Note: All events, unless otherwise indicated, will take place virtually on Zoom. If you do not have access to long-distance calling or an internet connection, PCB can provide you with a toll-free phone connection. Please indicate your need for this accommodation on the registration form.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
4:00 PM, PCB Board of Directors’ Meeting. All are welcome. (Zoom only, not streamed on ACB Media.)
4:00 PM, Auction Item Showcase Preview. (On ACB Media only) The bidding won’t begin until Sunday, October 19 at 3 PM Eastern, but you’ll have an opportunity to hear the parade of great items up for bid this year so you can start making your wish list. If you would like to donate an item to this year’s auction, please contact Sandy Marsiglia at sdm240@comcast.net or 717-635-9937 as soon as you are able.
5:15 PM, Dinner Break
6:00 – 10:00 PM Blind & Low-Vision Vendor Showcase. Join us as an amazing line-up of entrepreneurs who are blind or low-vision tell you about their unique products and answer your questions. From jewelry to fragrance items, home-goods to fashion, and gadgets to games, you’re sure to find sensational stuff for this shopping season. Have your note-taker on standby so you can support these small businesses online or by phone and avoid the swarm of in-store shoppers and slow sales assistants. Door prizes will be given each hour.
10:00 PM Announcements
Friday, October 17, 2025
Conference General Session Begins
8:30 AM, Call to Order and Welcome, Debby Hill, PCB President.
8:35 AM, Invocation & Necrology Remembrance, Jacqueline Wissinger, PCB Chaplain.
8:45 AM, President’s Address, Debby Hill, President.
9:00 AM, On the Go with PAGDUS:
exploring two top technologies and our experiences, Johna Gravitt and Ann Chiappetta, PAGDUS Members. Join PAGDUS for a fun and informative session to increase activity and usability. These two PCB peers are benefitting from two of the most popular technologies, the Ray Ban Meta glasses and the MIT Voice Vista app. Join them for a practical and entertaining approach to using these in their daily lives. The session will include Q and A for full participation from attendees.
10:00 AM, The ABCs of AI, Lisa Salinger. No doubt you’ve heard of AI. It seems like it’s everywhere, but do you know what it is or how it can help? Do you know what advantages and disadvantages there are in learning to use this emerging technology? Come and learn all about what artificial intelligence has to offer.
10:45 am, Door prizes and Break
11:00 AM, Governmental Affairs Advocating at all levels of Government and business, PCB Advocacy Team. We will discuss how to determine who to advocate with, good and bad practices when creating a script or game plan, effective advocacy methods, using role playing and story telling.
11:30 AM, The Future is now, Bringing Younger Voices Into Your Chapter and Our PCB. Thad Graham, PCB Outreach and Engagement Specialist. Younger members are key to keeping our chapters vibrant, innovative, and thriving for years to come. In this session, we will explore practical strategies to attract and engage younger peers, from building welcoming environments to using modern communication tools and creating meaningful opportunities for involvement. Join us to learn how you can inspire the next generation of leaders and ensure our PCB community remains strong and relevant well into the future.
12:00 PM, Lunch break
1:00 PM, Saving Your Resources with PA ABLE, Diana Fishlock, PA Treasury. Learn how PA ABLE can help those with blindness save funds while maintaining important benefits such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Instead of having to spend down, save $100,000 or more for things you really want or need. Build a safety net or use for everyday expenses. You decide!
1:45 PM, Accessible Inbox: Email Best Practices for All Abilities with PCB Communications Team. The team will discuss options for creating and managing email accounts including choosing the Email provider that is right for you, as well as strategies for managing your inbox to keep from being overwhelmed even if you are subscribed to a number of lists.
2:30 PM, Planted in Possibility, Isabel Rosario, Carroll Center for the Blind. In this session, we shall explore how blind and low vision individuals can harness both mainstream and assistive technologies which include emerging tools like ChatGPt, to increase independence, efficiency, and creativity. This workshop encourages participants to reimagine their relationship with technology. Technology is no longer just a tool; it’s a personal resource that can grow with you. We’ll uncover how to make the most of the tools you already have while exploring new strategies that support growth. Whether it’s automating routines, generating written content with AI, or using advanced accessibility features in creative ways, this session is designed to plant practical possibilities that blossom into real-life results.
3:15 PM, Break/Door Prizes
3:30 PM, Engineering Accessible Video with ViddyScribe, Patrick Burton and Aaditya Vaze, Co-Founders, ViddyScribe. This will be an in-depth look at how this innovative platform was developed to make video truly accessible. This session will highlight the collaborative process of engineering a solution that not only won at Google’s Gemini API competition but was fundamentally shaped by the needs of the blind community. We will discuss the practical application of AI and user feedback in creating a tool that empowers blind individuals to effortlessly audio describe their own personal videos. Furthermore, the session will address the strategic and technical considerations in extending ViddyScribe’s utility to enterprises and organizations, enabling them to implement comprehensive video accessibility initiatives at scale. Learn how technology, when guided by community insight, can unlock unprecedented access to visual content.
4:15 PM, Knowing the Score: accessible Ways to read, write and Record Music, Bill McCann, Dancing Dots. Learn how software tools have increased independence, inclusion and participation in music-making for people with visual impairments. This session will include demonstrations of how to read, write and create musical scores by direct entry, import of scores in MusicXML format and scanning with OMR (Optical Music Recognition) applications. Experience musical scores simultaneously presented in multiple mediums of print, magnified print, braille music, audio playback, and verbal descriptions.
