Penny Reeder
9504 Cape Ann Pl.
Montgomery Village, MD 20886-1224
(301) 869-6628
[email protected]
1. Hello again, ACB Voters,
I am Penny Reeder, and I am hoping to serve another term on ACB’s Board of Publications. I have enjoyed serving over the past four years, and I am proud of the board’s work to assure that our publications amplify our members voices, communicate our values, expand public awareness of ACB and the positive differences our organization makes for our community, and reflect currently accepted standards of accessibility, quality, and style. In ACB, the authority of leadership is derived from the members. A successful democracy depends upon an informed electorate. This is the principle that continues to motivate my service on the Board of Publications.
ACB’s success is largely dependent upon the degree to which our members feel that their voices are important and that they can be heard, the positive attention we are able to attract in the public arena, and our success in advocating for our civil rights. I am excited to participate on a board that strives to uphold ACB’s core values and achieve these outcomes.
2. My contributions to ACB at every level arise from my deeply felt commitment to supporting our community and advocating for the independence, safety, and good quality of life that we all hope for as people who are blind. Originally, I was drawn to the organization as an occasional reader of The Braille Forum. Then, I met several ACB members at a conference in the late 1990s, and they persuaded me to join the old ACB-L e-mail discussion list. As I met a larger and more diverse group of ACB members online, it didn’t take me very long to realize that, after many years of knowing very few other blind people, I had found a home. I joined my local ACB chapter, the Maryland and DC state affiliates, worked briefly for ACB, and over time, have been active in seven special-interest affiliates. I am proud of my service as president of Guide Dog Users, Inc., and I continue to work on GDUI’s advocacy and publications Committees. Recently, I edited a cookbook for the Alliance on Aging and Vision Loss. “The Food of our Times” has been well received. I am pleased that the publication is helping AAVL raise funding that will provide outreach to older people who need help receiving crucially important services and learning about and adjusting to blindness. I am currently serving a third term as secretary of my local chapter of ACB of Maryland.
As a BOP member, I have been honored to assist with redesigning ACB’s e-mail discussion lists, including launching ACB-Conversation; soliciting submissions for ACB’s Voices BLOG and assuring their high quality; reviewing and revising new guidelines for producing large print publications; supporting the growth and excellence of ACB Media; and assuring that ACB members can learn about candidates for office.
3. Although ACB faces challenges with respect to attracting new members and raising funding to achieve organizational goals, we have seldom been in a better position to embrace those challenges than the one we’re in today, as the pandemic recedes. During possibly the darkest years in our 60-year history, we have rediscovered our strength in community. Our challenge is to broaden that community by reaching out to blind and low vision people who don’t necessarily look like the majority of us, or share the same cultural backgrounds, or perhaps even yet share our commonly held beliefs in the very real possibilities of living independently and safely and well while blind. As we support one another, our community will continue to grow, our relationships with one another will deepen and become even more meaningful, and the wider world will get to know us better. We will tell our stories in community calls, online and through social media, in our BLOG and our magazine, our podcasts, and on all of our ACB Media channels. ACB Media will become even more influential, , our hybrid conventions will thrive, and the care and concern that we share with one another now will strengthen our advocacy and encourage the sighted world to look toward ACB as an organization of people who insist on inclusion, opportunity, and self-determination.