the State Affiliate so they should be the most connected to the people and what people are thinking and best suited to represent the organization. And the Delegate really is the person carrying the thoughts, feelings, ideas, of blind people from that state to the Convention, and representing people from that State Affiliate. So it's not just people who are present in the room in Orlando that will be represented by the Delegates.
It's all of you, and your participation in the Virtual Convention Experience helps you stay informed and should allow you to have influence with your Delegate. I do encourage you to get to know your Delegate if you haven't already. That can be hard, as we're just coming up on Convention, and if this is your first Convention you might simply want to find time to understand the Convention and the structure of the organization at this Convention. I encourage you though to jump right in and start having influence.
Let your Delegate know what your thoughts and feelings are.
The Delegate because they're elected, an elected official, of the State Affiliate, the actions they take at the Convention will be subject to review by those who are going to elect them again in the future, so you have a lot of influence over your Delegate. Keep in mind the Delegate doesn't just represent you. They represent all of the members of the affiliate so it's their job to synthesize the thinking and what happens during the Convention. Now, during the Convention our Delegates have some honorary positions they represent.
They get to stand up and give a roll call report from the affiliate and these are... Where that's needed and in general at the Convention those who are in the room we use voice vote to understand the will of the majority but if it's close and it's not clear by a voice vote we go to the state affiliates knowing that our Delegates are empowered to understand the positions and ideas, thoughts, dreams of blind people in the room but also back home in local communities. Our Delegates also help mobilize people when we have activities at the Convention, when we need to have ambassadors stationed throughout the Convention, when we need to help people from the delegation who are having problems with the hotel or other wise, our Delegates make the Convention run.
My message is you're represented by a Delegate to the Convention and if you haven't gotten to know them you should get to know them as soon as you can and you can find their information at nfb.org by going to our State Affiliate and I encourage you to find ways, even through our Virtual Convention Experience, to influence the decision making of the National Federation of the Blind convention in Orlando. I do again encourage you to think about being at our 2025 Convention in person. There's really no replacement for being in person at our Convention. I do hope that you enjoy the Virtual Convention Experience, and I look forward to meeting you soon at a meeting of the Federation. Let's go build the National Federation of the Blind. (Screen reader)
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Yeah, what he said.
(Laughter)
DANIELLE McCANN: That was great. It's nice to hear his perspective on it. It's really similar to what you said but slightly different enough that it's a little bit of President Riccobono in there.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: I mean he's the President. I'm just the first lady. He's the man. So
(Laughter)
DANIELLE McCANN: So like he said if you would like to see who your Delegate is or engage with your affiliate, especially if you're new, if you're new to the organization, if you're like, I want to see what this Convention is all about or I've heard about this Convention or I'm not ready to maybe go in person for this year or whatever reason, visit our website nfb.org.
And you can find all sorts of information there, but you can find your Delegate information, or the information for your affiliate on the website and you're able to connect with your
Delegate that way. So. So what do you say we talk about some social media, Melissa.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: That sounds like a great idea. I would just say if you're looking for your Delegate the best person to ask is your State President. They'll know your Delegate. We don't announce that officially until the roll call of states which does not occur until July 6, that's the opening session so we don't have, at least I don't think we have, a master list, because things can change and so it's really at that time that we hear who all the Delegates are.
But your State President if they're not the Delegate they will certainly know who else is. But let's talk about some social media.
DANIELLE McCANN: Do we all have our fingers and thumbs, and braille displays and keyboards and braille screen input on the iPhone? Do we all have that ready? Because we should get ready to interact on social media, so, Steph, do you want to give us an overview of our social media platforms? And then kind of what we're doing during Convention?
STEPH CASCONE: Sounds great. No pressure to post that you're attending this first Virtual Experience session as we kick off Convention week, but in terms of social media, it's such a great way to instantly connect with friends, families, and other members of the National Federation of the Blind at any time. Social media never stops, there's been discussion on whether it should have a 9:00 to 5:00 opening because sometimes in the wee hours of the night there could be pretty hot topics going on.