5:15 PM Dinner Break
6:15 PM Music Prelude
6:20 PM, Creative Problem Solving with a Disability, A plan for locating resources for those transitioning from secondary student to post-secondary, Michelle Steiner, Paraeducator. Problems in life are inevitable. It is all in how you solve them. Using creativity gives us many different solutions to every day challenges. In this session participants will discover new ways to solve problems. Hear a personal story of a person with a disability, who has had success solving problems, using a creative approach.
6:50 PM, Shell Shocked: Things You Never Knew That A Blind Shell Can Do, Carla Hayes, Lengua-Learn Communications. This will begin with a physical description of the Blind Shell Classic II and III accessible smart phones and summary of their basic functions. Then there will be a demonstration of some exciting apps and tasks that you probably never knew were possible with these phones. The presentation will end with questions and answers.
7:35 PM Tinnitus: Pathology and treatment, Dr. Rebecca Blaha, Audiologist, PA Ear Institute and Tony Swartz, PCB Peer. Many of us within PCB must deal with the symptoms and effects of tinnitus, a neurologically based hearing disorder. This session will fully explore its causes, varied symptoms, and address its various treatments. The session will conclude with a brief discussion of ototoxic medications, prescribed and over the counter, which may be a cause of tinnitus or other hearing disorders.
8:35 PM, Recordings of Peers running for PCB Board positions
9:05 PM Door Prizes & Announcements
9:15 PM, Brain Drain Game
In this fast-paced, virtual version of the popular family game, Outburst, teams will work together to “drain their brain” of all potential answers on a given topic. The goal is to name all 10 of the targeted answers including the bonus answer. For 30 seconds, your team will shout out all potential answers to very general questions such as: Famous people named John; Toppings on a pizza; and Jungle animals. You will receive points for each answer you match on the target list, plus extra points for the bonus answer. Teams will take turns for a few rounds with a winner advancing to the final faceoff for the championship. The ultimate winning team will receive bragging rights and a small prize from PCB! Sign up on the registration form if you would like to either play the game or enjoy it from the audience.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
8:30 AM, Rise for a Prize Community Coffee, Conference Program Planning Team. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and join us for some light conversation. Oh yes, and prizes too!
9:00 AM, The Orbit Media Player: Description and its comparison to other media players available on the market, Tony Swarts, PCB Technical Access Team. Yet another media player designed for the blind has been released. Is it worth the consideration? This presentation will provide a comprehensive description and demonstration of the device, concluding with a comparison of its features, cost, and durability with that of other media players on the market.
9:30 AM, DIY without the Eye, PCB Peer Engagement Team. Participants will hear from two people who are blind about how they tackle tasks around the house and in the garden. They will also have an opportunity to ask questions to the two presenters.
10:30 AM, A Special Announcement from PCB’s Fund Development Team
10:45 AM, Door Prizes and Announcements
11:00 AM, Lead Boldly with GRACE: A 5-Step Format for Advocacy and Empowerment, Tom Hobbs and Marcy Renken, Co-Founders, Journey Books. This interactive workshop introduces the GRACE Format, a 5-step strategy, designed to empower individuals with vision loss, educators, and family members to advocate more effectively in daily life. Through humor, story, and a practical structure, GRACE (Gift, Relate, Align, Connect, Empower) equips participants to clearly communicate their needs, build stronger partnerships, and take confident action. Participants will walk away with a replicable tool they can apply to IEP meetings, healthcare appointments, and community engagement.
12:00 PM Lunch Break
12:50 PM, Get Connected for the Annual PCB Business Meeting. A special Zoom connection will be provided for this event which is not streamed on ACB Media. Only paid 2025 PCB members may attend this event. All who expect to vote should be sure to join the meeting as an individual to retain their individual PCB vote. Since we will use Zoom’s hand-raising function, married couples, those using three-way calling, and others who typically share a connection should plan for accessing through their own individual device. If you need toll-free calling for this session, indicate so on the registration form or contact the PCB office no later than Noon on this day for the toll-free number.
4:00 PM, Door Prizes & Adjournment for dinner.
6:15 PM PCB Virtual Banquet Music Prelude
6:30 PM, Greetings and Sponsor Acknowledgements, Debby Hill, PCB President.
6:35 PM, Drawing the 50/50 Conference Raffle
6:40 PM, Banquet speaker: Scott Thornhill, ACB Executive Director.
7:30 PM, PCB Award Presentations
8:00 PM, PCB Merit Awards, Suzanne Erb, PCB Peer Engagement Team.
8:15 PM, Door Prizes & Announcements
8:30 PM, Narrator Nightcap,
Slide into your recliner and sip on a seasonal spirit as we journey back to visit with old friends. Wow, that voice—what a blast from the past! As we shuffle through clips of the most beloved NLS narrators, we hope you’ll share some of the memories these voices evoke from your past.
Sunday, October 19, 2025
9:00 AM, Audio Described Event: Join us for a Sunday morning binge watch of Netflix mini-series All the Light We Can Not See. “In the final days of WWII, the paths of a blind French girl and a German soldier collide. Based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller. Starring: Aria Mia Loberti, Louis Hofmann,Mark Ruffalo.” (Rated MA for mature audiences)
1:30 PM, Pre-Auction Showcase. Tune or zoom in to hear the prerecorded parade of great items up for bid this year. Familiarize yourself with the bidding process to give you the best chance of nabbing your favorite item.
3:00 PM, PCB Live Auction, PCB Fund Development Team. Join the fun of raising funds for PCB and have a blast winning a great item. All conference registrants are automatically eligible to bid. Encourage your friends and family who want to join in the auction fun to sign up before Noon on Saturday, the 18th. Have them call 877-617-7407 or email pcboffice@pcb1.org with their full name, city and state, phone number, email address, and type of payment they plan to use (check or credit card). Toll-free calling is not available for the auction, but if you would like to have a peer connect you via three-way calling, please indicate so on the registration form.