 Hi, everybody. My name is Ann Thomas and I'm the president of the Hearing Loss Association of America, the Diablo Valley chapter. And we'd like to welcome you to our meeting today. We have two other, three other really invaluable people here. I'd like to introduce them and just wave your hand so that people know who you are. Zoher Chiba is our vice president. Consera is our behind the scenes A1 all around tech help person and also an HLA California board member. Walt Bateman is our, is our treasurer. So before we get started, I'd like to do just some really basic zoom directions. We've been doing these for a while and they're getting shorter and shorter because almost everybody knows how to zoom now. But I'd like to just refresh everybody's memory. So this is, these are directions for on a laptop. And if you look at the bottom menu bar across your screen, the task bar, you'll see that on the left hand side, there's something that looks like a microphone. And that microphone, you turn the microphone on or off. By default, we ask that everybody have their microphone off to avoid feedback. And if you've experienced feedback, what happens is you get this sound. And that's because there are too many microphones open. The next button is the video. And we'd like to remind everybody that when you have video on, and we ask that you have video on to assist with lip reading, that if you do something that you don't want everybody on this meeting to see, please remember to turn your video off. At the beginning of the pandemic, somebody unconsciously didn't remember that and they proceeded to take their top off, which all of us are completely sure that they weren't, they didn't want everybody to see that. The next option you see there that we want to bring your attention to, which is the green button. And that's the chat button. And we encourage everybody to chat with their friends to ask questions, to do whatever you want, as if we were meeting in person. The next button that's very important is the live transcript button. So probably for all of us, this is the most important option for us because we all absolutely love captions. So if by chance the ASR captions, and I apologize again that our cart provider has not showed up, that you make sure that the live transcript show subtitles is turned on. Normally, we have around 35 people in our meeting and today we have a few less. But as a good habit, we ask that everybody raise their hand to be called on. And when you click on the reactions button, which is the smiley face with a plus, you'll see another option, which actually it looks like this. And so see the arrow pointing to reactions. And then the pop out window is what it looks like above that. And the bottom one is raise hand. When you click on your CC button, you also have the option to be able to increase the font size. Now, we always used to tell people about this. And then we quit doing it. And we received a request to add it back. So when you click on subtitle settings, which is number two, the window on the left opens up. And you see the slider window there where it says font size. Well, I happen to like my captions as large as I can have them. So I set them to large. So Barbara, bottomly, I see that you have your hand up. Are you wanting to ask a question or were you experimenting with so I'm thinking you are experimenting. Great, thank you. I'm still looking for captioning. I can't. I can't find captioning. So I'm sorry, I pushed the wrong button. So Barbara, if you click on the CC button, I don't have a CC button. Are you on an iPad? What kind of device are you on? An iPad. Alan, do you know how to turn on the captions on an iPad? I've got captioning. I'm okay. I just don't have a CC button. Okay, she's good. I'm good. Okay. So raise hand. So we're very lucky today. So that's the end of the directions. And so I'm hoping everybody is comfortable with how to use Zoom. And if you have any questions later after we go to the Q&A, please make sure to raise your hand because we want everybody to be comfortable with this format. We know it's not going away. We know that we're going to continue to be able to meet virtually and continue to use this platform so we want everybody to be comfortable with it so that they can always participate with us. I'm really excited and happy today. We have the California Telephone Access Program with us. And our presenter today's name is Skippy Sumner. Skippy happens to be deaf. And if you look, you see an ASL interpreter here. And that's a piece that excites me so much. It's really nice to have an absolutely fully accessible meeting. And this is the first time we've ever had that. So Skippy, I'm going to turn it over to you. And you should be able to share your screen. So just go ahead and share your screen. And that's all yours. Thank you, Anne. I appreciate it. I'm so excited to join the group today. And I hope you can hear everybody just fine. Can you hear the interpreter? Okay, great. I'm going to move forward. So then you can definitely use your reactions button as we work. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen first. It's saying this will stop the other. So do I continue? Yes. Okay. All right. Great. Okay. Can everybody see this year's screen clearly? Okay. Great. Perfect. Alrighty. So hi. So have you, if you're familiar with the CTAP program, I don't know if any of you are a little bit familiar with it. So I'll explain exactly what we do. The California Phone Access Relay, the CTAP program is part of, this is part of our marketing outreach department. We've had this program going on for a long time. My name is Skip Sumner. I'm an outreach specialist. I've worked with the CTAP for over 20 years, now 21 years. And I do a lot of traveling work with them, mostly doing presenting work, marketing, training. With COVID now, obviously, things have changed and we're able to still do these presentations over Zoom. So that's what I've been doing since. If you have any more questions, you're welcome to email me at this email address. You know, when this slide is gone, you'll still have the contact information behind me, so you can utilize that. Okay. So I wanted to tell you a story. When I was a little boy, I'm going to show you a picture here. That's me a long time ago. You could see my hearing aids coming out of my ears. And I had a hard time hearing the phone ring. I wasn't able to understand the phone. At that time, this is what phones looked like. I'll show you a picture here. Do you remember those? They're called rotary phones. So you had that mechanism where you had to move that center dial over. So, you know, I couldn't hear the ringing, but I would walk over to the telephone and I would say, who is it? And then, you know, with my hearing aids, I would move the phone, hold it like this as I'm demonstrating, near my hearing aid was. And I still was not able to understand what was saying. So I would have to move the phone around. I would constantly miss what the other person was saying, having to move the phone around like that in order to use it with my hearing aid. And, you know, it was just not working. It really limited my communication ability. And, you know, with private conversations, that was even more difficult. So the CTAP program, I'm going to talk about what we offer. I'm going to move on to the next slide now. So what is the California Telephone Access Program? It's a state mandated program managed by the California Public Utilities Commission. They have managed that contract ever since. It was established in 1979. And that was the first time we've provided equipment for deaf and hard of hearing people. So it's been going for over 43 years now and has never had an interruption in service. 