But nonetheless it is 24/7 type of platforms so National Convention, beyond having social media throughout the year, National Convention is a great time to really jump in on conversations happening within organization across the board and so National Federation of the Blind is on several social media platforms, and so Facebook, Mastodon, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter so our recommendation is not that all of you need to be on any of those or all of those in any sort of time it's a matter of course of your preference. Some of you may be primarily on Facebook or Mastodon or LinkedIn et cetera, so wherever you have your primary platform, we want to be where the people are, and so with that, there's a couple of things that can be helpful to know on any of these platforms.
So hashtags are a big piece of social media you may know but for those who may not know, hashtags which are also the pound sign or number sign, followed by a string of either characters or words, we'll talk about that in just a second, but hashtags are used kind of like filters on social media platforms. When you include a hashtag in your post it becomes a hyperlink and when people go to that hashtag feed they can see all of the posts that are public that people have engaged with in terms of that certain topic or event, so you see a lot of hashtags around hot topics or events like this. So our hashtag across all the platforms is #NFB24.NFB24.
In terms of other hashtags you might use, some people loop in other ones. It's important to note that hashtags have to be all together so there's no spaces or other punctuation when it comes to hashtags. So #NFB24 is a great way to include the Convention in your post within the sentence so you can say something like I'm attending the #NFB24 Convention is one way to put that. It's also good if you get a chance to write out our full name, the National Federation of the Blind is important because one of the most important aspects of our name is that "of," so when you're writing posts if you get a chance to refer to us in the full name, that is always a great option to do.
Additionally some of you may also be posting images. We do love to share images. Images really help engage people on social media and are so fun things for Virtual Experience folks to post when it comes to images is what is your set up like? Are you hanging out on the couch while you're tuning into the general sessions? What is your banquet dinner? How are you accessing the virtual sessions and your set up, that sort of thing so taking those pictures are always fun to do or you might be taking video if you're on a platform like TikTok so it's important to note about descriptions, and so for any platform there are a couple of different ways you can add image descriptions.
You can add them directly on the post themselves, so you could say something along the lines of: I'm attending the #NFB24 National Convention Virtual Experience and I'm tuning into the general sessions from my living room. And then you could say, image description is me sitting on a big couch with a furry pet and blanket, cozying up with my hot cup of tea or something. Although it's summer. You might have cold tea, iced tea, so you have the image description within the post is one way to do it.
Another way is most platforms -- and I know sometimes platforms changes with updates -- but most platforms do have an image description field. Sometimes it's labeled alt text field or alternative text field and that's also an area where you can add that image description, sitting in my comfy chair with my iced tea in that field so image descriptions are really important because we want to have equal access so there's a couple of different ways to do that.
Additionally for social media -- let's see here -- it's also important as members, too, when we're talking about hot topics, you may as resolutions are coming along or the general sessions, or the presidential report, you may have your thoughts and opinions on certain topics and that's great. One important kind of tip that we like to share too is that as a reminder, as members, we are all the NFB so sometimes on social media we often say "they" as in the NFB. What are they doing in terms of the resolutions, or whatever topic you might be talking about.
But it's really important that we're all together so we here all in this session, all in this webinar, we are the National Federation of the Blind so it's helpful to keep that in mind as you're posting. And with all the excitement and important conversation, sometimes there's deep thought in conversations. There also can be concerning or maybe negative topics or comments that happen and you certainly can choose to engage or not engage with those negative pieces. We do recommend taking time away from social media if it does become too heated, and you can report or block folks on any platforms.
And it's also good reminder if you're a leader and member, any sort of leadership role, to also remember that we do have policies around social media and our Code of Conduct so you might want to check that out, and the Code of Conduct is available at nfb.org on any of those pages on the footer so that's the social media piece. I also am excited to share somewhat similar to social media but it is a virtual space that this year, we are opening up President Riccobono's personal AI or Mark AI as we're calling it to engage with so with we'll be sending out opportunities for you to chat with Mark AI virtually via the web or through text messages possibly and it's good.
