BC VRS Committee Update
Hello all,
Hope you are having good holidays!
Over the holidays the BC-VRS Committee Petition & Rally teams have been busy!
Please see 3 Vlogs made in December 2011 about the Petitions:
December 13, 2011 VRS Petition Updates & Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Answered(Part One)
December 20th, 2011 VRS Petition Video Updates & Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Answered(Part Two)
December 27th, 2011 For Lower Mainland Petition Holders
LSQ versions are now in the works… and we are now working on media releases in preparation for the VRS Rally – exciting & busy times ahead!
Program Technician- Douglas College
Click here to see this announcement in ASL
Hello everyone,
This is to announce a staff position available at Douglas College – competition 2011-185A – for a new Program Technician for INTR (Program of Sign Language Interpretation). The selection committee will begin looking at applications the first week of January. We hope to hire very early in January 2012.
To locate the job posting, go to the Douglas College home page: www.douglascollege.ca , type ‘jobs’ in the search box, select job postings, select staff, and scroll down to the competition number.
If you have questions about the posting, I will be checking my e-mail between Christmas and New Years.
Versa Effect
Washington State Association of the Deaf presents:
“VERSA EFFECT”
(English Subtitles)
$11 Admission
Friday, January 20
6pm (Door will be opened at 5:30p)
Emerald Ridge High School
12405 184th East
Puyallup, WA
PG
Funds proceed to Washington State Association of the Deaf
Tickets/info: info@wsad.org
Tickets will be sold at the door if available
DVDs will be available for sale:
– Forget-Me-Not
– Wrong Games
– Legend of the Mountain Man
– Gerald
– Black Sand
www.aslfilms.com
WIDHH- The Wave Fall 2011
We are pleased to send you the Fall 2011 The WAVE Newsletter! We hope you enjoy this edition! Click here to read it
There is a special attachment in this issue…
The WIDHH Strategic Planning Committee is making plans for the future and we are asking for your help and feedback. Please take 5 to 10 minutes to complete the attached survey. You do not need to sign your name, to keep your reply anonymous. Please return the completed survey form and mail to:
ATTN: Strategic Planning Committee
c/o WIDHH
2125 West 7th Avenue,
Vancouver, BC, V6K 1X9
If you prefer, the survey can be completed online at Survey Monkey at; https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WIDHHSurvey
Your comments, feedback and ideas are important to us. Please contact us at info@widhh.com if you have any questions, comments or concerns.
Dart Commissioner
Do you like playing darts? Are you familiar with the rules?
BC Deaf Sports Federation is looking for BC Dart Commissioner. If you are interesting or want to know more about it, please contact Paul Landry, Sport Director, plandry@bcdeafsports.bc.ca and CC to bcdeafsports@telus.net
Telus VRS Meeting
Hi everyone from the BC-VRS Committee, sent at 11:45pm. Tuesday November 29th.
At tonight’s Vancouver Telus meeting, almost 200 people were in attendance.
Telus reported that over 76,000 calls were made through VRS, and it has been calculated that 390,000 minutes were tallied, which is about equivalent to 6500 hours of interpreting time.
32 % of the trial participants used VRS
66 % of the trial participants used the videophone to call other Deaf (vp to vp/deaf to deaf)
Tomorrow morning CityTV hopes to air the interviews with Lisa, the BC-VRS Committee’s Communication Officer, and three others regarding why VRS is important to us.. Its on channel 13 and may air at 6 am., anytime from/between, 6:30 a.m. up to 9 am then maybe at noon.. Ava Hawkins we thank you for providing interpreting on short notice. We hope we get air time!
At 10:00pm. Andrew Hopkins of News1130.com interviewed Lisa through the trial VRS and recorded her voice-interpreted interview to be on the radio at 11:00pm. tonight and repeated again the next day and the text and words versions would be made available online at www.News1130.com or made available through your Blackberry, iPod, or iPad News1130.com Apps.
Telus has been contacted by the media and they are expected to answer the media tomorrow.. So cross fingers we get on TV, provided no major drama news happens out there on world news, smile.
A special mention needs to be made many thanks for all your attendance tonight and all the work everyone who volunteered tonight.
To date, the BC VRS Petition Task Force has completed over 90 video testimonials(stories) from around B.C. and in the Lower Mainland, and numerous people took copies of the paper petitions to get other people to sign.
A special mention needs to be made – The committee wants to give thanks specifically to:
David Macdonald, John Warren, Jodi Birley, and Mike Kellett with videos and photography.
Russ Ward, and Dan LeCours for organizing the interview lines and preparing people.
Lisa Anderson-Kellett, for preparing people for their petition work, with video releases, etc.
Jodi Birley for managing the letter templates for CRTC, with her computer and a printer, personalizing the letters for peoples’ signatures.
Margo Pelkey for showing people where they needed to go and directing traffic and for the bunch of PENS for the petition-signing.
Russ Ward for passing out petitions and getting the table. Many signed the petitions available as they were laid out on a set up table outside of the Meeting Room.
Nigel Howard for the CRTC updates and communications.
Susan Masters for arranging interpreting for the interviews.
Thanks to everyone to your volunteer contribution of time tonight.
We also had a collection jar and there were lots of people who donated money to the jar. Thank you to the Deaf community for donating.
Thank you to you all who took a petition to help the quest to have if not hundreds but THOUSANDS of petition-signers to send CRTC a loud message that we want a Permanent VRS in Canada.
Go VRS GO !!
Have questions, need to contact BC-VRS Committee? E-mail address: bcvrsc@gmail.com
BCVRS Update
BURNABY –
Tuesday, 29 November
Hilton Vancouver Metrotown
(McKay Avenue + Kingsborough Street)
4:30 – 6:30 PM
Deafhood Course
The Deafhood course taught by Nigel Howard, will be offered again starting in January 2012. If you are interested, or anyone you know would like to take the course, the course is open. You would study with the interpreting students in this course. To apply you just need to apply to the college as a General Studies student and then register in the Deafhood course. For more details, please see the attached flyer.
High Tech Phone Service for Deaf Youth
Plans for a hi-tech service enabling deaf youngsters to talk on the phone were last night at risk from “penny-pinching” telecom chiefs.
The video relay link, in which users with a computer and webcam see messages delivered by a sign language interpreter, is due to go nationwide next year. But regulator Ofcom wants to limit monthly usage to just 30 minutes per person.
It says the four telecom giants fear they will have to pass the “substantial” cost of their own scheme on to other consumers – just days after they posted record quarterly profits of nearly £1.12billion. But even its top estimate of £113million a year for the service represents less than two weeks’ profits for BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Sky combined.
The National Deaf Children’s Society branded the snub to Britain’s 45,000 deaf youngsters “penny-pinching and preposterous”. Chief executive Susan Daniels said the companies were not meeting their legal obligation of “equal access” for the deaf. She added: “The cost of this link is a drop in the ocean compared with their profits.”
Student Sonia Choudhary, 16, of East London, would be hit by the move. She said: “The only telephone I can use is my mobile to text. This link could let deaf young people using British Sign Language like me make any phone call. “Limiting it to 30 minutes a month is just crazy.”
