The afternoon session began with a brief report by President Allen
on last year's Sage Brush Conference at which he felt our influence
was definitely noticed.  Gary Lewis of the Vendor's Insurance
Program was also there promoting the plan and Mr. Allen advised him
to come to our convention and promote it there as well.
Don Morris then gave a presentation on the Department of Defense's
efforts to allow National Industries for the Severely Handicapped,
(NISH) to enter the food service arena by exempting air force bases
from the Randolph-shepherd program and allow NISH into them instead
thereby essentially opening the Randolph-shepherd program to other
handicapped groups.  After a meeting of all parties including our
own James Gashel and Don Morris the Committee on Purchase of
Products for the Blind while not directly coming out in support of
the Randolph-shepherd program did decide to withdraw its support of
the Nish proposal and schedule a meeting for later this year in
which more vendors would be allowed to participate.  
He also spoke of base supply stores possibly entering the Randolph-
shepherd program at the discretion of state licensing agencies.   
He announced that there will be regional B.E.P. meetings sponsored
by the Rehabilitation Services Administration scheduled throughout
1997.  Although specific dates were not yet available, Region 3's
meeting will be held sometime in May, region 4 in Atlanta in
September and Region 7 tentatively set for September.
There will also be a national conference on B.E.P. in 1998
tentatively set for April 1st through 3rd in Dallas to which he
urged as many vendors as possible to attend but with some
assistance to be provided by the licensing agencies.
A large block of the afternoon session was taken up with vendors'
concerns.  Among the topics discussed was the competition of large
outside cafeterias located in the same buildings with Randolph-
shepherd facilities.  
President Allen announced the availability of copies of a rough
draft of national training standards for candidates for the
Randolph-shepherd program drafted by Elton Moore, head of Research
and Training at Mississippi State University copies of which may be
obtained from Mr. Allen if they are not available from the state
licensing agency.
 Our activities at the upcoming 1997 national convention in New
Orleans were discussed including a pre-convention seminar called
"The Positive You," to be conducted by Don Bell.  We will also
again be providing free soft drinks in our booth in the exhibit
hall along with the selling of Snack Packs at $5.00 apiece as well
as the $1,000.00 raffle tickets also to be sold at the booth as
well as by individual members for $1.00 per ticket with the drawing
to be held at the banquet with the winner not needing to be
present.  2 other prizes of $100.00 will be awarded to the vendor
who sells the most tickets as well as to the vendor who sells the
winning ticket.
As divisions are now included in the white cane fund and TenBroek
fund roll call of states, a roll call of states will be conducted
at the N.F.B. Merchant's Division meeting to determine its overall
pledge; so all states are urged to send a representative to the
meeting.
Coffee day was also a hot topic of discussion.  This is the fund
raising event wherein on Oct. 15 vendors donate their coffee sales
to the White Cane fund in honor of White Cane Safety day.  If a
vendor does not have coffee, they can donate the sales or profits
of any item, vending machine or column therein to the fund.
A resolution proposed by Harvey Heagy calling for more equitable
treatment of totally blind operators in comparison with partially
sighted ones was remanded to the board for more scrutiny as were
other resolutions.
Shirley Morris gave a treasurer's report covering the period from
June 30th 1996 to April 1 1997 in which she reported a beginning
balance of $7,631.49, an income of $7,999.43 and a final balance of
$7,609.07.  
The session ended with Glenn Crosby giving a brief presentation
about food vending in non-randolph-shepherd facilities. 
Harvey 
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