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Women’s Brunch Club
Where: CSD
Time: 10am-12pm
When: The last Wednesday of each month
Who: Women from the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community
Thank you 2008 Woman's Brunch Club! We had a blast! Can't wait to see you in 2009!
TOP SEVEN reasons to come to Women’s Brunch Club!
REASON 7: Share your Talents
This will give you an opportunity to share your gifts with other deaf and hard of hearing women in our community.
We have lots of opportunities for you to meet and greet other deaf and hard of hearing people from the surrounding areas.
REASON 5: Learn New things
You’ll be taught by members of the deaf and hard of hearing community. Each month is a different craft or new information you have never heard before, information presented to you by ladies who love to share their experiences with you.
REASON 4: Continue Learning
You don’t have to pay extra for learning at WBC outings. WBC.s builds your skills in many different ways, it offers personal development programs in health and wellness, crafts and much more.
REASON 3: Pamper Yourself—You KNOW You Deserve It! AND…The Price is Right!
Get away for an afternoon to sit back and relax. Learn new things meet new and old friends just have a good time. There is no cost to come and spoil yourself.
REASON 2: WBC is a GUARANTEED Good Time!
We have been providing services to the community for almost 30 years. WBC is just one way to show you that CSD and the DAC are eager and willing to share new things with the community.
And the NUMBER ONE REASON to Come to WBC… Do it for YOU!
The friends you make, the stories you share, the positive spirit you feel after being with your friends, of learning, sharing, laughing, and opening your mind will stay with you for a long time. Think of it as an investment in yourself, not only for the good of your community, but also for YOU.
We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting!
We meet on the last Wednesday of every month from 10:00 to 12:00
212 E. Exchange St.
Akron Ohio, 44304
For additional information contact the Akron DAC
AkronDAC@greenleafctr.org
2008 No Meeting in November or December
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Mary Beth Meyer, 42, is a smart woman. She has two master degrees and she teaches physical science and geometry at the Washington School for the Deaf.
So imagine her surprise when she became a victim to a scheme, associated with the Nigerian scams that are so widely prevalent in the news.
It was Sunday night when she was on AOL instant messaging a friend, when her friend’s screen name popped up.
“We started chit chatting. She said you have to talk to this man, he told me I had won $70,000. “Said Meyer. “I thought what??? Are you crazy? She said no, this guy is an honest man.”
Turns out, it wasn't her friend at all. Instead it was someone posing as her friend, using her screen name.
So Meyer started talking to the guy on the other end of the screen. He told her he was working with the United States government, trying to provide funds to the deaf community from Nigeria. He told her she was eligible, but then started asking for personal information.
“He asked for my screen name and password. I was like, what? “Meyer said. So she sent an instant message to her friend, or at least the person she thought was her friend, for advice.
“I told her, this guy is asking me for my password. And my friend, Leah, said yes, do it, he’s an honest guy.”
He wasn’t.
As Meyer soon found out, he was a scam artist who had just taken $100 of her hard earned money. The same con men took thousands from her friend Leah, who was too embarrassed to talk about it.
“They are targeting a specific group, the deaf community. We rely on instant messages; we rely on the internet to communicate. We are a tight knit group.” said Meyer.
Her mother, who just moved with her daughter from Las Vegas, was furious.
“My daughter and the deaf community have to work four times as hard to be accepted into society, and to take advantage of that just makes me livid.” said Margaret Meyer.
They called the FBI, who told them this was a new scam.
Special Agent Alan Peters said it’s inclusive of a sweetheart swindlers-type scheme.
“These people gain your trust and then an emergency pops up and they need your money.” Said Agent Peters.
He says the Nigerians aren’t always Nigerians.
“They are dangerous, they’ve gotten more sophisticated, and not all of them are from Africa. There are some posing here in the United States”
Anyone who has fallen victim should contact the FBI and the state attorney general’s office.
Mary Beth is speaking out. She wants the deaf community to know this is going on.
“These people are fakes, they are crooks.” she said.
The FBI tracks Internet crimes at the Internet Crimes Complaint Center website.
“This,” signs the puckish M.C. with cropped brown hair, “is your stage.”
On a recent evening, participants included a white-haired gentleman in a yarmulke, a Harvard-educated actress in her late 20s named Shira Grabelsky and Bram Weiser, a hearing computer specialist for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority who is an aspiring interpreter. Many favor humorous anecdotes in lieu of poems.
American Sign Language, which is more than 150 years old, is a language that its users say is entirely independent of English, though it is not universally recognized as such. Indeed, A.S.L. is also entirely independent of British Sign Language, and has more in common with French Sign Language.
“Sometimes I wish we had a rule book,” Mr. Norman said of the poetry, through an interpreter, “but A.S.L. hasn’t really even been accepted as a language.”
Repetition of certain hand shapes can represent rhyme just as sounds in spoken poetry produce structure; the pattern of holds and pauses recalls the meter and rhythm of spoken verse. Yet these devices represent approximations.
“I think there’s rhyme in A.S.L.,” Mr. Norman considered. “Or maybe not rhyme. Maybe it’s a beat.” He performs his poems with intricate physicality, with careful and detailed expression.
The event at the club, on the Bowery near East First Street, attracts as many as 50 people, a mix of the deaf and hearing A.S.L. students. On this evening, as with many, some told stories rather than poems, performing with a wit that delighted the room.
Paul Mitchell, a young man wearing baggy jeans and a baseball cap, mimed the perfect impression of how, after a stumble on the street, a white guy might cower while a black guy might morph his misstep into the perfect mock layup. Applause, expressed visually, came as the waving of both hands.
People who can hear, Mr. Norman says, often see A.S.L. as “beautiful” in its movement, dancelike, yet devoid of the precision of speech. But of course language is meant to be understood. “To say A.S.L. is beautiful,” Mr. Norman said, “is a compliment with an insult behind it.”
Still, a language’s youth carries benefits for poetry. “Its rules aren’t frozen yet,” Mr. Norman said. “It’s living and breathing. Deaf children are natural storytellers.”
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