1983, there was an additional law passed for the relay system to be implemented. And I'm going to explain what TTY is on the next slide. Then in 1985, the program expanded to include more users, more specialists, people who had specialized telecommunications equipment to help with people with all sorts of disabilities. Okay. How is this program funded? So it's called through a surcharge. That's on your telephone bill. So California Relay Service and Communication Fund is through a small surcharge on all telephone bills in California. I'm going to give you an idea of what that looks like. So different phone companies look a little bit different. But here's an example. You'll see that word there at the top. It says surcharges and other fees. And then I highlighted in yellow their California Relay Service Communication Devices funds. That's how we pay for our services and how we've always paid for our services since that bill was provided. So that is our funding. Wanted to show you that. Okay. All good. Okay. So do you remember the time back in the rotary phones? Obviously those are no more. Now we're going to talk about what we offer at this point. So this is called a cap telephone. And I have one right here that I use. It's very cool. I'm sorry. My video got a little blurry there. Give me one moment. Sorry, the camera tends to get a little blurry. So with regards to this cap telephone, when, you know, if I'm not able to hear what they're saying, what they're saying, I can speak into the receiver and my friends are able to hear my voice. And that gives me more independence. And if I want to have a private conversation, you know, I'm able to do that. I don't have to depend on my parents to have a private conversation. So this phone is very, very great. It's great for people who are hard of hearing or deaf like me. So this is one of the resources that our program provides. I'm going to move on to the next slide. It's a very simple process, a very quick process. There's no income or age restrictions. And I'm going to clarify the process a little bit more as we move forward. So what's the primary goal or purpose of CTAP? Provide specialized phone equipment for people who have hearing, seeing, moving, speaking, or learning or remembering disabilities. So, and I'm going to explain, you know, there's a wide variety of ways people with all of these different disabilities can benefit from this program. So people obviously who have difficulty hearing, they can't hear the words clearly. The program will offer these specialized devices, amplification devices so that it amplifies the sound. The slide captions, as you've seen on the last slide, tone control in order to clarify. So a person who maybe has low frequency hearing loss, they have phones that have tone adjustments so that you can adjust the tone of the sound to match your particular hearing loss. There's more information on the website of course with all the different phones we offer. Also hearing aid compatibility. So I use one hearing aid. And this phone, it works great with it. Speakerphone as well. So a flashing light for when the phone rings. I have one here. All of these phones have flashing lights to get your attention of when the phone is ringing. Okay, so for very hard of hearing or completely deaf people, here's what we can offer. So once again, captioning. TTY, the full word is called a teletype writer. We abbreviate it TTY. This is specialized equipment for deaf and hard of hearing or speech impaired users. So that's still a service that we do offer. It is diminishing though over time. The flashing light as well. We also have extremely loud ringers for people with hearing loss. So you can adjust that so you can hear the ring better. This popular word, you'll hear T coil. That's built in to your hearing aid. So when I have it, when a person calls, I can hear the phone without any background noise. So that's really, really cool technology. If you have a hearing aid that's compatible with that, you can speak with your audiologist or a hearing aid specialist. And they can talk to you about a hearing aid with T coil technology. So most of them do have that at this point. Okay. Any questions so far? No? Okay. Okay. CRS, California Relay Services. So I'm going to go ahead and go through the slide here a little bit further. Okay. All right. You can see my red dot here on the screen. Okay. So this is a service that facilitates phone calls from TTY to non-TTY users. So how does that work? You can just call the number, 711. That's an easy one to memorize. Just like 911 is for emergency, 711 is for relay. And that'll connect you to an operator. So how does that work? So the operator will listen to what you're saying and then type into the TTY technology. And then the hearing, hard of hearing, your deaf person is able to see that. They can read what you're speaking. So that's how that communication relay service works. This service is available 24 hours a day, has been available 24 hours a day, and it's free for all users for anyone to use. So now we're going to talk about some specialized devices for people with vision loss, possibly people with glaucoma, people with cataracts, people with macular degeneration, or people with various degrees of blindness. So we have, you can see in the picture, those phones with extra large buttons, high contrast buttons. You can see that in the picture as well. There's a black background with a white number, or it possibly will be the opposite, the reverse. We also have ones with talking keypads, like a voice assistant. So when you pick up the phone, it'll tell you what you're pressing, so you can make sure you're getting that voice feedback. And once again, the website has more information for you on these phones. Speaker phone as well. The phone has backlit keypad, so you're able to see more clearly. Now we're going to move on to people who have difficulty moving. So people who have, maybe use a walker, or people who have a cane, or a wheelchair, we offer these equipment for people with mobility restrictions. So here's a cordless phone, so like this. It's easy to carry around. Speaker phone, speed dialing for calling. So remote operation. So that would mean a person who has, who's quadriplegic, they have a phone box there, and then they would have a remote that they can control it remotely. They'll hear like a number of beeps. So when they hear the correct number of beeps, it will call the right person that's programmed into the phone. So