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With the event underway, NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing gathered quite an group of people together to celebrate their 40th Anniversary as an organization. The event started by wondering around and socializing with friends, co-workers, and meeting new people by walking around and looking at what is being offered in their Silent Auction. Many different items were offered during the Silent Auction such as wine, gift baskets, tickets to professional sports games in the Bay Area, and many other interesting tidbits being offered at the Silent Auction.

Silent Auction

NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing had their own table advocating on various issues such as DeafSafe, Camp Grizzly and other important information about how deaf people can gain employment and the training that they need to gain employment. Many well-known Deaf Organizations were at the event such as DCARA, Purple Communication, Sorenson, and Clear Captions (disclaimer: Purple Communication, Sorenson and Clear Captions were main sponsors of this event).

MC co-hosted with Deanne Bray and Tim Albert

Deanne Bray co-hosted the event as MC along with Tim Albert for this event. Deanne Bray is well-known for her role in the T.V. series of Sue Thomas, an FBI agent who specialized in lip reading and would help understand what is being said during specific situations when audio recording was unable to pick up. Tim Albert is known as a leading educator specialist who is quite involved in many organizations and has taken on a leading role as being the President of the National Black Deaf Advocates this year.

According to inside sources, the event hosted between 150 to 170 people and majority of those were people representing their organizations and/or companies. During dinner, unlimited wine was served throughout the event and guest were given a choice of chicken with mashed potatoes and additional side of asparagus, steak with mashed potatoes and side of asparagus, or ravioli with cheese. Yet, many guests that ordered steak seems to decide that their order was too rare and sent back their order to have their order to be more well-done or medium rare. It seems that that many guest didn’t appreciate that their options with their steak order wasn’t more specific to their needs and time was wasted to reorder their food to be cooked.

During the award ceremony, it appears that during one of the auction, there appeared to be some confusion about which table was bidding and what they were bidding for. Some were confused if they were to win the auction, how would it would had been paid for? It seems that two tables decided to do half and half, but then again, we’re just speculating. It seems that during this portion of the auction, not enough information was presented in a timely manner, and many guest were confused on what they were auctioning for.

As for the awards, many guests were taken aback on how on long the awards took. Many felt like the awards took too long and in essence, their entertainment time was extremely restricted. Dancing didn’t last as long. Entertainment for the guests was procrastinated. And surprising, they had a dancer who was hearing that entertained for them. There were no deaf comedians, no deaf poets, no deaf musician, no deaf magician, no deaf athletes, no deaf dancers, no deaf performances, and quite surprising, no overall deaf theme. This event lacked Deaf Culture, Deaf Personality, and pride in the Deaf Community.