With we're building up a Mark AI's memories and I'm sure Melissa has a lot of experience recently as we've been testing things that Mark AI knows and doesn't know but we are working on having the memories built for all of the Convention agenda as well as his past banquet speeches and milestones during the presidential reports and other summaries that he's been working on over the last 10 years so that's personal AI, Mark AI, that will be coming out so those are my quick tips on social media and Mark AI, and Danielle, happy to have any questions that, or anything that I missed that you want to make sure is important for the Virtual Experience folks.
DANIELLE McCANN: I think that you covered it very, very well. I would like to take a second to say two quick things about the social media. BeMyEyes or BeMyAI has been helpful in getting AI generated descriptions of pictures and while it's not like 100% trustworthy, sometimes it will say a picture of my cat is a pile of rug on the floor.
(Laughter)
But it is helpful to at least get those writing -- if you're not a writer it could be hard to say: How would I describe this picture? If you generate the description with BeMyAI and edit it, it would at least get you started. With Mark AI there's testing going on and I was happy to know that Mark AI knows who Cammy my dog is, so that's cool.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Mark AI loves Cammy your dog, and she loves real Mark. I don't know if she'd like Mark AI as much, there's not anything to lick.
(Laughter)
DANIELLE McCANN: Just one question for you: If folks use, sometimes I've seen where people on social media will put #NFB2024, or #National Federation of the Blind 2024, so what would happen -- like, nothing terrible would happen, right? It would just be more like a different filter.
STEPH CASCONE: Exactly. That's exactly. It would not fall into the #NFB24. So it's good to stick with the short if possible. It is sometimes fun to write out long hashtags but #NFB24 keeps it short and quick so hopefully that is helpful, but sometimes what we've done too is in the case that people have done 2024 we're happy to share those put and, or other people can share it using the #NFB2024 so get it into the filter so we'll hack to get it into the right one.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Not only is it cool to do the hashtag but the reason it's cool is because you can search that hashtag and see what other people were saying. I might have missed that as I was boxing cookbooks for the Book Fair, in case people joined us late. It's one of those things that's really fun to look at that hashtag. You can search with Facebook. You can search with Mastodon.
You can search with X, and then you can find out what other people are saying on that hashtag and connect with people maybe that you don't know or maybe people that you do know but you haven't talked to in a long time or whatever. It's just nice to see what other people are saying. That's the other great part about the hashtag. It allows people to connect with you and find you and it also allows others to know what you're doing and allows you to know what others are doing.
STEPH CASCONE: Absolutely right. You can have it at your discretion whether you want it to be public or not so for those who you do want to be public you can post your privacy setting as public and that way other people you wouldn't know maybe who are not your friends or followers can engage with your posts and vice versa, so you can engage with the public posts and not have to follow someone or be a friend necessarily but that could lead down the road to being friends or building that relationship. If you wanted to have a more discrete sort of role you could have those settings not be so public so there's options there.
DANIELLE McCANN: Just picture nowadays, oh, our friendship started because of a hashtag.
STEPH CASCONE: I love that.
DANIELLE McCANN: Let us know. Use our hashtag if you have become friends with someone through our hashtag.
STEPH CASCONE: That would be a great braille monitor article. I'll write that down.
DANIELLE McCANN: Speaking of making connections and being active, I wanted to talk with Anna about the Convention app. Would you be able to give us an overview of the app?
ANNA ADLER: Absolutely. So we have an app for the NFB National Convention again this year. If you used it last year or prior years, you'll find it's very similar, and if you're registered for the Convention as an in person or virtual attendee, you should have gotten an invitation and instructions for how to download the app or how to access it on the web so you can get to it via your computer or laptop as well.
Basically just need to log in with the email address you used to register for the Convention. You will receive a verification code the first time you log in on a device but if you go back to that same device throughout the week, for the next 30 days you shouldn't need that verification code again and if you don't get the verification code check your spam boxes because sometimes it goes there.
But the Convention app is great because it really Convention all of the information that you will need to engage with the Convention, with the sessions, with the attendees, with the sponsors and the exhibitors. So when you log in there's a home page. There are tabs across the top with quick links and there's also quick links on the main page. You'll find the agenda, you'll find kind of a directory of attendees who have chosen to share their profiles publicly, sponsors, exhibitors, ways to support the NFB and also the speakers.
So I'll talk through a few of those things.
The agenda for example. You can look through the whole agenda, and it also includes Zoom links for any of the events that are streamed or are exclusive to virtual participants. So you can filter in different ways. I suggest filtering by date, or you can also filter by category and select virtual if you just want to find the events that are exclusive virtual events. You can add sessions to your schedule, so there's a button on each agenda entry that says "add."
You'll know you added it if it changes to "remove," and then if you navigate across the Tab there's a Tab, my schedule, and you can find the events that you've registered for or signed up for there on your schedule. That's organized by date, so you won't see it all in a list but if you navigate through the tabs, for each day of the Convention, including the pre-Convention events, you'll find your events and your sessions.
Going back to attendees on the main page, you can edit your profile. You can add links to your LinkedIn account, a little bio about you. You can add a picture, and in the profile section, there's a settings menu, and there you can edit your privacy. So by default when you log in, you will be private, invisible, or hidden, I'm sorry. And then if you select that, you can change to make your profile visible to the rest of the attendees. Also in that section you can find announcements from the NFB. So we'll be sharing updates.
If any important sessions have changed or had updates, we'll send messages through the app, also reminders about things like the Give25 drive is ending, things like that. You can also send direct messages to other attendees who have enabled that and made their profiles visible. So that is a great way to connect with other attendees. Just remember, like Stephanie said, the Code of Conduct does apply here. And we treat it like a professional event.
Going back to the home page, you'll find links to sponsors and exhibitors so you can scroll through and find all of the sponsors and exhibitors. Their profiles include a short description of the organization, their exhibit table number if they're exhibiting and a link to their website and many of them have also added additional information, contact information, links, documents, and you'll find that in their profile.
You will also find if you are in a sponsor, or exhibitor, profile that there is a link for "contact us," and that is a way that you can message the organization directly, so if you have a specific question about the product or you want to set up a meeting, you can message them through this app. If you do this, just note they will have access to the email address that you used to register for the Convention. So they will be able to contact you directly. I wouldn't think of this function as a direct message or a text.
They might not see it right away, but they will be going through these messages throughout the weekend after the Convention and can follow up with you to talk about whatever specific question that you had. So another thing I just wanted to add is that we have been working with the company that develops this app for a number of years. We've been working with them on accessibility, but it is not perfect.
And we want to continue to work with them and make progress on the accessibility of the app so if you have questions about accessibility or discover for example a button that is unlabeled, please email [email protected] and if it's something that we can help you figure out right away we will respond, or we're just keeping a list of things that we want to fix for the future so we're going to bring that to the developers and push them to make more progress before next year's Convention. So Danielle, Steph, or Melissa, is there anything I missed? Any questions? Any other tips on using the app?
DANIELLE McCANN: This is Danielle so I will say that I had the app downloaded from last year, and when I opened it, immediately when I opened it this year it was like: Hang on, you have to update to the new one so I thought that was cool that it does prompt you right away to do that.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: I agree. You'll still need to log in again, which is actually good, because that makes sure you're not -- maybe things change from year to year or maybe you were private last time and now you want to be public, whatever. It's nice you have to make a different presence on the app each year. I am so happy that this app started when we were all virtual and it was so convenient because there was a zillion and 3 Zoom links we had to keep track after over the week, and had I had to go to the web every single time and look something up, I think I would have gone bonkers and so the app just made it so convenient to have everything in that one place right on my phone.
