With Auslan, I am Equal
Each year, starting on 3^rd weekend of October, Deaf Australia and the deaf community in Australia celebrate National Week of Deaf People (NWDP).
Deaf Australia will be launching the NWDP at the National Auslan Conference in Melbourne and there will be heaps of activities organised by various organisations, clubs and individual throughout the week. If you wish to register your event/ activities, please register here.
Throughout the week, Deaf Australia will be posting key messages on our Facebook/ Twitter to raise awareness of the NWDP. You can help by re-posting Facebook messages and re-tweeting our messages.
We will be focusing on

• Birth Rights: deaf children to access and acquire Auslan as their first language;
• Deaf Identity: deaf people are a cultural and linguistic minority who use Auslan as their primary language;
• Accessibility: deaf people need access to public information and services through Auslan;
• Equal Language: recognising Auslan as an equal language as other spoken/ written languages;
• Equal Employment Opportunity: removing the barriers where hearing is a requirement and to promote greater inclusion and opportunities for deaf people to realise their dreams;
• Bilingual Education: accepting the need for bilingual education for deaf children (Auslan and English), and for teachers and interpreters to be fully accessible;
• Equal Participation: deaf people to be able to fully participate in the personal, public and political areas along with everyone else; and
• Lifelong Learning: access to education, training and ongoing professional development is the key to gaining and retaining a job and to be able to make a living. 

The theme is an adaption of the theme for the World Federation of the Deaf International Week of Deaf People, which is ‘With Sign Language, I am Equal’, beginning today.
You can help by joining the campaign by organising or being involved with NWDP activities in your local area. We have included the NWDP Info Kit 2016 for your use as a resource. This toolkit can be used by anyone in Australia to help promote awareness of Deaf people and Auslan.
With Auslan, I am Equal.
[minimal_icon style=”download” url=”https://deafaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/National-Week-of-Deaf-People-info-kit-final.pdf” target=”_self” lightbox_content=”” lightbox_description=””]Download the NWDP 2016 Toolkit here.[/minimal_icon]

Deaf Australia will hold its Twenty-Ninth Annual General Meeting on Friday 14 October 2016 at 4pm at John Pierce Centre at 25-35 High Street, PRAHAN, Vic 3181.

Deaf Australia’s Constitution (as amended on 22 November 2014) states:
Election of Board Directors:

1. Nomination shall be in writing addressed to the Company Secretary and be signed by the nominee, proposer and seconder, all whom must be financial ordinary member of Deaf Australia. Please use Nomination form attached.
2. Nomination must be lodged and received 21 days prior to the Annual General Meeting (nominations must be received by Thursday 22 September 2016.
3. Voting for election for the Board is done before the Annual General Meeting.
4. Only Ordinary Individual Members (1) are entitled to vote for Board of Directors. We will send you information on ballot voting once we receive nominations; and
5. If we receive more than enough nominations, we will advise you how to ballot. We must receive ballot by Wednesday 12 October 2016. If we receive after 12 October 2016, it will not be accepted.

The current Board Directors:

• Todd Wright (NSW), Chairperson – continue to 2017
• Debbie Kennewell (SA) – continue to 2018
• Ramas McRae (Vic) – continue to 2018
• 2 x Director (vacancy)

The constitution dictates the following:

1. Maximum (two) 2 board of Directors can be elected from same state;
2. Up to 2 board directors to be elected at 2016 AGM;

After the AGM, the elected directors will determine its position.
Agenda:

1. All members (Ordinary and Associate) are entitled to put items (things you want to talk about) on the Agenda for the Annual General Meeting.
2. Written Notice of items for the Agenda must be received by Company Secretary by Thursday, 22 September 2015.
3. Agenda, minutes and other papers will be sent to you on Friday 23 September 2016.

Voting at the Annual General Meeting:

1. If you are an Ordinary Individual Members (1) or an Ordinary Organisation Members (2) you are entitled to vote at the Deaf Australia General meetings.
2. If you are not coming to the Meeting, on 14 October, you may appoint another member as your proxy to vote to vote for you at Deaf Australia general meetings (proxy form attached). Proxy forms or email must be received by Thursday 13 October 2016.
   NOTE: The person you choose as your proxy must be an Ordinary Individual Member of Deaf Australia.
3. If you are an Associate Individual Member (3) or an Associate Organisation Member (4) of Deaf Australia, you are not entitled to vote at Deaf Australia’s general meetings. However, you are very welcome to attend the meeting – the meeting is open to all members and other interested people who are not members.

To summarise:

1. Send your Board of Director Nomination form by Thursday 22 September 2016;
2. Send Agenda Item by Thursday 22 September 2016;
3. end your ballot for Board of Director by Wednesday 12 October 2016;
4. Send your proxy form by Thursday, 13 October 2016.

Please post/email all items to Deaf Australia at PO Box 1348, Blackburn North, Victoria 3130 or fax at 03 8691 1324 or email at [email protected]. Thank you.
NOTES:
(1) An ordinary individual member is a deaf or hard of hearing person;
(2) An Ordinary Organisation is a national members where more than 50% of its board members are deaf or hard of hearing;
(3) An Associate Individual member is a non-deaf person;
(4) An Associate Organisation is any organisation that is does not have majority (more than 50%) of deaf/ hard of hearing board members.
Download a Nomination Form
Download a Proxy/Apology Form
[content_box style=”green-2″ title=”Deaf Australian of the year nominations are now open”] Don’t forget to place your nominations for Deaf Australian of the Year, Deaf Australia Youth of the Year and Fair Go Awards.
Nominations can be made online and close at 5pm on September 21, 2016. [/content_box]  

The National Transport Commission has recently released new ‘Assessing Fitness to Drive’ Standards for commercial and private vehicle drivers which will take effect on 1 October 2016.
The new standards take on board the deaf and hard of hearing driver’s competency, alertness, and use of alternative technology devices such as GPS, alert systems and so on.
Under current standards, all commercial drivers who have more than 40db hearing loss are required to wear hearing aids. Failure to wear hearing aids resulted in licences being revoked, not be renewed, or be reclassified to lesser capacity, and in some cases, fined.