it provides more independence for users like that who have severe movement difficulties. Now here for people who have difficulty speaking. So we have soft voice, people who have a very weak voice, people who have, you know, who have had lung cancer or artificial laryngitis. So we have what's called OSA, outgoing speech amplification. That's very popular. So that would be here. I have the light, you see the light that, that will increase the, the amplification. So that will, that will make it louder. So if somebody has a very weak voice, they're able to speak into the receiver and they don't have to yell, and it's going to be able to hear them very well. That's a very popular form of voice amplification. Speaker phone as well. So this is for people who have stuttering disabilities. So who, who have difficulty speaking, we have a hardware who is works, it's, it's someone who can work with a speech pathologist to use the hardware. We have a program that's really amazing that helps ones with those difficulties speak through the phone. Artificial larynxes, people who have, you know, a voice box that, that, you know, they're able to hold up that device to speak using the vibrations. So that's able to read that. It would depend on your, you know, your particular mode of artificial larynx. And then we have TTYs. So meaning without speech at all, using no hearing, no speech, you're able to type for typed communication. So speech to speech services. How does that work? So a person who has a difficulty speaking, they would call through an operator. You would, you would use a specific operator who is familiar with people with speech disabilities. They're going to ask who they're calling. For example, calling mom. The son will be trying to speak and mom won't understand them if they're speaking directly. So when they're trying to have that conversation, the speech operator will try to understand their voice. And they're going to give some assistance to help them clarify to the, to the typically speech, typical speech users understanding. So we also have English and Spanish for this service. You can see listed there. And this is available 24 seven. Also free for all users, which is great. So this is for people with learning disabilities, possibly people who have suffered strokes, unable to remember phone numbers, Alzheimer's patients, or people who have cognitive difficulties. So we've got speed dialing, which is great. Dial by picture. You can see there in the picture. I'm going to try to make this a little bigger for you to see. You can see there, where my, where my pointer is the red pointer, you see the pictures there. So you know, if you don't remember, you've got your girlfriend's picture that you don't remember the name. You don't remember the phone number. You can dial by picture. So then I see, oh, that she's pretty. She's mine. I can call and talk to her. So that makes it so nice to be able to dial by the picture there. So we have more information on the website as well for this device. And then we have voice activated dialing. So what that means is we have a box with a program, with programmed list rather. So you're able to say the name, for example, John, and then it's going to call John. It's already programmed in to do that. So a lot of people have no lane line, right? That's kind of becoming a thing of the past. So we've got other devices that are compatible with mobile devices in order to make communicating easier. Works right with your iPhone or other cell phone. We have amplification devices. You know, if you're not able to hear on your, on your cell phone, we have mobile amplification devices that can make the voice very loud, which is great. So I'm going to show you how that works. We also have hand-free devices, which is great. Speed dialing, one touch speed dialing. And are you familiar with the word Bluetooth? How many people are familiar with that word? Good. Okay. All right. Great. So we have a program called a smartphone training that I'm going to talk more about. And it's called bring your own device, B-Y-O-D. So I'll talk about that later. But you'll see here Bluetooth on this device. You'll see the icon here as well. It's very small on this device. But we have a website that's really great. That's really helpful for people who are hard of hearing or deaf, who are traveling. They can take this with them, which is really nice. And then using this device from home as they're walking around the home, they're able to be more independent. So these devices are really great, really helpful. And of course, there's more information available on these. Okay. So what is the requirements for the application? So you can go into the office, you can go on to the webpage. I can also send you this information via mail. The requirements are that you live in California. You have telephone service, either a landline or a cell phone service. It doesn't matter. And if you have one of these difficulties that are listed, even if you're, this is to get into the program for the first time. And I'm going to talk about the process. So I'm going to give you the, pull up the little laser pointer so you can follow along. So there's three easy steps to get involved with this program. The application form is the first step. And that's here. You see the number one there on the screen? You fill that, that first page out, you sign the bottom. And then the next slide will show step number two. The certifying agency will check one or more impairments in the section two. And you'll see that here at the top of the page. The authorized certifying agent. And I, and I'm going to talk more about that. So these are examples of authorized certifying agents. So a licensed medical doctor, a physician's assistant, a nurse practitioner, a DOR counselor, audiologist, optometrist, speech language pathologist. All of these are licensed people who are able to help you complete this application. So, and I'm going to show you that here. That would be this section that I'm pointing to now. That's where the licensed certifying agent would fill out and sign to show that you're qualified. Okay. The third step, when you're finished filling out the application, you would mail or you can email or you can fax the application in. Or you can turn it in in person. And I'm going to show you where obviously with COVID, there are some restrictions like requirements to wear mask. It would follow your local state and local mandates. So if you live in Diablo, there is quite a few areas here that you can go to. The box means it's a part-time service center. So you'll need to call and get the hours of operation. If it's a star, it's a full-time. So that means it's open Monday to Friday, eight to five. My office, I'll show you where my office I'm located in Fresno. That's where I am. So it's nice to be able to go into the office. We have training. We have the equipment there that you can view in person. If you have any questions, you can call our 800 number here. We have that available in a number of languages, as well as our printed materials in Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese, a