And I am just so happy that we in the National Federation of the Blind have continued to have the app available for Convention attendees both virtual when you need the Zoom links and also for those that are in Orlando who need to know: Okay, what room am I going to? What time is that meeting? Although I'm still a huge proponent and a huge believer in the braille agenda.
To me, Convention does not start until I have a braille agenda in my hands, and I've actually looked at it a bit, but the app is in some ways better if you're virtual, and almost as good if you are in person.
So I'm just happy that we have continued that, because it does cost us time, staff time. It costs us money. And we bring it to our members and those who register for the Convention free.
And so you who have registered for the virtual Convention thank you so much for doing that. That's part of the reason we asked you to pay 10 dollars this year because the app is not free. Having a Zoom host is not free.
Having closed captioners and interpreters is not free and again we do these things because we want everybody to be able to participate but we really do appreciate those who are able to register and pay that 10 dollars to help us offset those costs.
DANIELLE McCANN: Yeah, exactly and I love that does also help us with staying in communication and continuing to improve the app alongside the developers. That does also take time and resources and so thank you very much for supporting the app and the other thing that I was going to say about the app especially if you're in person, it does let you enable notifications and for me that's particularly helpful because sometimes I've got two things going at once or I've got one earbud for example listening to interpretations and then the other one maybe listening to a meeting that I'm in so it's really helpful to get that notification like, hey, you're supposed to be downstairs.
(Laughter)
Thank you very much for that overview Anna. Speak of being supportive and thankful to everyone for like we said earlier for being supportive, but Anna will you tell us a little more about Give25?
ANNA ADLER: Yeah, absolutely. So this year, we are in the midst of our Give25 drive. You may remember we did the Give20 campaign last year and a few years prior, but this year we're dreaming bigger. We've got the Dream Big Give25 drive. This is a way for us to give back to the Federation. You can give by supporting -- you can support by giving to 4 funds, and you can learn more about the funds and the things they support and how to give at nfb.org/Give25.
If you're not sure which fund you want to give to, the white cane fund is a great one to support. That's our general fund and that means that your support is going where it's needed most.
So there are two big things that are new this year that I want to highlight. The first is that there are actually two drawings and two big prizes that people could win by entering. There is a trip to next year's National Convention which includes round trip air fare for 2, the hotel through the whole convention, registration and banquet tickets for 2, and 1,000 dollars walking around cash.
You could also take 2,000 dollars cash but that first one is a big one and of course we get to meet you at the Convention next year. The second big drawing that we will be drawing for is a Monarch tactile device. This is a gift and a donation from our friends at the American Printing House and Humanware. The Monarch Dynamic tactile device has a value of about 20,000 dollars so this is a big prize, and if you enter the Give25 drive, you could win it.
The other new thing this year is that if you have family or friends who maybe want to support the Federation, but aren't interested in any of the prizes or maybe they just owe you a solid, they can give in your honor and if their name is drawn you will actually get the prize so they just have to put your name and a phone number or email address on the contribution form, and you can win that prize.
Another reminder is that each 25 dollars is a chance to win, so if you give 50 dollars, your name will be in the drawing twice. If you give 100 dollars, your name will be in the drawing 4 times. So I hope you all can participate either by giving or encouraging friends and family to give. The drive closes on Saturday, July 6, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern and the winners will be announced on Sunday at the banquet. You do not need to be present to win.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: So the banquet's actually Monday. July 7? Is Monday July 7?
ANNA ADLER: I'm sorry, it's Monday at the banquet, yeah.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: But it still ends on the 6th?
ANNA ADLER: Yes.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: My gosh so that's good.
ANNA ADLER: We need the extra time to make sure we find the winners.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, all right. So do it now and I need to do this, and I need to ask my friends and family, I don't know that I've ever heard on one of our webinars, "do you a solid" so thank you for putting it that way. I love that phrase. That's going to make me smile all day. If you have people who owe you a favor need to do you a soiled please let them know that they can do this for you.
