Rotarian Christine Moffett introduced our April 1, 2019 speaker. Jonathan Spencer moved his family here from Ontario to take a position with the Canadian Red Cross. Formerly Jonathan worked for the TD Bank. Although the Canadian Red Cross was once known for its blood collection service, that component of the organization came under a separate organization in 1989 and is known as Canadian Blood Services...
The Red Cross now has two mandates – one for home services and the other with disaster management. Jonathan is the Emergency Management Coordinator for disaster management.
The fundamental principles of the Red Cross are humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, and universality. New Brunswick has three paid staff members and over 200 volunteers. The National Finance Team and Call Centre is in Saint John.
The Red Cross is looking for volunteers in Sussex to assist with critical emergency responses, i.e., flooding issues, fires, significant losses. Volunteer positions would include ERT (Emergency Response Team), PDA (Personal Disaster Assistance), reception, safety and well-being, logistics, communication, caseworkers, shelter managers, people services, family reunification, and disaster risk reduction.
Rotary Minute – For the Rotary Minute, Rotarian Paul Kearley gave some practical tips for introducing and thanking a guest speaker using the TIS SIT method which might come in handy for members:
