During the January HLAA-TC meeting, the idea of starting an HLAA-TC monthly book club was mentioned. Other HLAA chapters have done book clubs for years to act as an additional monthly meeting that’s more informal and social. The HLAA-TC book club will start off meeting virtually on Google Meet with the idea that once social gathering can occur again we may eventually meet in person.

While the book club meets online we will be using Google Meet. This is a different application from what is used for the monthly HLAA-TC chapter meetings. The chapter meetings use Zoom. We will be using Google Meet for the book club because it has automatic live captions that will allow us to have captioned meetings without using a live captioner. You can find out more about Google Meet here. It is a free application and website that works on PCs, Macs, Apple devices, and Android devices.

Laura Hagemann, an HLAA-TC member who is our social media specialist (and writes this blog) will be organizing the HLAA-TC Book Club. You can contact Laura at social@hlaatc.org if you are interested in the book club, with suggestions for books, and any book club or social media questions.

We haven’t scheduled the first HLAA-TC Book Club meeting and will do so after it is discussed some more at the February 20th HLAA-TC monthly Zoom chapter meeting. The HLAA-TC book club will also meet monthly and we can discuss more details about it at the next chapter meeting

We have scheduled all the speakers for the remainder of this season (through May) and you can view the list on our website here. The next monthly chapter meeting is February 20th, and Darlene Zangara, Executive Director of the Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing will be the speaker and give a Commission and legislative update. Representative Brian Daniels will also speak with information about the upcoming legislative session. Please email Lionel BEFORE the meeting at treasurer@hlaatc.org in order to receive a link for the February 20th Zoom meeting. Like most meetings, social time starts at 9:30 am and Darlene Zangara begins her talk at 10:00 am. Representative Daniels will also talk at this time about a bill he is presenting to the Minnesota House of Representatives.

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