wide variety of languages. And if you have issues where your equipment is broken, or you need to get an idea of where the locations are, you can give a call over the phone. And that gives you all your information you would need. I'm also going to show you information here on the website. So you can see our website here. I've got that pulled up. Does everyone see that? Can you see the website? Okay, great. Okay, so again, I want to find exactly where to show you here. You can see the contact centers are still open. Since March of 2020, they have been open. They have not closed in order to provide communication access. There's a lot of hard hearing and deaf people who have been very isolated because of the pandemic. So we're making sure that we're still offering that. You can also apply here online using this link here. It's going to let you choose your language. And then you can fill out the application, or you can print it after you do that and have your doctor sign it. There's the print link. So it gives you a number of different options. Now, for people who are very hard of hearing, I'm going to show you the specialized products here. And then you can see the list, hearing, vision, mobility, speech. I'm going to click on hearing. And this will actually show a list of features per device. So you can peruse this and see exactly what features it has. This is the one I have. Here's the telephone amplifier. This one is very popular. Here's another one that you can wear around your neck. So I've got a lot of devices listed here that you can look over. Okay, one thing I wanted to share with you. So this cap telephone here. Sorry, that messed up my camera a little bit. It's very sensitive. Sorry about that. Okay, so that phone has really changed my life. I wanted to tell you about that. I have no frustrations, no limitations when I'm communicating on the phone. It helps me to stay connected with my loved ones. And another thing I wanted to talk about is the BYOD program. Bring your own device. So people who are already learning, you know, if you've got your own iPhone, you've got your own, we offer training for that. And those are set up at the local offices. They're group events that you can get training from. They're also provided on Zoom. They keep it to a small group, but it's a free program. And we also have booklets and pamphlets that we can provide as well that I can give out to you as well. And I can email that to you. I'm going to actually send that over to Ann, so she can distribute that to everybody who's in attendance. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you so much. Skippy, I am so amazed. I have heard many, many CTAP presentations. That's the best presentation I have ever heard. You explained everything. You explained everything so clearly. I've been with CTAP for over 21 years. Well, technically 23 years, because I was with Pac Bell. Do you remember Pac Bell? Long time ago, very old company. Gosh, that was, yeah. So I've been with them before. And then as soon as I came out of college, that was when I started with the company. So, oh, I saw there was a hand up. I think it was Allen. Yeah, he took it down. So we're going to open up the Q and A to everybody to ask questions about anything that you want to know about CTAP. Now we'd like to remind people to raise their hand. So you can see Allen could sir and now raise his hand so you can see it in the thumbnail. And you don't need to worry about that you won't be called in a order and people are going to jump in line ahead of you because it automatically orders the hands in the participants list in the order that you raised it. So Allen could sir, you're first. Hi. So something that you didn't cover and it doesn't directly affect, I guess, telephones. But the sonic alert is something that particularly interests me actually have one. Maybe you could go over that and some of its features and how it can help. Okay. So we have a few sonic alert devices. So we have an alarm clock that comes with the phone. That's a pretty new device. A lot of people benefit from that. And then we have a few things that work with mobile devices as well. So sonic alert devices are really interesting. Can you come in and holding for the interpreter? I'm going to make Skippy a little bigger so I can see him better. Okay. So yes, home aware. I'm familiar with that. That's a great device. Yeah. I know there's been some problems with that. My job is, I also document complaints and reports I send in that people have any problems with products. So if you have any problems with the product, let me know because I can actually pass that along to the manufacturer as well. So do you like that device, Allen? Do you like your alarm clock? I actually don't use it. I bought it for my mother and she has technology and we had it set up. So the doorbell would work off of it and the smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector would work off of it. But she yelled at me and told me to take it down and send it back. So it's now a demonstration model. Yeah. We have actually a great program that we offer for phones along with alarm clocks. There's also a device for cell phones that works with cell phones. It's actually USB. You have to connect it via USB and charge it for USB. I really like it. I think it's a great device. There's also ones that use, there's bed shakers as well. There's ones that connect to your own lamps like on your nightstand. But I actually set that up about two years ago. That's what I've been using ever since. Yeah, but happy to include that as well in my notes. Are we bottom late? Yes. I have kind of a weird problem in that I had, before the pandemic, we had, I had a clarity phone, which I presume had a clarity capture, okay? And for the last two years, we haven't wanted anybody to come in the house and our something was wrong with our landline, okay? In the meantime, I took the clarity phone out and I still, I think I have a brand new CTAP phone and I took it out of the package and I installed it, but I don't have any captioning. Is that because I'm, I'm not whipped up to California, California telephone access captioning. I'm still on clarity, which I never, I didn't, I didn't really like the phone, but I didn't know how to switch back. So now we got the phone line fixed and I have phone landline access again, but I, and the captioned phone seems to be working for as a phone, but I don't have any captioning. How do I get captioning on the captioned phone? Okay, so, so I'm gonna show you, so my phone is actually automatically, it's still running. My phone looks like the one Skippy has, yes. So, sorry, give me one second. I'm just gonna adjust my video really quick. Okay, so just to clarify first, so I know the different companies provide captioning. If you're using, there's caption call. There's all different companies. Those are federal programs. Those are different. We are a state program that the CapTel uses. We have a different contract. So we'll, we'll need to have you fill out a form in order to, I used to have a CapTel phone. Okay, so you're