DANIELLE McCANN: If anyone wants to do me a solid my last name is spelled with two Cs and two Ns.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Me too although I don't know if I can win. I think that might be kind of looked upon as, I don't negotiation I don't know that I would accept it even though I would really love a Monarch. But anyway, that's a different topic for a different day.
ANNA ADLER: We all win when we support the Federation.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: That's absolutely right and I can still have my family and friends -- maybe what I'll do is have them give my children's names and I wouldn't feel quite so odd if they happened to win so maybe that's what we do.
ANNA ADLER: There we go. Nice compromise.
DANIELLE McCANN: Thank you so much for that overview on the app and the Give25. We have a couple of questions that came through the Q&A. I'm sorry, my phone is ringing in the background.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Yay. I can't hear it so you're good.
DANIELLE McCANN: Good, good, good. One of the questions is from Elisa and she's also if we use the hashtag the #24 today, will we still be able, will it still count as attending the Virtual Experience? Yeah, you can use the hashtag at any time. You could even use it next year and say I attended #NFB24 so, yeah, so thank you so much for your question.
Also Elisa is asking about or saying that there are some Android users who may be encountering some bugs with the app so they would just need to contact, do that contacting in the app, right, Anna?
ANNA ADLER: They could do that. They could email [email protected]. I do know that the app requires Android operating system 10 or higher, so that might be the problem. But definitely message through the app or email [email protected].
DANIELLE McCANN: Awesome, thank you. Then the other question that we have is also about the app and it looks like maybe the person who asked the question I apologize, your name is slipping my mind but had an issue adding today's event to their schedule or join through the app so that may have just been a glitch, and so again like Anna said, there's a couple ways to contact app support so hopefully that doesn't happen again but I'm glad you're here.
We're glad you got here. But, yeah, so I think that that's all the questions that we have. Melissa, do you have any final thoughts this morning?
MELISSA RICCOBONO: I don't think so. But this has been so fun but please just keep in touch. I guess another way to keep in touch is joining the NFB Convention email list. Go to nfb.org, there's a list that's NFB conventions and the only thing that's posted to that list are announcements regarding Convention. Some get posted then also to our master email list so you might get stuff twice, but you'll get them on the Convention Listserv first so if you want to make sure you're doing all you can to stay up to date with what's going on that's a really nice way to do it.
And I'm just excited that we are able to bring you lots of great content again. You'll be hearing from Danielle and from me and from Anil and I'm sure Chris Danielsen and who knows who else might. Our exhibit hall showcase and the 27 is our sponsor showcase both at 8:00 p.m. on Zoom Eastern. Eastern is the time zone of the Convention and of all of our stuff this year because we're in Florida, we're in Maryland, Eastern time so sorry if you're not Eastern but you have to just make that Convention.
DANIELLE McCANN: When we say Convention time that means Eastern?
MELISSA RICCOBONO: That's right.
DANIELLE McCANN: Stephanie, Anna, any last words for our participants today?
STEPH CASCONE: This is Stephanie, yeah, to Elisa's question if you are using social media then today's a great day to start posting under #NFB24 so hopefully this session was helpful and all the things we've shared and yeah get people excited for next week. So great to post now. That's my final little tip there. Thanks, everyone, for being here. Thanks Danielle for having me.
DANIELLE McCANN: Thanks, Steph.
ANNA ADLER: It's been great being here, and as Melissa said, I hope to chat with all of you again later this week at the virtual exhibitor and virtual sponsor sessions.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: And this is being recorded also and so I'm guessing Danielle and Steph this will be up on our website somewhere, where people can get it if you have friends or family who haven't been able to view it in real time. Is that true?
STEPH CASCONE: Yes, yeah, that is the goal.
MELISSA RICCOBONO: Okay, fantastic.
DANIELLE McCANN: Well thank you everyone so much for being here. Thank you to those who joined me here on the panelist stage. Thanks to our captioner, our interpreters and we will be with you for the next event on Wednesday. I hope everyone has a great day.
ANNA ADLER: Bye, thank you.