In This Issue

Braille Books on Your Victor Reader?. 10

2023 Board Meeting Schedule and Calendar 15

Disclaimer

Articles and announcements included in this publication are presented for your information and interest. They reflect the opinions of the respective authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the UCB.

Editorially Speaking

It’s hard to realize that the Utah Council of the Blind is 50 years old. When it was founded, I wasn’t living in Salt Lake, I was living in Provo, had just lost my first job and was going to what was then Arkansas Enterprises for the Blind in Little Rock to study how to be an IRS representative, at which I was a total failure. I didn’t even know that the organization existed until 1976 or -77 when I began getting calls from Leslie Gertsch asking me if I would like to join. I said I wouldn’t. And I didn’t.

And I didn’t even think of it until the ACB had their national convention in Salt Lake City. By that time, I was living and employed in Salt Lake, and some good friends of mine from Massachusetts came to the convention and started telling me why I should join. I went to several of the sessions at the time, including the business session on Saturday morning when they did all the voting. My two friends subsequently contacted the late Grant Mack, and he invited me out to lunch and did a selling job about why I should join the ACB. But what I really liked was his honesty. I asked him what I would get from joining the organization. He said “Probably nothing. It depends on what you yourself put into it. If you join the organization and volunteer to help, then I know you will get satisfaction from seeing whatever you find to do help others.” And he was right.

But think what changes we have seen for blind people in the last 50 years. When I joined, we had no computers that blind people could use. JAWS didn’t exist. There were no Braille displays of any kind. There were no talking home appliances like microwaves or scales. There was no video description for movies or television programs. Talking books were still being produced on records, though cassettes were starting to be produced.

And in the world not made for the blind, microwaves were coming in, but were very heavy and not all that popular yet. VCR’s didn’t exist. Neither did CDs, walkmans, air fryers, Amazon, and the internet hadn’t taken off yet, because personal computers were only just starting to become popular.

What a long way we’ve come! The next 50 years could prove to be even more interesting, though I don’t figure to be around that long. But hopefully the ACB and the UCB will be here long after us. It will, if younger people will start joining us, and start helping us to keep our programs growing, starting new ones, and getting rid of things that no longer serve us. It’s going to be up to you. We need new people to keep the UCB going, and hopefully make it to 100.

But I think that we have done very well during the last 50 years, and I believe that, though we haven’t been able to solve all of the problems of the blind and visually-impaired people of Utah, we can be proud of what we have done.

– Tom Mitchell

50 Years of UCB

A marvelous celebration held on December 3, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Utah Council of the Blind was held at the Division of Services for the Blind and Visually-impaired. A well-planned program celebrated people and events of past years in the UCB as well as current happenings in the organization.

The day started early at 9 a.m., with registration while Monica Youngdell provided background music. By the end of the day 92 people had come to the event, with between 5 and 6 people joining us on Zoom.

The program began at 10:00 with a welcome by President Anna Jeffery. She then turned the program over to Tom Mitchell, who did an excellent job with keeping the program moving and introducing participants.

The keynote speaker was Corinna Tanner, PhD, RN, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University and a peer counselor at the University of Utah's Moran Eye Center. She spoke of her struggles in becoming a nurse and getting her doctorate degree, then discussed the strides in employment made by the blind with more and different opportunities that are becoming available. Her primary focus was that these things would not be happening were it not for angels in the past and present who, recognizing the abilities of blind people, paved the way for people with limited or no vision to attend courses in school, and to go on to perform work in their chosen fields.

Representatives from various families whose relatives were key UCB leaders in the past spoke of working with their families for the organization.

Kate Balzly, daughter of Leslie Gertsch, talked of working with her mother and other members of the family on various fund-raising activities, parties, and conventions, and how so many of them became opportunities to help people, and the joys they often brought to the family.

Jeanie Schmidt spoke of her husband, Fred, a former UCB president, and his love for some of the outdoor activities in the past, particularly the annual boating outing that was held for many years at Pineview Reservoir.

Lunch was provided by the Red Flame, and consisted of turkey, baked potatoes, corn, salads, rolls, punch and brownies.

Following lunch, three children of Grant Mack, talked of memories of their father and how, as he became blind once, regained his sight, and lost it again, he adapted to his changing condition with courage, determination and a desire to help others through working with the UCB, and also the American Council of the Blind (ACB).

Three awards were presented to individuals who have volunteered their time and talents for many years. The Albert M. Talmage award was presented to Donni Mitchell. Nikki Hasson received the Sara Talmage Award for her volunteer group of struggling youth who have served us for over 20 years. Two Linda K. Braithwaite awards were presented: one to John England, and the other to Robert Hendricksen.

Music was provided at various portions of the day by Sandy Ruconich.

Each attendee who came to the conference was given a tote bag with a wooden plaque commemorating UCB Angels, and candy. The bags were made by BrailleWear of California, and featured a tactile figure and UCB below it written in jumbo Braille.

Those who attended the gathering enjoyed hearing of people from UCB's past and the chance to talk among themselves of old times and the opportunity to look forward to the future ahead.

Kudos should go to the planning committee: Anna Jeffery, Vicki Flake, Sandy Ruconich, Aunilie Hathaway, Dennie Clark and Mindi Larson, for their work in planning and carrying out this excellent celebration.

Valentine Lunch

By Sandy England

We want to give some notice of an activity for all of us.

What: Spaghetti luncheon

When: February 11, 2023

Time: 11:00 am-2:00 pm.

Place: DSBVI, 250 North 1950 West, Salt Lake City.

This is going to be fun, games, maybe music etc. You will enjoy a spaghetti lunch, and we will let you know the rest of the menu and the cost later. If you have any good games, music, etc., let Kate or me (Sandy England) know. Sandy cell: 801-634-8002 or contact Kate at the UCB office.

Braille Books on Your Victor Reader?

By Tom Mitchell

Okay, I can see some of you asking, how can I read Braille books on my Victor Reader, whether it’s a Stream or the Trek. Why would I want to, anyway?

Well, if you like reading, this gives you the opportunity to have more books at your disposal.

What we’re talking about here is reading Braille books from NLS-BARD. None of this applies to Bookshare or any other service.

These instructions assume that you already have BARD installed on your Victor Reader device. If you don’t already have BARD service installed on your Victor, then skip this article and go on to the next one.

But for those of you who already have the BARD service installed on your Victor Reader device and want the chance to read more books not recorded in audio format, here’s how you can read NLS Braille books on your Victor.

From anywhere in the unit, press the Menu key (7) repeatedly until you hear “NLS BARD. Remove NLS BARD service and delete all associated books.” Do not press the confirm key at this point, because that’s not what you want to do. Press the up-arrow (2) key. Your Victor will most likely say NLS book types to search. Audio books only.” Press the right-arrow (6) key and your Victor will say “Braille books only”. If you use this choice, you will be given only Braille titles to search. I don’t recommend it, but if you want to read nothing but Braille books, this is how you would do it. Press the 6 key again and you will hear “audio and Braille.” Press the confirm or pound key and your Victor will say selected. You have now enabled your Victor Reader device to search BARD for both Braille and audio books.

But now, when you go into your NLS BARD bookshelf, your Victor will behave a little differently. If you go looking for “Most popular books” or “Most recent Books” or whatever category of books you choose, your machine may say something like “Audio” and then give you a book title. You can then go on and look at the list of books available, and each one will say either “Audio”, or “Braille” and then a title. Your Victor is now telling you which books are recorded books, and which are Braille books.

Your books will all download into the “NLS BARD” BOOKSHELF.

When you download a Braille book and search for it in your machine you will likely find your book, but you may notice that there seems to be more than one copy. Well, there is only one book, but if your book takes multiple volumes, each volume is registered as a separate book. But if you listen to the title you may find a V01, V02, or however many number of volumes the book takes. You will read each volume as a separate book.

You will also find that there are no longer navigation levels like level 1 or level 2 in the book. Now, you will navigate by Page, Line, Paragraph, Sentence, Word or Character. Not all of those headings may be there, it depends on how the book is produced. Your book will be read by whatever text-to-speech voice you have selected. It may take you a little while to get used to the new configuration, but you may find that you get enough Braille books downloaded to keep this service on your Victor. Incidentally, Braille books take up less memory space than audio books do, so don’t worry if you download a lot of Braille books. They will still leave you room for audio books. If you find you don’t like having Braille books listed on your machine, simply go back through the menu until you get to NLS BARD, press key 2 to hear NLS book types to search, press key 6 till it says “Audio only” then press the confirm or pound key. Your Victor will say “Selected”, and will go back to the way you used it before. If you have any Braille books still in your memory, they will still be there. If you don’t want them simply delete them. It may sound a little confusing, but if you go through it step by step, you’ll see it’s not that hard at all.

General UCB Information

The UCB Buzz

The UCB Buzz is available in large print, Braille, audio CD, and by e-mail. If you would prefer to receive your newsletter in a different format, please call the UCB business office at 801-245-9264 or send an e-mail to utahblind@gmail.com and let us know.

We are always looking for articles, book reviews, or interesting tidbits of information from our readers or other interested persons. The deadline for submitting items for publication is the 15th of the month. You may e-mail any articles you wish to submit to tommit60@gmail.com; send Braille, print, or audio to UCB Buzz, PO Box 1415, Bountiful, UT 84011-1415. Please allow extra time for processing Braille, print, or audio.

2023 Board Meeting Schedule and Calendar

Members are invited and encouraged to attend meetings of the Board of Directors. Meetings will typically be held the first Thursday of each month at 4:45 p.m. via Zoom. To be placed on the agenda or attend a meeting, e-mail utahblind@gmail.com or call 801-245-9264.

Thursday, January 5, 4:45 p.m., Board Meeting

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