saying you have a problem now? I'm sorry, could you mind clarifying what exactly the problem is? Well, I thought, I thought that because I switched to this clarity phone that I got on clarity captioning, then when I switched back to CapTel phone, which I still had, the captioning wouldn't work. So I'm wondering how to reactivate the captioning without filling out a form. But if I have to fill out a form, I will. Okay. Okay, so let's see. So I'm going to give you, you'll need to give a customer service it called. There should be a button, a customer service button on the phone. I need a number to call. Yeah, it's right here. Right here on the screen. Yes. So what, what I can do is you can actually call the general, the general customer service number. So I'm going to give you that, I'm going to send it to you in the chat. So you have it because I'm actually going to be going on vacation. So let me give you that. Okay. Okay. So I put it in the chat box there. And I'm also going to put the website in the chat box. That's the phone number you'll need to call. Do you see that? So it's in the chat there for everyone to see now. There's a chat box somewhere. Let's see. Barbara Bottomley, are you getting people come to your home now? I will come to your house this afternoon and turn it on for you. Are you available? Are you available? Yes. So what I think your problem is, is you need to go into the menu to activate the captions. Okay, let me try that. You may not have done that or it became unactivated and you need to reactivate it. Okay. So after the meeting, I'll connect with you and we can figure out how to fix that. Okay. Okay. And I knew you could figure it out. Yeah, if you go to settings and then update the phone, you'll see there and then phone line there's a lot of different, you can go into the menu like Anna saying exactly and activate that. But customer service can talk you through that as well. Okay. And I said the participants that you call people in order and I made a mistake. So Irene, Irene Green, you're next. Let me get my video. Can you see me? Sorry about that. Yeah, it's Irene Green. I wanted to know the difference between the phone that works with the house phone or just one that if you don't have a house phone, is there a much difference between the two? Okay. So there's one that you plug into the wall basically that's hardwired in and then there's another one that works with via Bluetooth with your cell phone. So you would have to have a cell phone? Okay. All right. Because yeah, so if yes, you would need a cell phone with Bluetooth. It might work with an older style flip phone if it has Bluetooth, but do you have a cell phone? This is for my husband. We had the clarity phone for many years and he really had a hard time using it. He didn't like the delay in the captioning. He really had a hard time with that and got frustrated. So we really haven't had anything plugged in for the last three years, maybe. So he doesn't have a cell phone because he can't hear with the cell phone, so we haven't bothered buying a smartphone. And the hookup for our house phone is in a different room. So when they hooked up the clarity phone, they put another device on the caption phone so we could get reception in the other room on it. But the delay was a good, you know, maybe a 50, 20 second delay. Is that pretty typical? It would depend on your service area. So if you have a really strong signal in that area, it'll be a faster response. If you have a weaker signal, yes, it can cause a delay. It would depend on how far you are from the phone. This is about a 30 foot range and after that it will disconnect. So it would depend on your area. Yeah. The problem is we don't have any home phone access, you know, in the living room where my husband spends most of his time. The only access is in another bedroom. I don't know if that can be changed or how much that would cost to rewire and put a plug in. So we have two devices that a lot of people struggle with. There's trying to remember the name of this. I can email you. I just got a new device that might work really well for you. That's very easy to connect. It almost looks like a landline device, but it's not. I can actually send that information over to you. It's brand new. I just got it last week. Thank you for the reminder because that just came to mind when you mentioned your situation. So would that be so we would get a phone from you and we would get this extra device? Is that how that would work? So first of all, are you in the program already? I guess it was a federal one at that point. I'm not sure. I know we filled out the paperwork and that was about three years ago. Okay. So first step, you can call the 800 number in the chat. See if you're still on the list for that and update all of your information if you need to change your phone number and address. And then explain what your situation is and they can get you the device that fits your needs. Do you see the phone number there that I put in the chat? No, but I can look it up. I'll get it in a minute. I'll go online and do that. I'm better off doing it online. Is that going to work or am I better off speaking? Absolutely. Yeah, you can do it online. You can do everything online. And then the 806 number 1191, that's the cell phone number. I mean, the contact number to call the 800-806-1191. Thank you very much. I appreciate the help. So I would like to talk to you after this meeting. There are lots of different technologies that are available that may be able to be beneficial to your husband. One of them could be you can zoom. And as you can see today, our live cart provider didn't show up. The captions are really great. Your husband could also be able to augment what he is hearing by reading lips. So I will be able to have access to your email if you can either contact me or I can contact you. But we definitely need to connect to see what kinds of things we can get going for your husband. Yeah. Like you've been including, he can't hear the smoke alarm at all. You know, things like that worries me. Yeah. So that's what the Hearing Loss Association of America, the Diabolo Valley chapter, is here about. We talk about all things having to do with hearing loss. And other than the people who are on our call today, some of which have normal hearing but have family members with hearing loss, those are the things that we educate our membership about. So yes. So is there a number for me to call you after the meeting? Yeah. Or should we wait for that? I'm going to put it in the chat instead of putting it on the saying it because I don't want it to show up across the United States because we have a YouTube channel. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's great. Allen? This is actually for Anne. We should remind people that the chat can be saved so people don't have to worry about having to try to keep track of what's going on in the chat. Yeah. And I have one thing regarding what you were saying Eileen. Your husband may have challenges with smartphones but we also offer training for smartphone use with live captioning. So we also offer a program if you're interested with that training. And I have the information here about that. And I'm going to email that over to Anne as well. So I have a couple of questions. The first one is, I understand that CTAP moved to downtown Oakland from Berkeley. Are they still in the Ed Roberts Center to go check out the phones? So our office is headquartered in Oakland. Yes. We have moved. It's near Kaiser. The office in Berkeley, that building has moved. You're right. The Ed Roberts Center, it's still available. Yes. And it's still there. But you do have to call and make an appointment to go in for security reasons because of the way the building is run. But if you give them a call, you can set up an appointment to go in. We have two or three people that work there in the office still. So the last time I went to the Ed Roberts Center, I didn't know that about the security and what they did for me was they just called upstairs and they said it was okay. And so I didn't really need to make an appointment. But so the trial place where you can still try all the phones is still at the Ed Roberts Center. Yes, it is. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It's called a demo. One moment for the interpreter. Yeah, we have all of our demo equipment on the shelves there. There's some new things as well. And you can ask for assistance with all of that and try it out and get a feel for it. And if you haven't done that, I really recommend that you do it. Oh, that's my cell phone. Sorry about that. My cell phone was ringing. I don't know if you could hear it. So if you haven't tried the devices before, it's really, really wonderful to go to the demo center, which is now still at the Ed Roberts Center. You can even take Bart there. Bart is right across the street. And the phones are different. And everybody doesn't like the same phone. So one of the pieces is that you can try the different phones. They have them, they allow you to phone out so you can hear what the audio is like for you. Right. And this is skippy. One cool benefit too that we have is our program tends to get really new products when they're even in the testing phase. So I can even if and if you're interested in coming out or a group of you are interested in coming out and testing brand new products or brand new devices before they're even on the market, I can give you information about that as well. So skippy, I think you know now that I'm always playing with some kind of technology. And I thought for a long time I was on that list, but I haven't had anybody contact me. So yes, we definitely would be interested. For sure, Alan and I, I'm going to write that down and I'll email you later after the meeting. Sure. Sure. That sounds great. Does anybody have any other questions? I have one thing to remind everybody about CTAP does one of the options for the accessories is a neck loop. And if you the neck loop that they have now, you can still get through CTAP, but it's been discontinued. And it's the best non blue choose neck loop I have ever used. And it's made by clarity. And I think it's called CLA seven. And one of the things that makes this neck loop extra special is it has additional amplification. And it also comes with multiple different cables. So a lot of the neck loops only come with a cable that connects to your cell phone. Well, this has I think there are five different cables with it. So you can connect your cell phone, you could connect to any of the other variety of ports that exist on different devices. And it already comes prepackaged with the device that CTAP has. So if you don't have that, you should really think about getting it. And Skippy, I need you to verify this for me because it keeps changing. It's my understanding that we're entitled to one phone and one type of each accessory category. Is that correct? Yes. So for example, you know, you get one handset phone or one home phone. And then this is not a phone. So you would get one of these, these amplifiers that connect to your cell phone, you get one of each type of device. Correct. So some will use, you know, like, for example, you could get a light device that connects to your phone. That would be a different category. Correct. So here. Oh, you're a mute. Okay. I have a question. I have a caption call phone in the house. And it's okay. It's not the greatest, but it's, you know, it works. Would going to a capital phone work better for me? Honestly, if you have a landline at home, that's what you're talking about, right? Okay. So that's perfect. Yes. So the cap tell is a federal company. So really, there's just one design of phone. But this one, I think is more clear. And I think it sounds more clear. So it's really user preference. But I think there's four different companies that make that, you know, that are competing in that market to make different kinds of phone. I'm sure ours is the best. That's my opinion on the matter. But, you know, they're all, they're all good quality, but they all have slightly different features. So it's nice to be able to try the different ones out and see which ones you like. They all are kind of the same concept. But, you know, you find the one that you like. And then if you have any issues with it, you know, you can always let me know. So Zoher, I have four. I have the cap tell from the state. And I have the three other ones that get tacked in under the federal program. And CTAP doesn't sell internet, excuse me, doesn't distribute internet based phones. So the cap tell phone is not an internet based phone. And the other phones are internet based. So you can see, you could see which one you like the best and have them in different rooms. So when you really want to understand something, go to the one that you like the best. But then if something happened and there were emergencies or something, you wouldn't be completely cut off. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So for the cap tell phone, I do need a landline. I believe I have a landline. But it's, it's not a wire. It's, I think a cable and fiber cable. Is that an issue? So is your phone through Comcast? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I have too. It's no issue. Okay. And right, it would depend on the phone company. Some of them, some of them would work and some of them would not. You have to call and see about compatibility. But those ones just to let you know, those are not compatible with cap tell. You can let me know. You can tell me what kind of device you have and I can let you know about its compatibility. Actually, Skippy, I have Xfinity bundled with the telephone service. And my cap tell phone works with that. Great. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, that's I'm glad that I'm glad that works for you. Yeah. I have some people have magic jack, you know, and really that doesn't work well, just to let you know. No, I have Xfinity also. So I imagine it would work for me. Great. Yep. Thank you. Any more questions? Liz Baker had her hand up. Liz Baker, do you have another question? Do you have a question? Don't hold back. You know, I this is where my I have a son-in-law who lives next door who who helps me everything time. Anything goes bad, which is all the time on my computer. So I know nothing about but our regular phones that we bought many years ago are starting to die. I've been hearing impaired, you know, forever. But my husband is suddenly becoming hearing impaired, and that is a whole new world for us. So our regular phones are dead. I have caption call. They came out and because it wasn't working and had to put in a whole new system, which now does not seem to work. And so we we do all of our phoning through our cell phone now. I don't even know where to begin. So I put my hand down because I don't know what to say. We need phones like in four places in our house. So do I go to the state and go to Berkeley and the Ed Roberts Center and just look at all these? We have a landline. Yes, pick something and forget about caption call. Yeah, if you come in in person, you'll see all the options you have. First, I would say recommend calling the 800 number and make sure that you're you're registered with the program. Yeah. And then you can go into the office, look at all the different devices and then whichever one you like, they'll give you the training you need on it. So and is your husband at UC hearing aid? He has been told that he cannot wear hearing aids. He can hear sound. He just cannot hear words. Okay, that's fine. So it'd be best to probably go into an audiologist or a nurse practitioner. They can get that form signed for you easily. And then you can either fax that in, mail it in, or stop by in person and bring it in. And then you can see all the technology and the equipment, find one that works for you and they'll they'll get it right to you. And if you if you need transportation as well, we can help with that if you call the 800 number. Yeah. I didn't know that. Thank you. Liz. Yes. So I'm confused by something you just said. So I was understanding you to say that your husband was just beginning to have hearing loss. It has just started in the last few years, but it moved rapidly from being able to be a sonar man and hear everything and every word to I have to be in the same room and he has to see me talking loudly. Yeah. So it's going it's really going rapidly. But I'm hearing where I have hearing aids and I'm used to it. Yeah, wait a minute. So I'm hearing you say that he's not wearing hearing aids. Why isn't he wearing hearing aids? He went to Kaiser and they said he cannot wear them. So we need to have a conversation about this later and you need to have his audiogram because if in fact his hearing is so poor that he wouldn't benefit from hearing aids, he could be evaluated for a cochlear implant. You could be using speech to text app Ava and be able to communicate with him or one of the other ones so that he can read what's being said. He's not as isolated as he there are technologies available for him to have him be less isolated. Okay. That's okay. But I think maybe some people will understand that this is so new that he is blocking it all off. That's a whole nother issue. Yes, it is another issue I'm dealing with. So yeah, so let's we talked last the couple of weeks ago. Let's continue that conversation. I'm sorry. Let's continue that conversation. Okay, that would be wonderful. Yeah, now listen, did you not turn on your captions? Yes, I whoops, I just lost my screen. Yes, I have them but I need yes, I have them on but I'm not looking at them. I'm looking at your lips. Okay, so I'm wondering if you know that you can move the captions right underneath the person who's speaking. Oh, you're smart. Oh, nice. So all you have to do is click on the caption box. I just did it. I did it. Yeah, it makes a huge difference for us. Okay. Any more questions? So Skippy and Whitney, you're welcome to stay. We have a few more things to talk about in the last little while that we're going to be here. Please stay if you want. If you decide to leave, thank you, thank you, this was really a wonderful presentation. I loved having ASL in our meeting so that we can embrace our full hearing loss community. And I wish that we are actually normally meet in Rossmore and they have a deaf club. I wish that some of the people from the deaf club had showed up today. But what can I say? Wow, okay. I would say I just wanted to say something. Thank you so much for your time and allowing me to participate today. If you have any comments, please reach out to me, email me. If you think this is beneficial for others, let me know. I'm happy to do presentations elsewhere but my time is running out so I really appreciate it and I'm going to have to get going. Thank you so much again for your time. Bye-bye. Thanks for coming. Bye-bye. So I don't know about all of you but it's so exciting for me to see how we can engage all of us together in one meeting and really be able to function. When I joined HLAA, my hearing loss was still pretty good and I didn't need captions at our meeting and I didn't need to lose the hearing loop at that time but it quickly changed and about that time I was starting to think, oh my gosh, what's going to happen to me? What am I going to be able to do here? And these kinds of experiences really sunk in from me that no matter what happens, life goes on and we're able, we just have this conversation where some of us are hearing, some of us are reading, some of us are using ASL and we were all together in the same place. I just think that's really amazing. So we have a few other things to talk about. Let me see if I can get my slides going past this. We did Q&A. So we have some upcoming events and the first one is going to be the Bay Area Walk for Hearing and it's going to be on Saturday, June 4th, 2022 and it's in Alameda and so we're the first time we started having the Walk for Hearing again in Northern California was when the pandemic started. So this will be the first year that we've actually met in person in Northern California since 2010. In the past, we have felt that the HLA Walk for Hearing website can be really problematic for people and Alan Katsura has graciously accepted to be our Walk Coordinator this year and we put together some tools to be able to help you. So why is the Walk for Hearing important? And what happens with it? So since 2006, there have been 304 walks. That's a lot of walks in the United States. We've raised over $17 million. We've partnered with 2000 alliances and you were joined by 800 HLA chapters and state organizations. And I've actually only personally only participated in one walk and that was in 2010 and that was at Chrissy Field and I have to tell you it was really a very, very special day and I hope that everybody puts save this date on their calendar. We'd like for everybody to step up and donate to the HLA, a Diabla Valley team. This is the piece that Alan has done that is just so fabulous that when we were working on some other things the other day, I just, I didn't know how to express my gratitude for his ability to be able to do this. So on our website now when you go, there's a pop-up window and the pop-up window looks like