Board meeting summary - February 2020

The Board welcomes two new members - Rachel Turner and Haamiora Sam Te Maari.  The Board also farewells Dan Hanks who has been a member for the past 18 months and has made a valuable contribution over that time.

Alongside the usual business of the Board a number of presentations were made at the meeting:

• Deaf Aotearoa have been awarded the three year contract to deliver NZSL week from 2020 – 2022 and Deaf Aotearoa presented on how they will implement NZSL Week.
• The Board have part invested in a new platform to share and document “signs”.  The Board was provided a demonstration of how this important NZSL tool will work.

In March and April, the NZSL Board will hold 12 community meetings around New Zealand.  These meetings will provide information about how the Board works, community grants and how the community can support the vitality of NZSL.

These meetings will be combined with research into the Deaf Youth population today.  Two Deaf Youth will work at the Office for Disability Issues for a few months, going out and meeting with different stakeholders to understand how the Youth of today connect with NZSL.

Applications for community Grants will open on May 11 until June 15 2020.  Applications will be made online in Survey Monkey Apply. 

Finally the Board spent time thinking about the future needs of the Deaf community and NZSL users.