by Jean Mann
While memories of our latest ACB conference and convention are still fresh in our minds, I’ve been thinking about conventions past. I’ve attended 36 in person and several virtual and hybrid ones.
My very first ACB convention was in 1977. It was held in Miami Beach, Fla. in a hotel just steps from the Atlantic Ocean. Rooms were $19 a night.
I don’t think I attended any meetings that year. It was my first “adult” vacation; no parents, camp counselors or chaperones. Just me and seven of my friends from Albany, N.Y. I was 23 years old.
My friends had attended conventions before, and they introduced me to other people. I found myself hanging out with a group of Floridians. I spent the first couple days at the pool, until I got so sunburned it hurt to wear clothes. I’m paying for that now; I’ve had several bouts of basal cell skin cancer. I know I went to what was the exhibit hall, a small room with a few tables, nothing like the large exhibit halls of today.
I spent evenings at the pool, where somebody learned what we all liked to drink and provided us with liquid refreshment every night. Afterwards we’d go in the ocean and jump the waves, returning to our rooms in the wee hours of the morning.
One evening activity I specifically remember was an auction put on by RSVA. My love of bidding at auctions may have started that night, or maybe it was whatever I was drinking! I bid on a little container of fudge, chocolate-covered cherries (I don’t even like them), and a little transistor radio in the shape of a ladybug. The wings went up when you turned up the volume. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any stations to come in, and the wings broke off the next day!
For several years I spent conventions the same way. I went on tours, spent time checking out exhibits, and attending every party I could find — and there were lots of them. Conventions were my vacations, and I never wanted to get involved in the business or politics of ACB.
There were no mentoring or leadership programs in those days, but somehow through all my socializing and the blind grapevine, people found out that I was becoming an active member in my local chapter and on the state level, and had held leadership positions in our state blind bowling tournament association. They (never found out exactly who “they” were) decided it was time I got more involved in ACB. So at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning at the 1985 convention in Las Vegas, my phone rang. It was a member of VIDPI, the Visually Impaired Data Processors International affiliate, now known as BITS. I was a computer programmer and had joined that affiliate but wasn’t a very active member. I was asked if I’d run for secretary. Not being a morning person, and having played the slot machines until very late the night before, I first said no way, but then decided it would be a challenge, so I accepted. For the next two days the group wined and dined me and played those slot machines with me until the election, which I won, although I’m not sure anybody ran against me! Thus began my involvement in ACB.
The next year, ACB of New York needed somebody to act as our delegate. I was the only person going who’d attended conventions before, so the job fell to me, which meant I had to start attending meetings. I got so caught up in resolutions that when I got home, I asked if I could serve on that committee. What was I thinking! There were no vacancies there, but there was an opening on the constitution and bylaws committee, so I ended up serving there. My task was keeping track of the proposed amendments and bylaws changes and reading them on the floor, my first national exposure.
The following year, the person who was supposed to chair the committee started a new job just before convention, so I took her place and ended up chairing that committee for several years.
That summer, several of my mentors encouraged me to run for an open board position. I was still secretary of VIDPI, president of my local chapter, on the board of my state affiliate, involved in several activities outside of ACB and working full-time. But I ran, and to my great surprise and delight, I won. I was 34 years old, one of the younger board members. I served as a director for eight years.
It was probably easier being on the board then than it is now. We had pre- and post-convention board meetings, another one in the fall, and one in the winter. It meant traveling three times a year, but it helped with the frequent flyer miles! There was the occasional phone conference call, but long-distance calls cost money in those days; no cell phones. No email either, so all correspondence was done through the mail.
While on the Board, and for several years thereafter, I ran what we called the Convention Office, where we handled much of what the Information Desk does today. I did whatever the convention coordinator needed me to do. Lots of people either stopped in or called at some point during the week, so I was in touch with almost everybody.
Occasionally organizations of and for the blind around the world invited each other to visit. While I was on the Board, I was asked to be part of a group of four to spend a week in Germany. Not sure how I got selected for that honor, but I gladly accepted and had a wonderful time.
Over the years, I’ve served in every office in my state affiliate except treasurer at least once. On the national level, I served on the convention committee for 11 years, I chaired and still serve on the Credentials Committee; I co-chair the MMS (Monthly Monetary Support) Committee and serve on the Resource Development Committee, and I’m currently on the ACB Awards Committee. I even served on that Resolutions Committee for one year, but that was in the days when meetings were held in the wee hours of the morning, but I was in my fifties by then, and found I didn’t have the energy I had in my younger days!
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t answered the phone that long-ago Sunday morning, or if I hadn’t changed my mind and run for that secretarial position. I wonder if the ACB bug would have bitten me at some other time. Once it bites you, it stays in your blood. And while I’m now a member of the older generation, I suspect I, or somebody, will find a way to keep me involved for more years to come.