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Transcript: Fishing: Don’t Let the Big Ones Get Away!

HadleyFishing: Don’t Let the Big Ones Get Away!Presented by Lion Gwen WhiteDate May 10, 2012

Larry MuffettWelcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Larry Muffett. I am a member of Hadley’s seminar team. I also work in curricular affairs here at the Hadley School. Today’s seminar topic is ‘Fishing: Don’t Let the Big Ones Get Away!’. I have to tell you it’s been an absolute delight getting to know today’s presenter. I had a chance to chat with her yesterday and she is just a delightful person with a fascinating story. So I am going to introduce Gwen White.

Gwen is the Executive Director of the North Carolina VIP Fishing Tournament. She lives in Columbia, North Carolina. She has been involved

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with the Lions Club organization for over four years and was the recipient last year of the prestigious Lions Ambassador of Goodwill award. The reason I say it’s prestigious? Out of all the millions of Lions members around the world, only forty people have received them and Gwen was one of them. And also some interesting other facts on Gwen – she is also a comedian and part-time wrestling manager. Maybe she’ll get into that for you too.

Today we are going to hear Gwen describe the North Carolina VIP Fishing Tournament, its origins and the reasons for its success. Let me welcome Gwen and I’m going to turn the microphone over to her and we’ll get started.

Gwen WhiteThank you so much Larry. One of the reasons that I was interested early on about where folks were from was because this is also a national tournament and I wanted to know if we had any of our listeners today that were in a state that we already have a fishing tournament in. If we did that is exciting and if we didn’t then we wanted to talk

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with you to see if we can get something started in you individual states.

I want to tell you I am excited about being here. I am excited about the new connection with Hadley. It has been a great opportunity for me to be able to see the things that are offered through Hadley for the visually impaired.

I want to also make sure that I give a disclaimer right up front for any of you who are avid fishermen and think that I might tell you how to catch that big one. I don’t want to disappoint you – I know how to fish and I love fishing – but I am not the one that you need to give all of you technical advice.

I am here to share with you something that I am extremely passionate about and that is the VIP Fishing Tournament. I don’t know if any of you happen to be Lions but Lions is the largest service organization in the world. We have 1.35 million people across the world and we’re in 207 countries. And this fishing tournament is the largest event of its kind in the world. And we are

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the largest gathering of blind and visually-impaired individuals in North Carolina, and we are excited about sharing our program.

This is our 30th anniversary. We started 30 years ago with twelve individuals. They actually were twelve children or students the first year and then thereafter we started with having adults. This is a tournament for children and adults. Most of the time it is all adults because it is held during the middle of a week and it’s difficult for children to get there. But the ages of our participants range from nine to 96. Average age is somewhere around 55.

But we offer the opportunity of something that is so much more than a fishing tournament. And you know how when you start something and you name it, and then years down the road when it’s become so successful you wonder if you’ve really named it properly? The VIP Fishing Tournament is for visually-impaired persons, but we did it as a double because visually-impaired people to us Lions are very important people. And this gives us an opportunity to walk next to those we serve.

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But this is so much more than just fishing because we have a day of fishing and we have a day of recreation where you can go out and go shopping or go to the historical events, and then we also have the vendors and the motivational speakers, and we have doctors come in and talk about the latest in eye care. So, it is so much more than fishing. We have people who don’t really care a whole lot about fishing but they enjoy the interaction and the independent living, and they’re able to come and network and enjoy each other’s company.

So I’d like to share with you a little bit about what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. And if you have questions as we go along I don’t mind stopping and answering the questions as they come to your mind.

Our participants come to us on a Monday. And let me share with you that the event is October 15, 16, and 17 this year. It is on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I told you we started out with twelve. We have grown to as large as we can be because of the facilities that we have on the outer banks of North Carolina.

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I understand we have some people from Maryland Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Colorado, and Alabama with us today, so I’d like to share where we actually are located. When you look at the map of North Carolina, northeastern North Carolina – or if you’re looking at the United States map and you find North Carolina about the middle there – there is a row of islands off the coast of North Carolina. We are right out there on the Atlantic Ocean.