what you're seeing on the right hand side. So it's announcing the Walk for Hearing and the convention, which I'll tell you about in a minute. And Alan created a QR code for the walk to take you directly to the page to make a straight donation and how to use a QR code. You take your phone, turn on your camera. The camera automatically searches on the code and a box will go around it and when you press the button on your phone, it'll automatically connect you to the website, which I'm going to show you what it looks like on the next slide. And if that seems too complicated for you, you can see the donate now button there. You can just click on that and it'll automatically take you to that page. We wanted to make sure that there was no excuse for anybody to not give us at least a minimum donation this year. There are other options that are available to people. You could join as a team if you had an extended family and you wanted your whole family to be one group and participate in the walk, still as part of our Diablo Valley, you can do that. If you wanted to be an individual, you can do that too. If you want to do something else other than just give a straight donation, click on learn more about the Bay Area Walk. Contact either Alan or I will be happy to help you get going with that. Now you may be wondering, oh, this technology, I don't want to deal with that. So can I still write a check? Yes, you can still write a check. Oops, excuse me. So when you click on the QR code or the donate button, it takes you to a page that looks just like this. You fill in the amount of money that you want. You have your personal information, your credit card, and the other things. Click submit and you're done. We are now, let's see, it's April, May. It's the beginning of June. So let's say we have two months. I don't think there's anybody who's a member of our chapter or anybody who's in our extended group who can't afford to give us $15. And this $15 is really important. Not only are you showing support for our chapter, you're showing support for HLAA. So how the funds that we raise are actually distributed? Let's see, I think it's 10% goes for the operating costs of just putting the walk on. Then the other 50% goes to HLAA and our chapter gets 40% of everything that everybody donates. Why is it important that HLAA receive donations if you value the captions on your television? That would not have happened without the director of public policy for HLAA sitting on that committee asking for that. So Lisa Hamlin is our public policy director and we absolutely need a voice in Washington and she sits on all of these commissions and committees to make sure that we're heard. So if you think those things are valuable and I know there's nobody here who doesn't value the captions on their TV and other things as well. So I'm asking that you open up your hearts and your wallet. So the other features I was talking about were teams. If you have family and friends that you would like to have a team. I remembered when we met in person in 2010, Judy O'Brien who's here today or she was here earlier, she had a team and it was her whole family. And I can't remember whether they made t-shirts or not. So some people who choose to create teams who are their extended family then they make a t-shirt that's just for their family member. And I didn't think about putting a picture here that might have been a valuable thing to do. If you give a hundred dollars straight to our chapter in the form that I had in the screen before you don't get a t-shirt. So if you're thinking that you would like to have a t-shirt register as an individual to donate your hundred dollars. And if that gets confusing just contact Alan and I. So when you're on this screen here if you donate a hundred dollars you have to donate a hundred dollars to get a t-shirt. If you donate a hundred dollars or more here it's lumped into the DV chapter pot. But if you register as an individual it is an individual donation and then you would be entitled to a t-shirt but you have to register. And registering can be problematic on the website in my opinion. So if you decide that you want that rather than just giving a straight donation and you have problems please contact Alan and I. Alan and I. Actually Alan or me. So and here we said need help creating a team or registering as an individual. Alan is our coordinator this year. This is Alan's address. Please contact him. So ready set go. Start getting prepared for the walk for hearing. Hopefully COVID will keep decreasing and it'll be just a fabulous wonderful day for all of us. So we have the walk for hearing. It's going to be on June 4th which happens to be my wedding anniversary and it's going to be at Robert W Crown Memorial State Park in Alameda. We also have the HLAA Convention 2020 which will also happen in June. It's June 23rd to the 25th and it's in Tampa Florida this year. So at this moment in time nobody that I know of from our chapter is going to the convention. If there was somebody who wanted to go please let us know. We're still looking for some committee members. We have created a programs committee. We're looking for an advocacy committee and we have a walk for hearing coordinator for this year which is Alan Katsura. So if anybody wants to be on any of our committees please let us know and we would be remiss if we didn't give everybody a virtual muffin from Bob for all the years that Bob has been a member of our chapter. He has always had homemade muffins that he distributed. So did you see if you're in the gallery view Bob raised his finger so he was kind of sending you his greeting with the muffin virtually. We'd like to remind everybody the importance of communication access for all of us. Communication access helps us, helps people with hearing loss the same way that ramps help people with mobility issues. We should be seeing the sign on the left as often as we see the mobility sign and we all know that that's really not happening. So over and over again I'm hoping that by being reminded to exercise your communication muscle to ask for the accessibility that you need that it will keep getting stronger. Hearing loss is a disability you need to ask for communication access. This year in July is the 32nd anniversary for the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it turns out we are the stepchild of the disability movement and all of you know I want to change that. And in order for that to happen everybody needs to participate and speak up. Where should you be able to get communication access everywhere? You should be able to get it at the pharmacy, in the grocery store, in museums, some airports across the country are installing hearing loops and all of the ticket counters at your bank. So it turns out the Diablo Valley chapter banks at Mechanics Bank and in Walnut Creek and in Danville because I requested communication access they have a portable hearing loop. So think about your own bank. Could you ask there how would you go about doing that? We need to see it everywhere. Your place of worship, your hospital. So that's all we have today.