Remarks By NBRS President Bob Trimbee at our AGM

Listen to the audio version (MP3).  

I'd like to tell you a story about Paul, a young lad raised in a small Pacific Northwest town.

     When he was quite young, his father had one of the first telephones in the neighbourhood.

     He marvelled at the well-polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. He was too little to reach the telephone, but he used to listen with fascination when his mother used to talk to it.

     Then he discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person -- her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody's number and even the correct time.

     His first personal experience with this genie-in-the-box came one day while his mother was visiting a neighbour. Amusing himself at the tool bench in the basement, he whacked his finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give him any sympathy.

     He walked around the house sucking his throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway and the telephone!

     Quickly he ran for the footstool in the parlour and dragged it to the landing.

     Climbing up he unhooked the receiver and held it to his ear. Information Please he said into the mouthpiece just above his head.

     A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into his ear, "Information."

     "I hurt my finger. . ." he wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that he had an audience.

     "Isn't your mother home?" came the question.

     "Nobody's home but me," he blubbered.

     "Are you bleeding?"

     "No," he replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts."

     "Can you open your icebox?"

     He said he could.

     "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger."

     After that he called Information Please for everything.

     He asked her for help with his geography and she told him where Washington was. She helped him with his math. And she told him his pet chipmunk, which he had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruits and nuts.

     And there was the time that Petey, his pet canary died.

     He called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But he was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage?

     She must have sensed Paul's deep concern, for she said quietly, "Always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."

     Somehow that made him feel better.

     Another day he was on the telephone. "Information Please."

     "Information," said the now familiar voice.

     "How do you spell fix?" 

     As I said, all this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Then the family moved across the country to Boston. The young lad missed his friend. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home and somehow he never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table.

     Yet as he grew into his teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left him; often in moments of doubt and perplexity he would recall the serene sense of security he had then. He appreciated how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

     A few years later, on his way west to college, he landed at Seattle. He had about half an hour between planes and spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with his sister, who lived in the city. Then without thinking what he was doing, he dialled his hometown operator and said, "Information Please.”

     Miraculously, he heard again the small, clear voice he knew so well, "Information."

     He hadn't planned this but heard himself saying, "Could you tell me please how to spell fix?'

     There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now."

     He laughed, "So it's really still you. I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time."

     "I wonder," she replied, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls."

     He told her how often he had thought of her over the years and asked if he could call her again when he came back to visit his sister.

     "Please do, just ask for Sally."

     Just three months later he was back at Seattle. A different voice answered Information and he asked for Sally.

     "Are you a friend?"

     "Yes, a very old friend."

     "Then I'm sorry to have to tell you. Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago."

     But before he could hang up she added, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?"

     "Yes."

     "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is I'll read it: 'Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean.'"

     I thanked her and hung up. He did know what Sally meant.

     In a way, our more than 800 volunteer readers are today's versions of the Information Please telephone operators. You keep the community informed in a manner that each and every day helps to sustain our listeners' quality of life.

     Daily you make it possible for VoicePrint -- as a service -- to contribute in a meaningful way to the lives of so many thousands of Canadians.

     Shortly we'll again honour that community of effort through our Volunteer-of-the-Year program.

     And through the five 2007 honourees, all of us, in our individual and private way, can take great satisfaction of what we do to make Canada a better place for so many.

     That's why this annual gathering is so special.

     It gives us a chance to celebrate what we give to our communities rather than what we get.

     That spirit has seen us through trying and difficult times.

     But we never have let anything keep us down.

     So let's all take a moment to salute and recognize those sitting by and across the table and together shout out: thanks for being a VoicePrint volunteer and supporter.

     Ever since i first walked into the VoicePrint household in 1989, as many of you know, I've never been one to overlook an opportunity to ramble on about the great expectations i see for our wonderful service.

     And 2007 is truly a year of great expectations!

     When we celebrate our 18th anniversary December 1, VoicePrint will have entered the digital universe. That delivery technology will allow us to crack the VoicePrint access barrier that has complicated our lives for too many years.

     And we'll have a new team of young managers -- Arlene Patterson, Frances Cowley and Joe Lamanna at the national office -- to lead us across the Rubicon and achieve what heretofore may have seemed to be the Impossible Dream.

     Our network of Local Broadcast Centres will be at or near 100 in total. We'll have staff and volunteer supporters in most of our provincial capitols as well as at Ottawa.

     And, of course, we anticipate that we'll be moving full speed ahead In setting up a new, independent but related TV enterprise called The Accessible Channel.

     It will deliver described and captioned programming round the clock right across the land.

     All of us have had a hand in achieving our successes. So I am positive that when we meet a year hence I'll be standing here with news about so many more new and wonderful projects occupying the energies of our boutique service ... Each of which will reflect the axiom that we make a life not by what we get, but by what we give.

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