The community we live in, Kill Devil Hills, is actually where the Wright brothers flew the first airplane. When you hear talk of hurricanes bearing down on the east coast and they talk about the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the Cape Hatteras lighthouse is in our community. That is the tallest lighthouse on the east coast.

We have Jockey’s Ridge – you might have heard about the hang gliding that happens on the east coast – it is off of Jockey’s Ridge, the tallest natural sand dune. That is in our community.

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You might have read or heard about the Lost Colony where Virginia Dare, the first child born of English parents was born. That is in Dare County. It is a community that is a resort area. We have a lot of folks who come to enjoy the beaches. And the fall of the year when you would be coming to this fishing tournament is the prettiest time of year to be there.

On the fishing tournament: You come in on a Monday, that’s when the participants arrive. The event actually takes place in a little community called Manteo but we stay in thirteen hotels that are right on the ocean area. So the participants are housed in thirteen hotels and they come over to the Manteo area, which is the mainland, and that’s where all the events take place.

On Monday night, the participants come in and we have our opening night ceremonies. And I might tell you that every year we have a theme to the event. We’ve had a year when it was a circus theme where folks came dressed as clowns or tight-rope artists or whatever. We’ve had biker week when folks would dress in their nice Harley Davidson outfits or their biking caps and their

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chaps. We’ve had rodeo. Well this year the theme is going to be the Double Ds, which is diamonds and denim. So you can put on all of your bling and wear your blue jeans on Monday night.

We also have a dance on Monday night and we have bible study on Monday night. It’s really a night of fun, having popcorn and all of the refreshments after you have dinner. Just to have an evening of getting to know each other. I told you that we have grown as large as we can be. We now have 528 visually-impaired and their guests who attend, and about 300 – 350 volunteers who will be there at some point during the three-day event.

So on Monday night everybody gets to visit with each other, catch up from year to year, and then the meal that night is provided by the Lions Clubs of Columbia and Plymouth. They will be cooking the barbecue and the chicken and all of the condiments that go with that, all of the side dishes. And then Tuesday is fishing day.

Tuesday and Wednesday morning we also provide your breakfast, and that is provided and cooked by

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the Manteo Lions Club. Fishing will be on four ocean fishing piers and two head boats. You get your choice of whether you would rather be on a pier or a boat. All day long, from 9 until 3 is the fishing tournament. We serve you lunch on the piers and then that night you will come back to the facility and we will have a fish fry – fish and chicken – provided by the Wanchese Lions Club.

Now we figure you are going to be pretty successful with your fishing, but we’re not going to bank on what you catch for your dinner that night. So the fish houses in Wanchese will provide 400 lbs of clean filleted fish and then we’ll also have chicken for those who are not seafood eaters, to enjoy the evening. We’ll have another dance that night and time for you to relax and enjoy each other’s company. And then on Wednesday morning, again Manteo will serve the breakfast, and then we have the independent living section of the fishing tournament.

We have vendors there with the latest in technology, the latest in aids and appliances for the blind. We’ll have a table with information on the Hadley School. There are a number of vendors

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who apply to come and be there and will answer any questions that you might have. We’ll have a doctor there who’ll talk about the latest in eye care. We’ll have keynote speakers, we’ll have seminars on diabetes because that seems to be one of the leading causes of blindness and there are a lot of questions about that. And we’re always interested in finding out what the visually-impaired would like to have workshops on. So we do a survey at the end of the event and let you tell us what you would like to have for the next year.

One of the speakers we’re going to have this year is a woman who is married to a blind individual. That will be an opportunity for her to talk about the challenges and the opportunities and we think that will be something that will be of interest if you are a visually-impaired person and you have a spouse or somebody to come with you. It might be interesting for them to learn. She is also a humorist so I’m sure we would be in for some funny stories.

That afternoon we will provide for you to go to historical events. If you want to go where the Wright brothers flew – to that museum – or if you want to go to the North Carolina aquarium or to the

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Elizabethan Gardens or where the Lost Colony was founded, we will make arrangements for you to go to those events at no cost.

And then on Wednesday night is the awards banquet. That’s always a fun time. We get to have bunches of stories about the fish that you caught and there’s always stories about the fish that got away; a bunch of things like that.

Some of the things that we Lions have done – last year we did it in connection with this – was a blind car rally. You know, the blind and visually-impaired spend a lot of time trusting folks that they’re going to help them. Well this is a time that we turn the tables in that the sighted person will do the driving but they do not know where they are going.

The blind individual who reads Braille will be the navigator. They will have all of the instructions on where the driver is going to go, written in Braille. They will tell the driver step-by-step where they want the driver to go. At each of the locations that they stop at, they will draw a card and it will be like a poker run. They will have five different places to

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stop and at the end when they get to the last place, the one with the winning hand is the winner of the blind car rally.

Now we make sure that we have it in writing just in case somebody gets lost. We don’t want them to feel too badly so they do have the instructions written under the car seat if they want to double check things, But the purpose is for us to rely on the work of the visually-impaired. It’s all about trust. And it’s all about the Lions working with the visually-impaired and walking next to those we serve.

We also have started – for the last five years – a national tournament. So for example we have somebody here from Maryland. If we had a tournament in Maryland, the top three winners from Maryland could then come to North Carolina and participate in a national tournament. We are looking for folks in those states that can help us get one established. Now we have one in Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and in Canada. They came last year and competed and we are hoping that we are

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going to be able to expand that and this year have some additional people.

Now, I know folks ask us what type of fish we catch. I know that last year, they caught croaker and flounder and sea mullet and occasional crab. And, by golly, last year we even caught a surfer. We had somebody who was surfing too close to the pier and when the blind individual cast out all of a sudden we heard yelling “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” And we looked and his arm was going higher and higher in the air because they had caught him in his thumb and they were pulling him right on up. But we didn’t catch him; he was a catch and release Larry, we let him go.

We have caught fishing poles. We’re on four fishing piers and of course they’re maybe a mile, a half a mile, apart and one lost their fishing pole and further down at another pier somebody caught the fishing pole. And we had the same thing happen with a white cane. Somebody’s white cane fell over but we caught it off of another pier. So we have a little bit of those funny things that come along but the real benefit of this fishing tournament is the

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opportunity for the networking, for the camaraderie.

In North Carolina, for example, it’s very, very big state, a large state, and we had a woman in Asheville – which is up in the mountains and we’re down on the coast – we have several buses that come in. And this woman was by herself; she didn’t have anyone coming with her. She didn’t know where she was going, she had never been fishing; most of her life was just spent at home. And she decided she was coming to the fishing tournament.

So she got on the bus with people she didn’t know, to go to an area she’d never been, to be with people she knew nothing about, to an area that was foreign to her and a sport she knew nothing about. And she stepped out on faith that she was going to have a good time and that the Lions were going to take care of her. When she got down there she had a delightful time.

She was a little apprehensive, as you can imagine, and one of our Lions was walking out on the pier with her and he said “I don’t want you to be afraid

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because when you step out there you are going to feel the real rush of the wind coming towards you and I don’t want it to frighten you.” She said “I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid.” And he said “When you get out there you are going to hear this loud roar of water and wind as the waves wash up on the shore and I don’t want you to be afraid.” “Oh, I’m not afraid.”

And he still wasn’t concerned but wasn’t too sure, and as he walked out with her he said “When you get on the pier you are going to feel it wobble just a little bit, but that’s the way it’s supposed to, it moves a little bit with the wind.” She said “I’m not afraid. I’ve got God on the right and a Lion on the left, why would I ever be afraid?”

And that’s what we are trying to do as Lions because this is an event that is sponsored by the North Carolina Lions. It is for an opportunity for us to have a service project that we can share with those we serve. Now it’s one thing for Lions to stand out in front of a Kmart or a Walmart to collect money so that we can help with clinical eye research or we can buy glasses for somebody, but the important thing is that we walk next to the

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visually-impaired, that we let you know that it is not just that we want to do something for you but that we want to be there, to be a partner, to provide services.

I remember getting a letter just a couple of years ago from a man that did not want to come to the fishing tournament. He was newly-blinded and he just was uncomfortable and he did not want to get out in public. And we got a letter after it was over telling us just how important this event was to him because he said “The center of my bed had become my world. As long as I was in bed I wasn’t getting hurt, I wasn’t hurting anybody, bumping in to anything, and I really just didn’t want to live. I was contemplating suicide. And I went down there and I saw the fun that everybody had, and I realized that there are so many things that I can do and that I could even do better than some of the folks that were there. And I just want you to know that while I had been considering suicide, this was a life-changing event for me.”

