Meeting Agreements

GENERAL MEETING GUIDELINES

• • Be respectful of everyone's beliefs and opinions.

  • Avoid ableist language.

  • Share your thoughts and ask questions but allow space for other voices.

  • Sit with your discomfort before you share.

  • Consider all ideas.

  • Ask for the support you need.

  • Take care! LAAWW topics and discussions center around emergencies and disasters, which may be emotionally challenging. STEP AWAY AT ANY TIME to care for yourself.

ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES

All members are strongly encouraged to:

• Stay muted unless speaking and not speak over others to reduce distraction.

• Turn on camera when speaking to allow for lip reading.

• Consider blurring background to minimize distraction. Do not use a virtual background, this can affect contrast and make lip reading difficult. Participants using sign language are not expected to apply background settings, as this may make the signing unclear.

• Introduce yourself by name each time you speak for those who are blind or have low vision.

• Speak slowly, use plain language, and spell out acronyms for understanding and to improve captioning.

• Turn on your own closed captioning to monitor your own speaking and see how well the tool works.

The Executive Committee will:

• • Include information about accessibility features of the meeting in the meeting invitation and notices.

  • Remind LAAWW attendees about inclusive meeting practices during meetings.

  • Design meeting materials and presentations with accessibility in mind.

MS TEAMS LIVE CAPTIONS

LAAWW meetings are held via Microsoft Teams. Teams has built-in closed captioning, which you can turn on

from the meeting controls:

• • To use live captions in a meeting, go to your meeting controls at the top of the screen and select More actions > Language and speech > Show live captions.

  • To stop using live captions, go to your meeting controls and select More actions > Language and speech > Hide live captions.

INTERPRETATION & TRANSLATION

Please refer to LAAWW’s accessibility statement.