December 17, 1997
MESSAGE TO THE SIGNWRITING EMAIL LIST
SUBJECT: Plans for 1998
Dear Friends :-)
I am writing to wish you all a very happy holiday. It has been
my greatest
pleasure to meet all of you in 1997 and I am truly looking forward
to 1998!
We have some exciting plans for 1998, including...
1. The establishment of SIGNWRITING-L. That should improve
our communication greatly :-)
2. Testing SignWriting in Schools For Deaf Children. We
just received a tiny grant that will help. We hope to donate
SignWriting materials, especially the SignWriting Children's
Stories Series and videotapes, to teachers of Deaf
children. In return the teachers will give us documented feedback.
The documentation will then be published on our web site for
others to study. If you are interested in participating in this
program, please write
to me and we can make arrangements.
3. New Children's Stories. Darline Clark is working on
the completion of Cinderella, plus two new stories...Sleeping
Beauty and Snow White. We already have the drawings for the new
stories and they are really beautiful!
4. New Video. We are 75% done with a new video that is
a great documentation of Deaf opinions and experiences with SignWriting
plus a record of some of the history behind the development of
the system. But we need funding to place the voice and captions
on the program, and until that is found the video is not complete.
It will happen sometime in 1998, as soon as funding can be found.
5. The SignWriter Computer Program,
version 5.0, for Windows and the Macintosh. This will
then lead to the SignWriting Chat Room on the web, where people
can type directly in SignWriting to each other. The testing of
this new program will be one of my major focuses in 1998. I have
an enormous amount of work in regards to this, because I am adding
new symbols and writing all the textbooks and documentation to
go with the new program.
6. The Deaf Author's Series. You can find specific information
about this new series on our web site. We are inviting Deaf authors
to contribute original Sign Language compositions, which will
then be transcribed into SignWriting and posted on our web site.
So those are our "New Years Resolutions" :-)
But most important to me, is your continued contact and feedback,
which I cherish.
I am now closing our office until January 5th...why? Because
I am moving!! I have to leave my present home by January 1st.
I work out of my home as you all know, so this means moving the
office too!!
For the past 12 years I have lived in the cutest little house
three blocks from the ocean, in La Jolla, which is a suburb of
San Diego, California. Now I am moving only three miles away,
into a brand new place. Of course I feel very fortunate...but
as you can imagine...I feel a bit overwhelmed too. I have collected
"things" in the past 12 years, and now I must move
them - ha!! It gives me a good excuse to throw some things out!
SO...I want to wish you the very happiest of holidays and
I truly look forward to communicating with all of you on January
5th (from my new house :-)
Much love -
Valerie :-)