And that’s what we hope this can be for people. That it can give self-esteem, that it can ensure confidence, that it opens the world of opportunity

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for people because we do have vendors. We have public speakers there who will share. And one of you who are listening to the sound of my voice today may be exactly the person that we need; you might enjoy being one of our seminar presenters. We don’t know. We would love to hear from you.

And we would love to know if you have questions, or if you would like to be one of the supporters that would like to help start an event in your state. And if you are not willing or ready to start an event in your state right now, would you be interested in coming to North Carolina to participate in our event, see what it’s all about, and then maybe go back and see if you have some friends that you would like to convince to come to North Carolina.

Now, I’m going to ask if there is anybody that has any questions about what we do, why we do it, how we do it – any questions that you might have.

I will share that this is not a free event, but it is almost free. We charge $75 for a visually-impaired person to attend this event. For that $75 you get three nights lodging if you are from North Carolina.

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If you are from out of the state, you get four nights lodging and seven meals. So you get four nights lodging in an oceanfront hotel and seven meals for the cost of $75. That ordinarily would cost somewhere around $700 to be able to come. So it isn’t free, but it’s close. Now is there anyone that has any questions about what we’re doing?

Larry MuffettWell, I’m going to start us off with some Gwen. I imagine that this tournament has kind of evolved over time because you talk about starting with twelve and you are getting up in the hundreds. What is the competition level? Are people pretty much into it or? Could you talk about that a little bit?

Gwen WhiteOh, yes. Boy do they get competitive. For example, real fisherman fish whether it’s rain or shine. October is usually a beautiful time of year and it is good fishing time. In fact November the 7th, right around the 7th and 8th, is when world records are caught. So we’re close to the time that they actually have had world records. But it is always

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good fishing. But, we have caught fish that are as small as would run around in a little Mason jar or as large that it takes two hands and a net to pull something up. So we get varying sizes.

But we had one woman – it was raining, I mean it was almost like a northeastern storm like a gale – and of course we have volunteers who were there with the fishermen. Volunteers were really excited when a lot of the fisherman, who weren’t true fishermen, decided to give it in for the day. And we had one woman, bless her heart, the volunteers said “Well are you ready to go in?” She said “Is it 3 o’clock yet?” He said “No ma’am.” She said “Well I’m not ready yet.” It was only maybe about noon or 1 o’clock or something. He must have asked her three or four more times but she was not ready to come in until 3 o’clock. We had folks like that on each of the piers and on the head boats. Yes, they are very competitive.

Larry MuffettWhat is the largest fish ever caught at the tournament?

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Gwen WhiteYou know the one you described a while ago – which was four feet – we have not caught one that big. That one I think was caught up in Canada but we have caught some that are maybe 15 to 20 lbs. Then we’ve caught some small ones. But I cannot remember what the heaviest fish was. When you are directing the event – and I’m moving 900 people around in different places by the time you talk about the volunteers and the VIPs – I’m working so hard at all of that I don’t get to really see all of the fish that get caught.

But they give me a listing at the end of the day because we get the trophies. The people who do our trophies are really good. They stay late and make sure that the winners’ trophies are engraved with that person’s name on it so that when they go home they’ve got their trophy and their name on their award.

Larry MuffettNice. You talked about prizes… how do you determine who the winner is? Is it total pounds of fish or inches of length, or how exactly do you

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determine who is the winner? And do you have different classes, like men, women, young people, old people… how exactly do you set that up?

Gwen WhiteNo. We actually have a first, second, and third place winner on each of the piers and each of the head boats. So you have a first, second, and third place on those six different venues, and then you take the first, second, and third place out of all of those six and that will be the overall winner. Now we have the Lacy and Esther Presnell ambassador award and the David Grana award which is for our national winners. The national winners have a separate tournament. We actually do two tournaments so that on Tuesday it’s the North Carolina tournament and on Wednesday it is the National tournament and they will get a separate award. And then there is an award for the total poundage of fish for each individual, and then a lot of folks will come as a group.

