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"Our mission is to support providers
of travel instruction for the purpose of
teaching people with disabilities and seniors
to travel safely and independently."
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IN THIS ISSUE: |
1. Thank You Metro St. Louis!
2. 2009 Conference
Highlights
3. New Officers and Board Members
4. Conference Award Winners
5. Membership Renewal and the ATI Registry
6. Forward this Newsletter |
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THANK YOU METRO ST.
LOUIS!
The logo that you see
in this issue of the Association of Travel Instruction E-newsletter
is just one way that we shout out a huge thank you to Metro, the
public transportation agency serving the metropolitan St. Louis
region.
Not
only was Metro, its ADA Coordinator Patricia Hall, and her staff of
travel trainers the “local arrangements” committee for our
successful July 31-August 2 conference in the Gateway to the West,
but also Metro IS our first Gold, or $1,000, sponsor. One way that
ATI will recognize Metro’s Gold ATI Sponsorship throughout the year
is to print their logo in each issue of this newsletter. Thanks
again to Metro for your support of travel training. |
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2009 CONFERENCE
HIGHLIGHTS
There were many outstanding sessions and wonderful individual
moments at ATI 2009 St. Louis, but your editor thinks that everyone
in attendance will never forget the eloquence of the nine
individuals who formed our first-ever panel of consumers who have
been successfully travel trained.
Assembled
by the Metro travel training staff, our panelists were of varying
age and disability, but from the parent of our youngest new local
traveler to our senior but “new” transit user, their message was
loud and clear: the ability to use public transportation safely and
independently has improved each person’s quality of life. A couple
of other standout presentations included Karen Wolf Branigin’s
eye-opening discussion on the importance of data collection, and Jim
Tuscher and Shawn D’Abreu of the local Paraquad Inc. independent
living center sharing their successful lobbying approaches. At our
annual banquet, ATI was treated to a fantastic performance by the
DisAbility Theater Group of St. Louis, an all-disabled troupe who were
funny, talented and spot-on. Then, there was the karaoke for those
who stayed late. We all learned and we all enjoyed ourselves.
2009 Conference photos here! |
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NEW OFFICERS AND
BOARD MEMBERS
Welcome to ATI’s new
president, Mary Riegelmayer.
Mary
is an ATI founding member and the recipient of The Jack Gorelick
Award in 2004. She has been a travel trainer at the Cuyahoga County
Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in the
Cleveland, Ohio, area for 28 years. Voted by the ATI Board of
Directors as president-elect is Peggy Schmidt. Ms. Schmidt was
elected to the Board of Directors in 2007 by the membership. She is
the executive director of the Transportation Management Association
of Montgomery County (suburban Philadelphia), and she has been
conducting travel training programs in her area for six years. New
Board members voted in at the Annual Membership meeting are Susan
Olsson of St. Paul, MN, and Michael McDermott of St. Louis, MO.
Susan, an orientation and mobility instructor and a travel
instructor at the St. Paul Public Schools for 22 years, was also
elected by her peers as Board Secretary. Mr. McDermott has been a
travel trainer at Metro for five years, and he is currently the
agency’s lead travel trainer. Good luck to all officers and
directors for our 2009-2010 year. |
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CONFERENCE AWARD WINNERS
We are pleased and
proud to announce that founding member Ms. Lydia Peterson of St.
Paul, MN, is the 2009 winner of the Jack Gorelick Award for her
outstanding contributions to the growth of ATI and the profession of
travel instruction.
For
every conference ATI has held from the inaugural event in Aston, PA,
in 2001 through our eighth annual conference in Minneapolis in 2008,
Lydia took a lead role in the detailed planning and arranging that
must be accomplished in order that a two and one-half day conference
runs smoothly. And no one in ATI has accomplished this detailed
planning with a constant smile and a laugh like Lydia. She also had
the foresight in 2005 to write a detailed conference planning manual
to insure that future “conference committees” will get it right.
Thanks, Lydia, for all you have done and continue to do for ATI.
2009 Conference photos here! Also at this conference, Ms. Jolene
Bradford, a travel trainer for Paratransit Inc. in the San Jose, CA,
area, received the 2009 Jack and Helen Gorelick Scholarship to
attend the conference and to learn more about travel training “best
practices,” plus she learned how to dance the polka firsthand at the
banquet from the lovely Lydia Peterson! Congrats to both ladies on
their ATI honors |
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MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL AND
THE ATI REGISTRY
View the ATI Registry here.
IT IS
NOT YET UPDATED, but it will be within the month. If you have filled
out a Registry form since January 1, 2009, there is no need to fill
out another Registry form. If you have not filled out a Registry
form THIS YEAR, and you have paid/renewed your membership dues,
please don’t make us chase you down to fill out a Registry form.
Just
CLICK HERE, fill out the form and send it in. If you are
reading this and you want to be included on the ATI Registry, you
NEED TO BE AN ATI MEMBER, so
CLICK HERE to
join/renew your ATI membership either via the mail or online. Act
now and you will not be left off the ATI Registry. |
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FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER
Know other travel trainers who are
not ATI members, or other persons simply interested in ATI’s
mission?
If so, please forward this issue
to them. Help ATI build our membership and attract new sponsors! |
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P.O. Box 2042 - Madison Square Station
- New York, NY 10159 |
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