Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Do you hear that? It's the winds of change. Randall from Monsters, Inc.
I know the next installment is supposed to be about things to make the trip special for Bill, but I wanted to talk about what we did this weekend.
As I have stated before, Bill recently became a regional director of an advocacy group for persons with disabilities. One of his duties is being a board member so we had to attend the board meeting this weekend in Springfield, IL. Neither one of us knew what to expect.
See Bill and I do have friends, not many and not new people. People make assumptions about both of us a lot. We are leery when meeting new people, well new people that dont have to do with Disney message boards .
I know you might be thinking that these people shouldnt have any problem being accepting, but even some people at the Independent Living Center that Bill works at have preconceived notions about what he can and can not do and dont even let him try to do more . I was apprehensive to say the least.
We walked in and including Bill 7 of the 13 board members were in wheelchairs and they were the nicest, sweetest, funniest people . All my stress and nervousness melted away. When people first meet Bill they might have trouble with his speech so I played interpreter when they didn't understand. They had no problems with that at all. Bill jumped right in and the meeting was great. It lasted from 11am 5pm with a lunch worked it.
I can not express how much we liked these people, how empowered they made us feel, like we could make a difference and how much we wanted to help. Bill looked so alive and watching him with all of them being so accepting and wanting to listen to him made me want to cry with joy.
The board is in transition with trying to find a new executive director and having extreme budgeting issues due to the fact former Governor Blagojevich and now Governor Quinn have Illinois 13 Billion (with a B) in debt. They havent paid our schools, they havent paid our hospitals and doctors, it seems the representatives and the Governor havent been paying anyone but themselves. (I am not starting a political conversation, just trying to let you know what is going on) The coalition gets some grant funding, but it is nothing like what they used to have, so for now the board members get reimbursed for mileage one way and nothing else.
We live about 3 ½ hours away from Springfield. We had to decide if Bill really wanted to go forward with this, because they want us back in April for a board meeting to interview potential executive directors, then again in May for the Annual meeting. Both meetings require us, because of Bills disability, to stay over night 2 nights, one so we can drive up the day before so Bills body can recover from the drive, also so we will be their early enough for the meeting, and another night because we have no idea how late the meeting will last. We have to board Ace when we go. This meeting was on a Saturday, the one in April will be too, and the one in May we will need to drive up on a Sunday so that means Ace will be there 3 nights each time. We also have to pay for all our meals. There was a huge decision to make, because we could not pay for all the Springfield trips and take 3 Disney trips this year.
We have decided to let the May trip go. We feel the coalition is more important and hope and pray it lasts past the end of this fiscal year. We arent sure what will be happening with the budget, the Governor is threatening even deeper cuts to Human Services and the coalition is in limbo, but we have to take a leap of faith here and go for it. This is something we really both believe in.
The October and December trips are going strong . We just think of it as having a great credit with SouthWest so when the October dates come out on March 23rd, I will be seeing if we should book that day. That is what I did for our trip in November last year and the flights were low.
So that is where things stand with us. If you want to and I hope you do, keep hanging out with me to read and my December plans. It is going to be fun and nerve wracking to plan two trips but I am up for it!
Oh and we have rescheduled tentatively with Bill's Dad to go to the mountains at the end of June. He said if someone is already going with them, they will get bumped because Bill is on the "A" list
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Next installment
Things to make the trip special for Bill and for me!
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Hope it comes back...
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