Like the person from North Carolina who is listening today is from Lenore and will be coming with a group, so there will be a group award for

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each individual county for the North Carolina tournament. And we do the same thing. Like South Carolina, they have their tournament and they will bring their three top winners to us, so they have a group award.

We have somebody with us from Maryland today and that’s one we’ve been trying to get because we have Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and they have a northeastern group up there. I’m not sure what they call it.

Larry MuffettNew England?

Gwen WhiteNew England, that’s it, New England. And they give a group award up in the New England area.

Larry MuffettExcellent. You mentioned trophies… anything else? Any sort of cash award or anything else or just the trophy?

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Gwen WhiteNo, we haven’t done any cash awards. As you might understand it costs quite a bit to put this tournament on. It is a service organization. Our Lions have to raise $200,000 a year in order to put this tournament on. I might mention that they might find it interesting to know that some of the ways we raise our money is we do a golf ball draw. This is something that people all over the country have actually participated in.

For $25 you buy a golf ball. That golf ball is numbered and then we drop the golf balls from a helicopter on a golf course. Not from way high up in the air – so nobody has to worry that they are going to get hit on the head or anything – and the ball that goes in the hole or closest to the hole will win a $10,000 cash prize.

We also do adopt-a-fisherman. For $25 we have folks who will make a contribution to help pay for somebody to come to the tournament if, for example, they can’t afford the $75 to attend. Those are a couple of the ways that we raise

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money. We wish we could give some cash prizes and maybe some day we will have sponsors that would allow us to do that but for right now it is trophies and the good feeling that people get from coming and participating. And our biggest form of advertising is word of mouth. Because, no pun intended, if you ever come to this tournament, you are hooked. You don’t want to miss it.

Larry MuffettSo you have a lot of the same people come back every year?

Gwen WhiteWe do have a lot of the same people come back but some folks age out and then other folks come in. It is one of those things that when you come, everybody takes something special away from it. We have music on Tuesday night; we have a band come in. Last year we had a band; the drummer was with the Patty Loveless band. We’ve had the World’s Greatest Fishing Band come in from Nashville, Tennessee. So we have a lot of music; just a lot of fun time.

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Larry MuffettIt certainly sounds like that. You mentioned one, what I would call, a success story with the gentleman that basically said his world was his bed and he didn’t really feel like venturing forth. I’m sure you’ve got some other ones. Do any people come to mind where you’ve seen them come to the tournament over a number of years and you’ve just sort of seen them evolve, you’ve seen them grow? You’ve seen their self-esteem really inflate after coming to this tournament over a number of years and could you talk about some of that?

Gwen WhiteYeah, we’ve had for example David Gates who came and was very much an introvert the first time that he ever came. Last year he came back – and this was like 15 years later – he came back as our keynote speaker. He now owns several businesses. In fact he says he is the only blind funeral home director who is a licensed funeral home director. He owns a country store. But he talks about how he realized when he came to the fishing tournament that there are things that he could do. He had spent time feeling sorry for himself and then after

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he got in and he saw what some of the other folks were doing it gave him a sense of self-esteem.

We have another young man who loved music and he would play around with it but had never done much with it. But he said after he came and he got playing – he played in the hotel lobby and so forth visiting with people – he said he realized he ought to step out of his comfort zone and try something different. So now he is in the music business up in his area, and also ran for mayor and is mayor of his small community.

We do have a number of success stories for people who had felt like when they came their life was sort of over. We had one woman who was very, very shy the first year she came. She didn’t want to be there but one of her support groups had told her she just had to go. I struck up a conversation with her and there are some times you just feel like you are in the right place at the right time. She wouldn’t talk about how she was blinded. So we just had a good conversation and she came back for the next couple of years. And there was just something about her that intrigued me.

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Now we use her on a lot of our posters because she is so outgoing and laughing and carrying on and just so happy. And I came to find out she was a professional woman, went home from work one night, and somebody broke in her home and raped her and stabbed her 42 times and poked her eyes out so she couldn’t identify them, and left her for dead. When she didn’t show up for work the next day they sent somebody out to look and that’s what they found. And she felt like pretty much her life was over.

And then she said she came, not expecting anything, and now she is a spokesperson for us. I am by no means saying that we were what caused her to make that change. I am not saying that. She had to have a lot of that inside her. But we were able to be there to help reassure and reaffirm her self-confidence.

Larry MuffettI don’t want to monopolize this, even though I am greatly enjoying my conversation with Gwen – I find it delightful – I’d like to get some other

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questions from other people. Those of you who are in the audience that would like to ask some questions, press the control button and it will let me know that you want to talk and I’ll turn the microphone over to you.

HollyTwo questions. Number one: I think I’d like to come. How do I find out, since I’m from Maryland? Number two: I have a guide dog, is that going to be a problem?

Gwen WhiteNot a problem at all. We love to have guide dogs come. We can do this several ways and I would like to give everyone my name, address, my email so that anybody can contact me if you have additional questions or if you would like to come. We have a website. It is ncvipfishing.org and we have our information on there; we have our group application forms and so we would love to have you come. My telephone number is 252-202-2329. That is the telephone number. My address is PO Box 140 Columbia North Carolina 27925.

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Larry MuffettNow – and I believe this is my friend Tom – my friend Tom would like to know how many of the participants are regular fisher people and do the participants need to bring their own fishing gear?

Gwen WhiteOh, good question. We provide everything you need. We provide your fishing gear, we provide your bait. Only the VIP participants are the ones doing the fishing. Sighted folks are not fishing against you; it is only the VIPs. So everybody that we have fishing would be VIPs.

Larry MuffettAnd you provide all of the equipment, all of the bait, everything they need?

Gwen WhiteWe provide everything you need, all of the equipment and all of the bait. And the question was asked earlier, what kind of bait we use. We use blood worms. Normally the blood worms are the ones that most fish are biting on, especially at that

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time of year. If we find that at that time of year shrimp or squid fish are biting better, then we provide shrimp or squid. But everybody fishes with the same bait and they fish with the same fishing rods, so everybody is fishing equal.

Larry MuffettHoward would like to know: “ Do you actively recruit sponsors?”

Gwen WhiteYes, we actively recruit sponsors. We have been very fortunate in having most of the community where we live – and Dare County is a very giving community – so the reason we are able to provide what we do at the low fee is because we do have sponsors who will become partners with us. But if anybody would like to become a sponsor we would love to talk with them.

Larry MuffettWe have other questions. Holly has another question, so let me turn the microphone back over to her.

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HollySorry for having so many questions. I’m from out of the state; I live in Maryland. Would I be able to find on your website the best way to get there? And you have an email address and you forgot to give it to us.

Gwen WhiteI do have an email address. It is [email protected] And I’d be glad to work with you Holly. We have a group coming down from the New England area. They normally take a large van and we probably could make arrangements for you to ride with them. Or if you have a sighted guide that you wanted to come with you and that sighted guide wanted to drive, that’s fine.

We charge $100 for a sighted guide to come with you and they get the same things that you do, it’s just that they get charged $25 more. We are not trying to make money on our participants by any means. The fee that you pay does not cover the cost of the room and stuff we provide. But we do

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mailto:[email protected]

feel that we have to charge something so that everybody has some buy-in.

Larry MuffettAny other questions for Gwen?

BarbaraI’d like to say thank you to the Lions for all they do. I am very impressed with all they do with the guide dogs and everything. Thank you.

Gwen WhiteThank you so much for that ‘thank you’ and I will be glad to share it with the Lions that I know. I am active on the state and the international level. We so very much appreciate the opportunity to walk with the folks that we serve. And it always makes you feel good as a Lion when somebody like you Barbara takes time to say thank you. We know that what we do is appreciated and I very much would… where are you from Barbara?

Barbara

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Cordele Georgia, near Lake Blackshear.

Gwen WhiteI certainly would love to have participation from Georgia. I know as I looked at the ones that I did find, we had Colorado, Alabama, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland. And even this year, for example, if you do not have a tournament in your state but you wanted to individually come, we would be delighted to have you folks come, be with us, experience what we do, participate in the national tournament, and who knows? We may be able to get something started in your individual state. Because this is not just about fishing, this is so much more than fishing. But we want people who really enjoy fishing. And I’m assuming that because you all called in today you had an interest in fishing, but I am hoping that we can entice you to come try our fishing.

Larry MuffettI believe Barbara has another question.

Barbara

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Not a question, just a comment. I’m not much of a fisherman but I think I would like to try. But your tournament sounds like so much fun and I am very interested. Is there a possibility you could bring two sighted guides?

Gwen WhiteYes ma’am, there is. We also want this to be like a mini-vacation for you. We want you to have the opportunity to come experience what we have in our community, to come experience our product, our service that we provide. But we want to provide you with a good time as well.

Larry MuffettWe’ve got another question here. She’s from Virginia and she’d like to know if you could please repeat the website and the telephone number and I’d also put it in the text box for everyone. And she also has a question: “What are the dates for this tournament and what would they need to do to get there from Virginia?”

Gwen White

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Ok. The dates are October 15, 16 and 17. For folks who are coming the long distances, we allow for you to come in on Sunday the 14th so you are there for when things start on the 15th. Normally everybody provides their own transportation to come to the event. We provide from the time you get to the hotel; we provide your meals, we provide your rooms, everything that you need while you are there. But the transportation is something that is provided by the individual. That’s why a sighted guide would come with you. But, if we know of folks that are coming from the area that we could hook you up with, then we will work to try to do that. What part of Virginia are you from?

Larry MuffettYeah, if you could type in the text box and let us know what part of Virginia you are from, or what is the closest metropolitan area and then Gwen can address that. In the meantime, Howard has a question. He would like to know: “Is the event supported by the state fish and game commission or any other state agencies?”

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Gwen WhiteYes it is and we’re very blessed with that because you know there are size restrictions on fish this day and time but the North Carolina Wildlife and the North Carolina marine fisheries support us. We have a waiver that no fish is too big or too little to be caught and kept. They have been very good. Whereas there are a lot of places that you have to have a license to fish, all of that is waived for us. So as long as you are fishing with us on the dates and the times that we have applied for, we get their support.

Larry MuffettGoing back to our previous question, that person is from Manassas Park, Virginia.

Gwen WhiteManassas Park, Virginia. If we could talk off the air then I will see what I could do to try to help you. And I believe the question was again our website – ncvipfishing.org. My email is [email protected]. Phone number is 252-202-2329.

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Larry MuffettAnd I also put those in the text box while you were sharing those with us. Other questions for Gwen? I see Christina has a question.

ChristinaI just want to say that I am really looking forward to the tournament. I’ve lived in North Carolina all my life and this is going to be the first time that I am going. My husband and I are both coming. We’re both visually-impaired and we’re really looking forward to it.

Gwen WhiteWe’re looking forward to having you. In fact, when I saw that we had somebody on from North Carolina and Larry gave me your name I said “She’s not been before. I haven’t heard that name before.” So I was ecstatic to be able to hook up with one of my hometown folks here while I am in Illinois, and we’re looking forward to having you both come and be with us. And I’m looking forward to some of these other eleven people or however many we

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have here with us, to be there too. I hope that we will get an increased number from other states.

Larry MuffettWe’ve got time for a few more questions so if anyone wants to jump in either by voice or by typing in the text box, let’s see if we can’t close out the hour with a few more questions. I see Craig has got his hand up.

CraigYeah, my name is Craig from Canada. This is the first time I just heard of this and I just want to commend you on the job you are doing. And I also just became a Lions member about a year ago and I was surprised at how much they did for the vision-impaired.

Gwen WhiteWell thank you Craig, I enjoyed hearing that. And I wonder if you’ve had the opportunity to hook up with the BAIT Tournament in Canada? That is the Blind Anglers International Tournament. I found out about them when I was exhibiting at one of the

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international tournaments. Our organization is older than they are. They had never heard of us, we had never heard of them. Yet when we looked at each other’s logos they were very similar. We just can proudly say that North Carolina is the oldest one around. But we’d love to have you come down from Canada.

Larry MuffettStacy wanted to express to you “Thank you for every thing you do” as well. She is very appreciative of having listened to this today and I’m sure many of us feel the same way.

Gwen WhiteWell I appreciate that very much but I am the one who feels humbled to have the opportunity to work with such a great group of people. I have been involved with Lions – my husband was a charter president from ’69 – so I’ve been around Lions and been around visually-impaired but have only been a Lion myself since 1993. I’ve learned so much from all of the visually-impaired.

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I have to share with you my first story of dealing with someone who was blind. Angelo, who is totally blind and a good friend of mine, was teaching me how to guide. I had never done it before, knew nothing about it, was very apprehensive that I was going to say or do the wrong thing, and sure enough I did. I was guiding him and I ran him right smack dab in a wall. I was so humiliated and so embarrassed and all of a sudden Angelo turned and looked at me and said “Gwen, I could have done that right by myself.” So from then on I realized that you all are exactly as I am. You have the same sense of humor, you do things the same way I do, and it’s just a delight for me to have the opportunity to walk next to you.

Larry MuffettHave we got some more questions for Gwen before we wrap this up? If you do it’s great timing to let us know. If there are any more questions, we’ve got a few more minutes here and we can field them. I see Craig has got another question.

Craig

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I was just wondering, where did you say the angler event was in Canada?

CallerI just want to say thank you again. We are so blessed to have people like you, with the kind of attitude you have, because there are so many people who think that we can do nothing. Thank you.

Gwen WhiteYou are so welcome dear. And Craig, it’s over in the Ottawa area if I’m not mistaken. Al Page is the Lion up there and I could get you hooked up with him if we can connect off air.

Larry MuffettI think we’ve got time for one more question here if anybody wants to jump in. Alice, I see you have your hand up.

Alice

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Hello. I want to thank you so much for your dynamic presentation and your Lions Club work. As I am talking to you my third leader dog is lying here beside me and they’ve meant the world to me and I always want to take every opportunity to thank every Lion I meet for these wonderful leader dogs. This fishing program just sounds delightful and you present it so well. I have a nephew who is at Fort Bragg and I wonder how far you are from Fort Bragg because I was thinking of visiting him in October so this is a coincidence.

Gwen WhiteWell that would be a great coincidence and maybe you could convince him to come up to the fishing tournament with you. We are probably about four hours away from each other there. Maybe he could come with you. And please tell him how proud we are of his service.

Larry MuffettAbsolutely. Stacy has a comment here: “If it had not been for the VIP fishing tournament I don’t know where I would be today. And thank you Lion Gwen.”

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Gwen WhiteWell, thank you very much.

Larry MuffettI want to let everyone know that this seminar, like all of our Seminars@Hadley will be archived on the Hadley website and available for your use. You can listen to it at any time around the clock at your convenience. Also, each Hadley seminar is now made available as a podcast which you can download onto your computer or even your iPhone. If today’s seminar has you interested in hearing more, please check out the seminar archives at @Hadley. I know that there are some additional fishing topics on there that you can tap into. Gwen and I want to thank you for your participation today. It was just fantastic questions and a really warm feeling from you all. Your questions were outstanding and really added to the value of this particular event.

We value your feedback here at Hadley so please let us know what you thought about today’s seminar. We’d also like to get your suggestions for

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future topics. There are a couple of different ways that you can do that. One is by dropping us an email at [email protected]. The other way is by completing an online screen survey form that I am going to post up as we conclude today. On your way out you can set the focus to the browser window by hitting the F6 key. It’s a short survey but it’s very important to us to get your feedback to know what you are thinking. So at this particular time, while I am setting up that onscreen survey form, I am going to turn the microphone back over to Gwen for some final comments. Gwen.

Gwen WhiteYou have something there that came in from Lion Michael Hayes. They gave the BAIT tournament hotline as being 613-744-6035. May 25th 2012. Craig, that would be some information that might be a help to you.

I want to thank you folks so much for allowing me the opportunity to enter your homes, to share something on a project that I am extremely passionate about. I would love to have the opportunity to someday put a face and a name

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together, and that we might meet in North Carolina with a fishing pole and a cup of coffee.

Larry MuffettFantastic, makes me want to come too. I want to personally thank you Gwen for taking the time to do this for us today. It’s been an absolute delight for me to get a chance to meet with you and talk to you. And I want to thank all of you for participating today and being a part of this. Your questions and comments just added so much to this and made it really enjoyable. I speak for myself but I think I’m pretty safe in speaking for Gwen too that your questions and comments made it enjoyable for both of us. Again, thank you so much for attending today and goodbye for now.

[End of Audio – 1:00:53]

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